Philly’s financial watchdog calls for abolition of Sheriff’s Office and Register of Wills

The Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, Philadelphia’s fiscal watchdog, voted unanimously Tuesday to recommend the abolition of the city’s embattled sheriff’s office and the register of wills.

The resolution, introduced at PICA’s monthly board meeting, calls on City Council and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker to eliminate the two independently elected row offices and “to consolidate the functions of such officers into the appropriate agencies.”

Parker did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment. City Council President Kenyatta Johnson said he would review the board’s recommendations but had no immediate plans to take action.

Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s spokesperson said her office “vehemently disagrees” with the PICA resolution and said the board’s analysis relied on “outdated and inaccurate information.”

The vote is largely symbolic. The five-person board was created by the state during a 1991 fiscal crisis to oversee city finances. While PICA does approve the mayor’s five-year budget plan, it does not have the authority to independently abolish municipal offices.

Tuesday’s vote was 3-0 for the resolution; two members were absent.

PICA first called for the merger of the city’s so-called row offices in a 2009 report that argued that the colonial-era offices — which to some extent operate outside City Hall’s jurisdiction — had outlived their usefulness, and that money could be saved by folding them into the city government.

Only one row office, the 300-plus-year-old position of clerk of quarter sessions court, was abolished by voters in a 2010 through a ballot referendum.

Further reform stalled — but appears to be gaining traction again.

At last month’s meeting, PICA reexamined its 2009 analysis, and Tuesday’s resolution cites more recent reports by both the Philadelphia City Controller’s Office and The Inquirer documenting a lack of internal accounting controls and troubles with the sale of tax-delinquent land during Bilal’s tenure. It refers to “ongoing and serious operational and financial mismanagement” in the sheriff’s office, and noted that Bilal and her staff declined to meet with the PICA board about those issues.

Separately, the resolution cites lawsuits related to chronic patronage hiring inside the register of wills office, run by John Sabatina Sr., an estate lawyer and a Democratic ward leader. Sabatina, through a spokesperson, said he disagrees with the PICA resolution. He said no one from the board reached out to him or his staff.

“The city could fold these offices into the city and save money … [so] we didn’t think there was a reason not to vote on this,” PICA board chair Kevin Vaughan said after the meeting.

Other board members were more direct.

“The fact that we had no sheriff sales for a long time tells you everything you need to know,” board member Michael Karp said before the vote.

The vote followed months of increasing pressure on Bilal, who was elected in 2019 and has struggled to manage the office’s core functions, from court security and prisoner transport to the administration of sheriff sales.

PICA became the second group in under a week to publicly call for the abolition of the sheriff’s office. The Committee of Seventy, a good-government group, also released a report documenting decades of mismanagement spanning five Philadelphia sheriffs.

The report cites, among other things, roughly $40 million in uncollected taxes that had piled up since 2019 as Bilal failed to hold auctions of tax-delinquent properties. It also reiterates the committee’s support for converting the office into an appointed, rather than elected, role.

“The current situation is not serving the City,” the report reads. “Tax dollars are under-collected and improperly used. The continuous reporting about bad acts by the office undermines the public’s trust. Real people are being harmed, and change is needed.”

Lauren Cristella, the Committee of Seventy’s president and CEO, said in response to the PICA vote: “The ongoing mismanagement of Philadelphia’s row offices has serious costs for Philadelphia, from lost revenue due to a lack of sheriff sales to paying settlements to former employees in the Register of Wills office.”

“We welcome the PICA Board’s recent resolution calling for the city to incorporate these important functions into city government,” Cristella said. “We hope Council and the Mayor will give this action the consideration it deserves and take steps to meaningfully reform these offices.”

Meanwhile, Bilal has faced two recent court orders from a panel of judges that oversees the city’s court system that demanded she improve security in court buildings. Although she reassigned some deputies to comply with the judges’ December order, a second order this month faulted the sheriff for failing to resolve the underlying deputy shortage.

The Philadelphia Bar Association previously issued a statement in support of the judges’ demands: “Attorneys, court staff and the public must feel safe working and conducting business in our court buildings,” Jen Coatsworth, chancellor of the bar association, said in December.

Amid the dual orders — and an unfounded social media rumor last week that City Council planned to abolish the office — the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, which represents uniformed sheriff’s personnel, reassured deputies in a statement that they still had union protection and that the union “had their backs.”

Bilal spokesperson Teresa Lundy, responding to PICA’s resolution, said that its board failed to acknowledge “tangible progress and systemic improvements” in the office.

“Over the past five years, the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office has undergone comprehensive upgrades in policy, procedure, technology, and operational efficiency to enhance transparency, accountability, and service to the public,” Lundy said in a statement.

Despite many complaints from the public about the office’s well-documented failures, Bilal, a Democrat, has faced little criticism from City Council. Some members have praised her work, even amid reports that her office is steering millions of taxpayer dollars to an internal slush fund and preventing the city’s land bank from protecting community gardens and repurposing blighted land.

Vincent Thompson, a spokesperson for Johnson, the Council president, said in a statement: “Council respects the role of independently elected offices and the leadership of those offices that were elected by the citizens of Philadelphia.”

Ahead of Tuesday’s PICA meeting, Bilal’s political campaign sought to rally supporters to oppose the vote in an email.

“This attempt to abolish the Sheriff’s Office represents an attack on democratic principles and voters' rights,” reads an email circulated on Sunday. “We need your immediate action.”

Bilal’s campaign email said “administrative challenges facing the office” had been “deliberately mischaracterized” to justify abolition.

Several speakers appeared in advance of the PICA vote.

One of them, Stanley Crawford, of the Black Male Community Council of Philadelphia, argued that eliminating the elected office would strip city voters of their rights. He suggested PICA should instead abolish itself.

“We vote for the sheriff. This is not a Pennsylvania election, it’s a Philadelphia election,” he said. “For this entity to even entertain abolishing this office, you need to look at yourselves.”

One of the few lawmakers to call for change in the sheriff’s office has been State Rep. Jared Solomon, a Democrat from Northeast Philadelphia, who said Tuesday he welcomed PICA’s vote.

“When local government institutions don’t work, people lose faith in all levels of government,” he said. “The decades-long failures of the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office have only accelerated under the current sheriff and we need reform now.”