State officials, including Gov. Ed Rendell, are claiming to be shocked over the bonuses paid by legislative leaders to their top aides. But given the track record for abuses in Harrisburg, there might be surprise that the bonuses were made public.

However, there can be little surprise over the fact that in the past two years nearly $4 million has been paid out of legislative slush funds controlled by party leaders.

Last week's revelations of secret bonuses are further proof of the need for real reform in Harrisburg.

The more voters and taxpayers learn about the status quo in the state legislature, the more they are left shaking their heads in amazement — and disgust. But rather than resignation, the disgust can fuel the reform movement now growing in Harrisburg. And if that fails, voter disgust will reject more incumbents in favor of reform-minded candidates when election time rolls around.

The latest Harrisburg scandal broke last week with the release of lists of year-end bonuses paid to top legislative staffers of both parties in the House and Senate during the 2005-06 session. The initial news stories reported that over the past two years, more than $1 million was doled out of discretionary funds, called leadership accounts, controlled by top party officials in the House and Senate. As the story gained momentum and more reports were released, the bonus total approached $4 million.

New Republican leaders, including Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, have said they only recently became aware of the payments — and have vowed to end the practice. Scarnati and other leaders now calling for an end to the bonuses have said they were not involved in bonus decisions for prior legislative sessions.

Following a release of 2005-06 bonus payments by Senate and House Republicans, Democrats in the Senate came forward with their roster of bonus payments.

In promising to end the practice, Scarnati noted that the staffers receiving bonuses are already well compensated and have salaries set with the help of consultants that are intended to reflect their employment schedules, which sometimes include evening and weekend work. Therefore, these extra bonuses are not necessary.

But that didn't seem to matter to former Senate President Pro Tem Robert Jubelirer, who was defeated in last year's primary and in the final days or weeks of his official departure from the legislature gave out big bonuses, including a $41,405 bonus last year to his top aide and a $36,278 bonus to his press secretary.

In addition to being well compensated already, many of the people receiving the biggest bonuses are in key political positions and there are concerns about a linkage between the bonus payments and purely political work or re-election work.

Sen. John Eichelberger, R-Blair, the man who defeated Jubelirer, is calling for Attorney General Tom Corbett to investigate the possibility of taxpayer-funded bonus payments being used to reward political work — which is illegal.

The bonuses themselves are stunning, in terms of the money involved and the secrecy of the process, but nearly as apalling has been the reaction of House Democratic leader H. William DeWeese, who initially refused to release information on bonuses paid by House Democrats. When the bonus controversy was just emerging, DeWeese refused to say how much was paid by his caucus and who received the bonuses, saying it was an "internal personnel matter." The bonuses were termed "special meritorious bonus payments" and recipients were told in a letter from DeWeese not to talk about the payments.

By Wednesday evening, DeWeese relented and suggested that his caucus paid about $400,000 in bonuses for each of the last two years. By Friday morning, when publc pressure caused the release of the House Democrat bonus list, the figure was $1.9 million, nearly five times larger than DeWeese's earlier estimate.

What DeWeese, Jubelirer and other leaders during prior legislative sessions seem to have forgotten is that the bonuses were paid with taxpayers' money. For too long, the four leadership accounts, containing $50 million each, have been treated as personal piggy banks by party leaders in the House and Senate.

The lack of accountability and transparency now being exposed through the emerging legislative bonus scandal represents the status quo for previous legislative sessions. And the sense of entitlement and rejection of transparency demonstrated by the bonuses recalls the controversial pay-raise vote of 2005, when a similar atmosphere and attitude prevailed.

The reform movement launched following the pay-raise scandal — a movement that saw a record number of incumbents in the state legislature retire or fall to challengers in 2006 — deserves credit for shining daylight on the leader-authorized bonus payments.

The public should expect a thorough investigation by the Attorney General's Office, including possble criminal charges and prosecutions, which could serve as a reminder to lawmakers that they are, in fact, accountable when it comes to the law and spending taxpayers' money.