PICA report backs elimination of row offices

When it comes to administering elections, Philadelphia spends significantly more than other major Pennsylvania counties: $9.18 per voter compared with a median of $4.68.

The same holds true with regard to Philadelphia's court costs, with spending here topping out at nearly $170 per case compared with a median of $110.

Those high costs are part of a new argument for abolishing the offices that administer those functions - the City Commissioners' Office and the Clerk of Quarter Sessions - as well as eliminating Philadelphia's two other row offices, the Sheriff's and the Register of Wills.

Though the call to scrap all four is not new, it grew louder yesterday with the release of a report by the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (PICA).

The authority, which oversees Philadelphia's finances, said the city could save as much as $15 million a year by doing away with the offices, whose officials are all independently elected. "The city simply can no longer afford to waste scarce resources," the report said.

PICA offered nonbudgetary reasons for abolishing the offices, too. First, the authority noted that their joint functions were "primarily administrative in nature," and therefore did not need to be managed by elected officials.

Second, PICA argued that the offices' continued existence goes against the spirit of open government: "The independent status of the row offices adds a layer of bureaucratic expense, diminishes the mayor's ability to properly budget and oversee their administrative functions, allows circumvention of city hiring rules, and creates the potential for patronage and political favoritism," the report said.

The timing of the report's release yesterday was privately questioned by election workers in the City Commissioners' Office, for whom today - Election Day - is the busiest of the year.

Criticism of the offices, by PICA as well as others in the last five years, stems from a lack of transparency about spending and the quality of work carried out. Just last spring, the nonprofit and nonpartisan Committee of Seventy similarly called for the offices' elimination, saying it would be a key step toward rebuilding city government.

As part of his larger "reform agenda," Mayor Nutter is also examining the offices with an eye toward how their duties could be absorbed by other city agencies. He also is looking at cost issues, of which there have been many.

The PICA report cites a recent audit of the City Commissioners' Office by the city controller that disclosed overpayments to election workers and the failure to follow policies such as maintaining attendance and adhering to sick-leave rules.

The controller in past years also has questioned financial-oversight matters in the Sheriff's Office, including a lack of internal controls on handling money.

With regard to the clerk of quarter sessions, Pamela Pryor Dembe, the president judge of Common Pleas Court, tried to have the court take over cash-bail bank accounts and other financial matters in January because of concerns over fee and fine collections and distribution.

Questions about the register of wills were of a different nature. Rather than financial concerns, the PICA report cited organizational ones, saying that not a single current employee in the office was hired through civil service. "The exemption of all Register of Wills employees from the system reinforces the stereotype of patronage and corruption," the report said.

That statement offended Register of Wills Ronald Donatucci. "They make it synonymous, patronage and corruption," he said. "Why does the word patronage have that connotation - because they are hired without taking a test?"

He also said that no financial abuse or discrepancy had been found in his office in 30 years of audits.

City Commissioners Chairwoman Margaret Tartaglione also voiced frustration with the PICA report, saying: "I know my job, and we have to do what we have to do." She noted that Philadelphia was burdened with an extra $7 million cost to pay for audio ballots for the visually impaired. She said the audio system, the result of a federal court order four years ago, had been used by only 38 voters.

Clerk of Quarter Sessions Vivian Miller and Sheriff John D. Green did not return requests for comment.

In pressing for change, the PICA report points to Allegheny County, the state's second most populous. The elimination of six elective row offices there, following a 2005 voter referendum, saved about $1.2 million a year.

The report also compared spending in Philadelphia's four row offices with spending by comparable agencies, in most cases, in 14 of Pennsylvania's most populous counties.

Besides the high expenditures of the City Commissioners' Office and the clerk of quarter sessions, the authority found that Philadelphia's Sheriff's Office spends $10.52 per resident - more than the median of $8.56 per resident, but not as much as Berks County, which spends $12.78.

The Register of Wills Office spends $2,300 per case - twice the $1,037 median spending of the top 15 counties.

A new report proposes eliminating these row offices:

City Commissioners: Philadelphia elects three city commissioners every four years. Collectively, they are responsible for voter registration and election administration.

Sheriff: Sheriff's Office employees transport and escort prisoners to and from courtrooms, conduct real and personal property sales, and serve and execute writs and warrants.

Clerk of Quarter Sessions: As an administrative arm of Philadelphia's local court system, the office has duties that include recording and filing bills of information, posting to dockets, taking bail imposed by judges, issuing bench warrants, and collecting fees and fines.

Register of Wills: This office records all wills, accounts, inventories, and appraisals of estates.EndText