by KYW's Tony Romeo

Pennsylvania lawmakers are attempting to tackle the old issue of how to fairly compensate people for jury duty.

A state House committee held a hearing on two bills, one that would increase juror compensation from $9 a day to $40 a day. And one that would compensate jurors at a rate eight times the federal minimum wage, while also increasing travel reimbursement.

Cambria County judge Norman Krumenacker, president of the Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges, supports the bills, saying they would represent an improvement:

“To adequately compensate people, though, it would have to be significantly higher”

Meanwhile Doug Hill, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, warns that only property tax revenues can pay for any increase in the counties’ share of jury costs:

“And we don’t have surpluses in our budgets right now, so any change will mean an increase in local property tax dollars going for this purpose.”