Treasurer’s race focuses on transparency, politicism

(The Center Square) — As the Pennsylvania treasurer’s election approaches in November, incumbent Stacy Garrity touts her accomplishments and stewardship of Pennsylvania’s tax dollars.

However, her Democratic challenger, Erin McClelland, argues that the office needs a shakeup in the name of transparency and less-politicized investments.

Garrity first won election in 2020 while McClelland defeated Rep. Ryan Bizarro, D-Erie, in this year’s Democratic primary, by eight points.

“I’m focused on trying to do anything I can to help Pennsylvanians,” Garrity said.

As an example, she noted that the treasury now has an investment pool for the state’s emergency savings account, also known as the ‘Rainy Day’ fund.

“That’s really paying off; that new pool has led to greater investment returns, but it maintains liquidity,” Garrity said. “It has earned more than $235 million from inception, from October 2023 to June 30, 2024. We’re close to announcing the new pool has generated $50 million more than it would have under the old methods.”

Treasury has also made more efforts to make the state’s finances more understandable to the general public.

“We’ve done a lot around the transparency portal so that people can see exactly where the money is, how much is in the general fund, and you can see that on a daily basis,” Garrity said. “We’re trying to do a lot around transparency.”

The office also created an outreach team to go to community events across the commonwealth and teach residents about treasury’s programs, like PA 529, the state’s college savings fund, and PA ABLE for Pennsylvanians with disabilities.

“Our investment plan was also upgraded by Morningstar to gold, which makes us one of two gold star plans in the entire nation,” Garrity said. “That means we’re really good stewards and that our fees are incredibly low.”

Against Garrity, though, McClelland argued that she’s running “to bring back some rational decision making in how we manage the state’s money.”

“We’ve seen this office with this treasurer be highly politicized, bringing in issues of foreign policy, and other interests that have nothing to do with the taxpayers,” she said.

She pointed to the office buying $20 million of Israeli war bonds in October 2023 and investments in the Saudi Arabian stock market via BNY Mellon.

“She’s made some pretty bombastic statements about the war in Israel and what she should’ve been doing was focusing on cybersecurity here at home,” McClellan said. “Because she was so focused on her statements and investing money to prop up foreign wars, we got the Aliquippa Water Authority hacked by Iran. The state treasurer needs to take cybersecurity seriously and provide the same sophistication we have in the treasury to our local municipalities. She’s failing to do that completely.”

McClellan also argued the office has “a stunning lack of transparency.”

“The 40-page asset report she puts out doesn’t really talk about what she’s investing in,” she said. “She’s not put any transparency in our contracts — when you search contracts, you can’t see what are union and what are non-union. You can’t see what are minority-owned businesses or women-owned businesses.”

McClellan said she would return the treasury to a shareholder engagement program with other state treasuries to use shareholder power and push companies to do more in dealing with social ills.

“That gives us the opportunity to go into opioid manufacturers and use that vote to say, ‘we want you to work harder on preventing addiction to opiates,’” McClelland said. “Using that resource as a way not just to create change and effect real social quality of life at the street level, but in the boardroom.”

She also indicated she’d do more to find investments in America.

“What I can tell you is whether they’re Republican or Democrat, right or left, nobody wants to see Stacy Garrity continue sending our money overseas — that is the biggest issue people have,” McClelland said.