We all know the government spends way to much on crazy stuff that nobody ever needs, like say a bridge to nowhere. However, shelling out a little cash on humor health therapy is money well spent as Pennsylvania state empoyees recently found out.
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By Jan Murphy
Original Article from PennLive.com
As the saying goes, laughter is the best medicine. And the state Department of Labor and Industry handed out doses of that medicine to 25 employees over a lunch hour in January through a health and wellness session on laughter.
It plans to hand out more laughs on May 27 through another session that “Ha-Ha” Helen Szollosy of Lafolot.com in Silver Spring Twp. will lead.
Szollosy, a retired state employee, was paid $75 for the January session, half her usual rate, and is asking for $85 for the May session she is scheduled to do.
She is just starting her laughter business and said she cut her price to try to get word out about it.
A believer in the research into the health benefits of laughter, Szollosy said, “Now more than ever, it’s needed. It’s a wise use of money.”
But Gene Stilp, director of Taxpayers and Ratepayers United, found it to be no laughing matter.
“This is not the type of spending that the government should be doing at a time when people are talking about losing their jobs,” he said, referring to Gov. Ed Rendell’s plan to cut more than 2,600 jobs with the new fiscal year.
Like the $13,700 spent on holy books for the legislators upon their swearing in, he said it’s not the cost that’s the issue but the mentality in government that allows wasteful spending of public funds that bothers him.
But Stilp got the last laugh.
After fielding an inquiry about the cost and value of the sessions about a half-hour earlier on Friday, Labor and Industry spokesman Christopher Manlove called back to say that executive-level management decided they will cover the cost of the sessions out of their own pockets.
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