The Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association (PMA) blasted the ongoing state audit of Gov. Tom Wolf’s COVID-19 business closure plan, alleging that Auditor General Eugene DePasquale was holding up the process in order to protect Wolf and also DePasquale’s own congressional campaign.
The PMA said in a statement issued late on Oct. 6 that DePasquale, a Democrat who is running against Republican Scott Perry in Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District, was covering the back of his fellow Democrat in the home stretch of the campaign rather than releasing his findings to the public. “As a congressional candidate, Eugene DePasquale continues to receive campaign contributions and political support from Tom Wolf,” PMA President and CEO David Taylor said. “We again call on the Auditor General to recuse himself because he is ethically compromised by his relationship with the Governor. It is not ethical to take money or political favors from someone you are supposed to be investigating.”
DePasquale’s office has since late April been looking into the process by which the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) granted waivers to businesses that had been ordered closed by the governor on March 19 as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Wolf had ordered non-essential businesses to shut down, but allowed some businesses to seek a waiver to the order by applying to the DCED.
In an update on the investigation issued Oct. 6, DePasquale said it appeared the DCED’s consideration of requests had been on the flexible side. “So far, we have found that more than 500 businesses received answers from DCED that later changed,” DePasquale said in a release. “The waiver program appeared to be a subjective process built on shifting sands of changing guidance, which led to significant confusion among business owners.”
DePasquale said he had asked the Wolf Administration to provide copies of any emails and other communications it may have received from legislators and lobbyists regarding specific businesses that were seeking waivers. “Some owners of small businesses may not have had the knowledge to use the right ‘buzzwords’ in their justification for remaining open, or realized they could ask a legislator for help to navigate the process,” DePasquale said.
The PMA, however, said DePasquale’s update was more of a political “stalling campaign” aimed at keeping a lid on potentially damaging conclusions about the Wolf administration’s actions until after the election. “By failing to press Gov. Wolf and his administration for all of the answers now,” Taylor said, “DePasquale has succeeded in delaying the process to provide maximum political coverage for himself and Gov. Wolf’s allies, just four weeks from election day.”
Wolf is not on this year’s ballot; his current term runs to 2023.
The statement alleged that DePasquale’s update failed to address the “relationship” between businesses that received waivers and also donated to Wolf’s political campaigns.
DePasquale said that while the DCED had been cooperating in the audit, there were unspecified “outstanding issues” that needed to be resolved before results could be finalized. There was no word on when the report would be completed and released.
In response to the auditor general’s status update, Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff (R-Centre/Mifflin) stated: “Not only did the Wolf administration devastate small businesses across Pennsylvania with his over-broad shutdown, but his administration added insult to injury by sowing confusion and angst among those seeking waivers by changing guidance and stacking the deck against mom-and-pop businesses simply looking to continue operating safely.”