In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo imposed a ban on hydraulic fracturing. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf has a different view than his fellow Democrat in Albany.

Wolf sees economic benefits in Marcellus Shale gas, and he wants to generate more tax revenue for education from the gas industry and also use regulation to make gas extraction less risky to humans and the environment.

Wolf wants to impose an extraction tax, like neighboring states and most other states with shale gas already impose. Most of the additional revenue will go to K-12 education in the state.

Wolf wants some of that funding, however, to boost regulatory manpower in the state. The need for that has been clear for some time, given the rapid growth of Marcellus Gas extraction. The state bureaucracies that monitor drilling activity have not kept pace with fracking and pipeline activity.

More evidence of that gap was provided last week in a Pittsburgh newspaper’s report on efforts by state Sen. Jim Brewster, D-McKeesport, to ensure that American-made pipe is used in all gas wells in the commonwealth. To track where steel pipe used in gas wells is coming from, Brewster’s staff accessed state records, which have recently been changed to include the pipe’s country of origin.

The staffers discovered that gas well records in the state are a mess. Part of the problem can be traced to new forms and a shift from paper records to electronic records in the Pennsylvania Internet Record Imaging System, which will provide easier access for the public and the media.

Some of the problem can also be chalked up to honest mistakes, such as when one driller used the wrong two-letter abbreviation of the country of origin.

Of the 4,473 wells drilled between October 2012 and October 2014, Brewster’s staff found just 1,196 completed record forms for gas wells.

An equally serious problem with the database is tied to a shortage of state employees to examine the paper forms, verify the information and OK the material to be uploaded to the electronic record system. In fact, Brewster’s staff found 3,000 well records that had not been posted to the electronic record system.

The Department of Environmental Protection is rightly focusing its limited resources on inspection work and well monitoring out in the field. The processing of paperwork is clearly less critical. But it still matters.

The shortage of personnel to manage the reporting from natural gas wells is a serious issue — it’s impossible to manage or fix what is not being measured.

If gas operations are not being properly monitored and drillers are not doing all the required reporting, it’s difficult to make gas production safer. Such sloppy and incomplete information serves no one’s interests, except maybe sloppy gas operators.

John Quigley, acting DEP secretary, said “This agency has been overwhelmed by the demands placed on it.”

Wolf is right to push for additional funding to boost the DEP’s staffing to monitor and document Marcellus Gas drilling operations in the state.