Some Pennsylvania workers might believe that state lawmakers merit a cheer for their current effort regarding the Emergency and Municipal Services Tax established last year and effective at the start of this year. The new tax replaced the $10 Occupational Privilege Tax, $5 of which went to the municipality in which a person was employed and the other $5, to the applicable school district.

The maximum amount that can be collected under the new tax is $52, with $47 of that total going to the municipality. Some municipalities have set their part of the tax at the full $47 rate, while others, such as the City of Butler, have approved lower figures.

It was bad enough that the General Assembly thrust the new tax on state workers without adequate publicity that such a statewide tax was being considered. The new tax surfaced amid lawmakers' consideration of ways to help the City of Pittsburgh solve its serious financial dilemma.

Lawmakers didn't give state taxpayers adequate opportunity to comment on the new tax before approving it but, to make matters worse, these well-compensated, perks-rich public "servants" ignored the impact on lower-paid workers if the tax were collected by way of one payroll deduction.

To rectify that oversight, there currently is an effort to stipulate that the tax be collected on a quarterly basis, instead of annually. The measure has been approved unanimously by the Senate and sent to the House.

And, the measure would exempt from the tax people whose total income is under $12,000 a year.

While it is better that the tax be collected quarterly and that the lowest-paid workers be exempted from paying it, those decisions should have been made at the time the tax was approved, rather than a year later. But, of course, there wasn't time for such "little details" during the end-of-fiscal-year rush to complete legislative business that lawmakers, mired in partisan politics, were unable to complete under less pressure-packed circumstances.

The state's workers should still be angry about the behind-the-scenes way the tax was implemented. Thus, they owe their elected representatives no pat on the back for the current effort geared toward softening the impact of this paycheck assault.

The new tax is a great benefit for financially strapped municipalities, but the sneaky way the levy was born was - and remains - repulsive.