Pa. election 2024: Your guide to the candidates for treasurer
By Kate Huangpu of Spotlight PA
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HARRISBURG — Pennsylvanians will head to the polls on Nov. 5 to choose who they want to serve as their state treasurer for the next four years.
The state treasurer is one of three elected row officers in the commonwealth, and plays a crucial role in managing state dollars. They can serve a maximum of two four-year terms.
State revenue is deposited into the Treasury, and the office uses the money to pay bills for things like contracts and workers. The treasurer also invests state savings, and sits on the boards of Pennsylvania’s two massive public sector pension funds.
The position is commonly seen as a stepping stone for higher office; U.S. Sen Bob Casey (D., Pa.) is a former treasurer.
Republican Treasurer Stacy Garrity seeks a second term. She has named as key accomplishments the reduction of fees and the end of minimum deposit requirements for PA 529, the commonwealth-administered college savings program; and a fee reduction for PA ABLE, a savings program for people with disabilities.
She will face Democrat Erin McClelland, a former substance abuse counselor and project manager for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services who scored an unexpected primary victory. McClelland has focused on fighting pension privatization and pushing for labor and environmental supply chain standards. She has also butted heads with some of the most prominent Democrats in the state.
Multiple third-party candidates are also running for the position: the Constitution Party’s Troy Bowman, Chris Foster of the Forward Party, and Libertarian Nick Ciesielski.
This guide may be updated with additional information as the general election approaches.
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What does the treasurer do?
Pennsylvania’s treasurer stewards state dollars by investing savings and managing withdrawals and debts to ensure the commonwealth’s bills are paid. The Treasury directly controls about $50 billion in state savings.
The treasurer also sits on the boards of Pennsylvania’s two public sector pension funds, SERS and PSERS, which hold tens of billions of dollars in savings for state workers and public school teachers, respectively. This gives the treasurer influence over how these two pension funds share information and handle their money. For instance, the past two treasurers have pushed the funds to spend less on expensive fees to private investment managers.
Another responsibility of the treasurer is reporting on state finances and advocating for fiscal policies they think would best serve the commonwealth.
Plus, they administer a significant list of tax-free savings programs, including Keystone Scholars, which gives $100 to any Pennsylvania baby born during or after 2019 to start their postsecondary savings.
The office also disburses payments for unemployment compensation and the State Workers’ Insurance Fund (SWIF), and administers a high-profile program that allows Pennsylvanians to recoup unclaimed property.
Major party candidates
Erin McClelland, Democrat
A native of Western Pennsylvania, McClelland graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and Chatham University.
Her career includes a decade and a half in substance abuse and mental health counseling, project managing, and program directing.
McClelland also worked as a process improvement manager with the Institute for Research, Education and Training in Addictions, and founded Arche Wellness, Pennsylvania’s first orthomolecular recovery program for addiction.
“I … ran a small business,” McClelland told Spotlight PA. “I’m the only person in the race that had to make a payroll — [that] has been a defining part of my career and how I look at finance and workers, so that’s important to me.”
McClelland registered Arche Wellness twice — once as a private limited liability company and another time as a nonprofit; they were dissolved in 2015 and 2017, respectively.
According to the nonprofit’s financial records, it received $700,000 in funding from the Usher Family Foundation, the charitable endowment of former CEO of U.S. Steel and Pittsburgh magnate Thomas Usher and his wife Sandra Usher.
McClelland later worked as a project manager for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services between 2015 and 2024.
This isn’t her first time running for office. In 2014 and 2016, McClelland won Democratic primaries in races for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, but lost the general election both times to then-incumbent Republican Keith Rothfus.
On her campaign website, McClelland wrote that being on the ballot alongside Trump in 2016 was instructive and showed her that “the issues of rural and working-class voters [were] ignored by my own party.”
“The 2024 election will test just how committed to good union jobs, economic equality, and global human rights Pennsylvania Democrats really are,” she said in a campaign prospectus.
McClelland has criticized the incumbent treasurer’s support for a Democrat-sponsored bill that would create Keystone Saves, a statewide retirement plan option for employers who otherwise can’t afford to offer one. Pitched as a public-private partnership, it would involve employees contributing to IRA accounts, which would then be managed by a private third-party firm.
While the bill passed the state House this legislative session with bipartisan support — including from state Rep. Ryan Bizzarro (D., Erie), who challenged McClelland during the Democratic primary — McClelland calls it the “George W. Bush Great Recession Starter Kit” and says it creates a “privatized, unregulated, self-directed, non-employer sponsored ‘retirement plan.’”
According to her campaign website, McClelland would “protect our workers and our taxpayers from dangerous, unregulated financial products and scam investments like the Keystone Saves program.”
Citing the Biden administration’s 2021 signing of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), McClelland argues for strengthening the state treasurer’s contract oversight authority. She would require companies in Pennsylvania to verify their supply chains are free of goods from countries with records of human rights abuses and deny them state contracts if they can’t show they’ve cut ties with these countries.
“Ultimately, I’m excited to talk about all of the things that treasurer can do outside the office, not just inside, there’s so much opportunity there,” she told Spotlight PA.
McClelland has said she would not write the check for any school voucher program passed by the legislature unless forced by the state Supreme Court. She argued that she could refuse to pay for the program on “constitutional grounds.”
In response, a spokesperson for Garrity criticized McClelland, saying that “having a Treasurer pick and choose which bills to pay” would be dangerous.
Among McClelland’s other proposals is boosting the Treasury’s cybersecurity by having it collect cyberattack data from local municipalities.
McClelland scored an unexpected victory over Bizzarro, the candidate with the party nod, in the primary.
However, she faced some pushback from leadership in the state party after she endorsed North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper over Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro for vice president on social media.
In the post, she referenced choosing Cooper over a candidate that “[swept] sexual harassment under the rug,” which many have interpreted as nodding toward the sexual harassment scandal of Shapiro’s former legislative aide, Mike Vereb, that resulted in Vereb’s resignation.
McClelland had also received criticism for receiving donations and spending money on her campaign before registering her committee with the Pennsylvania Department of State. McClelland said that the issues were due to glitches in the Allegheny County campaign finance filing system. Ultimately, the Department of State found that there were no violations of campaign finance laws.
Endorsements: the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, PA AFL-CIO, AFSCME District Council 13, United Steelworkers District 10, Amalgamated Transit Union Pennsylvania Joint Conference Board, Pennsylvania State Education Association, Great Lakes Building Trades, Planned Parenthood PA PAC, Vote the Ridge, Lehigh Valley for All, AFSCME District Council 47, Action Together NEPA.
Stacy Garrity, Republican
A native of Bradford County, Garrity graduated from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.
The retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel was nicknamed “the Angel of the Desert” for her service at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, according to a 2004 NPR story, which quoted a former detainee as saying that under Garrity’s oversight, “Nobody could feel it’s like a prison.”
A decorated soldier, Garrity was deployed three times, in Operation Desert Storm (1991), Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003), and Operation Enduring Freedom (2008). She received two Bronze Stars and the Legion of Merit award.
The following year, Garrity began working at Global Tungsten & Powders — a Pennsylvania-based company that makes powders used to manufacture electronics and tools. She stayed at the company until she was sworn into office in 2021.
At the time she left the company, she was serving as the vice president of government affairs and industry liaison.
In 2019, she ran in a special election for a congressional seat in Western Pennsylvania, but lost in the Republican primary to then-state Rep. Fred Keller (R., Butler.)
She was elected treasurer in 2020, ousting Democrat Joe Torsella.
In her bid for a second four-year term, she has focused on transparency, pledged to return unclaimed property, and said she wants to reduce wasteful state spending.
Garrity has said one of her key accomplishments was upgrading the Treasury’s transparency portal to enhance public access to state budget and spending information.
She has also touted her efforts to give back unclaimed property. The Treasury facilitates the return of these financial assets (which are often abandoned as a result of relocation or oversight) through targeted outreach and a searchable online database. Garrity has overseen a significant upgrade of the system for returning property, which began under Torsella.
Currently, the Pennsylvania Treasury holds $4.5 billion in unclaimed property. Garrity says she oversaw the return of $550 million during her four years in office. In an email to Spotlight PA, her campaign quoted her as saying that under her leadership, the Treasury has “set all-time records.”
Bizzarro and Garrity tangled over unclaimed property during the primary. Bizzarro argued Garrity’s claims of breaking records are misleading because her calculations don’t include the new unclaimed property that Pennsylvania receives on an ongoing basis. He contended she oversells the scale of her accomplishment.
Calculated differently, he argued, Torsella’s numbers were better.
Garrity disagreed. “I’m much more interested in the number of claims being paid out and the amount of money being returned,” Garrity said this spring. “People are still being hit hard by inflation, so I think we should focus on the impact we’re having on families across the state, not some abstract percentage calculation.”
The Unclaimed Property Professionals Organization recently reviewed all 50 states’ records on returning property and sorted states into four tiers. Pennsylvania was in the top tier of states with the highest reunification rates, a communications consultant for the organization told Spotlight PA.
“So no matter what method you use to judge it, here’s the bottom line: Under my watch, Pennsylvania’s unclaimed property returns are better than ever,” Garrity said earlier this year.
This summer, Gov. Josh Shapiro signed legislation proposed by Garrity that next year will allow the Treasury to return some unclaimed funds without requiring someone to first file a claim. An additional $600,000 will be claimed in the first fiscal year due to the change, according to a legislative estimate.
McClelland has largely stayed out of the unclaimed property spat, telling Spotlight PA that the issue is an “easy sell [that] doesn’t take a lot of thought or really aggressive analysis on a complex system.”
As treasurer, Garrity oversees the 529 college savings program. Under her oversight, it was upgraded to a gold rating, making Pennsylvania one of only two states to achieve that rating.
Morningstar, the financial services firm that rates college investment plans across the country, says that the new rating was partly due to the Treasury’s “effective oversight” and lower fees.
During her first term, Garrity eliminated the minimum deposit to open an account and reduced the minimum contribution.
Garrity also took action on foreign policy issues. She voluntarily divested $3 million in Russian holdings when the country invaded Ukraine. Soon after, a bill that required the Treasury to do so became law. She also sold nearly all of the Treasury’s $394 million investments in Chinese-associated securities, citing “geopolitical risks” and “human rights violations” as her justification.
Following the October attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas, Garrity increased state investments in Israel.
Garrity has been criticized for her connections with former President Donald Trump, particularly for speaking at a rally that sought to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election, a day before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S Capitol.
Garrity says she attended the event to critique the election process, and on social media denounced the violence at the Capitol.
“My appearance at a January 5th rally in Harrisburg was to state that the election process had been tarnished by unelected bureaucrats who ignored the election law as written,” Garrity said in an email from a campaign official.
Garrity has been outspoken about controversial issues during her first term, even those that don’t strictly fall under the treasurer’s purview.
She publicly opposed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative — an interstate cap and trade program to reduce carbon emissions — and supported Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s immigration policies, including his decision to send the Texas Army National Guard to the southern border. On Facebook, Garrity celebrated the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
She’s also advocated for a state-run retirement savings program to be administered by a third party and made available to people whose employers don’t offer one. Garrity worked with Republican lawmakers to introduce legislation to create such a program. The bill, also known as the Keystone Saves program, passed the state House with bipartisan support. However, state Senate Republicans have not called it up for a vote.
Garrity additionally says on her website that she wants to expand PA ABLE — a savings program that allows people with disabilities to save money in a tax-exempt account without risking the loss of benefits.
Endorsements: the Pennsylvania Republican Party, Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, IUPAT District Council 21, Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association, Philadelphia Firefighters IAFF Local 22, Pennsylvania State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police, Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Constables, Boilermakers Local 154, IUPAT District Council 27, Pennsylvania Laborers’ District Council, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, Pittsburgh Fire Fighters IAFF Local 1, Steamfitters Local 449, Steamfitters Local 420, the Philadelphia Building Trades, more than two dozen county commissioners.
Third-party candidates
Chris Foster, Forward Party
Foster is a former Democrat from Allegheny County who has primarily worked as a tennis professional, according to LinkedIn. He has also worked at the University of Michigan’s Medical School as a clinical subjects coordinator. He attended Marist College, graduating in 2011 with a degree in psychology.
Foster is one of two row office candidates put forward by the centrist Forward Party, which is backed by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
A spokesperson for the organization said that it aims to officially qualify as a minor political party in the state, like the Libertarian Party. This would allow its supporters to register as members of the party.
To do so, a party’s candidate must get at least 2% of the highest vote-getter’s total both statewide and in a minimum of 10 counties.
At his campaign announcement, Foster said that he was running for treasurer because he wanted to buck the culture of rigid party ideology.
“If elected as your state treasurer, I promise to provide a transparent, efficient and current accounting of our state’s financial assets and obligations,” Foster said.
Nick Ciesielski, Libertarian Party
Ciesielski is a native of Allegheny County who has worked as a mechanical engineer and chairs the Libertarian Party of Westmoreland County, according to his campaign website. Ciesielski attended Carnegie Mellon University, earning a degree in mechanical engineering.
Ciesielski lists his priorities as privatizing as many government-run services as possible, growing the state’s energy industry, and increasing reliance on alternative assets such as gold and bitcoin to reduce inflation.
During an interview hosted by the state’s Libertarian Party, Ciesielski said he would not authorize spending that exceeds the state’s revenue.
“We know what these guys do, on both sides. They spend,” Ciesielski said. “I can be that independent third party who’s got the keys to the bank account, and I can hold [them] accountable and say, ‘Hey, yeah, I’m not spending money on that.’”
Troy Bowman, Constitution Party
Bowman chairs the Lancaster County Constitution Party. He also serves as the treasurer of the state’s Constitution Party.
This guide adapts a primary version written by Jannelle Andes, Genevieve Hartnett, Alaysia Lane, Bill Meincke, and DJ Waller, graduate students at New York University in the American Journalism Online program. They reported this story as part of a collaboration with Spotlight PA.
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