Philly’s Register of Wills office is making political hires while lawsuits pile up. It could get expensive for taxpayers.

The Philadelphia Register of Wills office has been described as a “patronage oasis” that operates outside the city’s merit-based civil service system.

A “political favor farm,” as a former candidate put it, where Democratic Party leaders and campaign donors send their friends for jobs.

Or, in the words of one government watchdog, the “inflamed appendix of city government.”

And that was before things got messy — and expensive. The city is now facing an avalanche of lawsuits over the office’s hiring practices in recent years. Yet the patronage hiring continues.

A relatively obscure office, the register of wills issues marriage licenses and processes inheritance-related records from the first floor of City Hall. For 40 years it had been run by Ronald R. Donatucci, a Democratic ward leader from South Philly.

But in 2019, Donatucci was defeated in the Democratic primary by Tracey Gordon, a former deputy city commissioner. Then Gordon, after serving only one term, was ousted in 2023 by Democrat John Sabatina Sr., an estate attorney and Northeast Philadelphia ward leader.

Taxpayers are learning just how expensive patronage can get — especially when there are repeated leadership changes in such a highly politicized office.

The city has so far paid out $400,000 in settlements to four former Gordon staffers who say they were fired for not donating money to her reelection campaign or otherwise supporting her politically.

And the legal costs could continue to mount under Sabatina.

Over the last four months, 10 former register of wills office employees have sued the city, alleging that Sabatina unlawfully fired them when he took office in January 2024 to make way for his own supporters.

An Inquirer analysis of city records shows that Sabatina — who as a candidate criticized Gordon’s “poor hiring and firing practices” — has since brought aboard dozens of new employees, including three Democratic ward leaders; 10 committee people; the wives of two other committee people; the daughter of a late City Council member; and the granddaughter of a former state representative.

» READ MORE: An employee lawsuit takes aim at Philly’s Register of Wills office, again

That means at least half Sabatina’s hires to date have some connection to the local Democratic Party. Many also hail from Sabatina’s Northeast Philly stomping grounds.

Sabatina and lawyers for the city declined to comment, citing the active litigation.

In court filings, the city has denied wrongdoing, saying Sabatina’s personnel decisions were “not motivated by any such racial, retaliatory, or other political motive.”

But Timothy Creech, a lawyer representing nine employees Sabatina fired, said the recent hiring decisions appear to show otherwise.

“It’s pretty blatant,” he said. “The fiefdom created by Donatucci perseveres.”

At the end of last year, the register of wills office employed 102 people, with an annual budget of about $5.2 million. Most taxpayers interact with its staff only when they get married or a relative dies.

The office is a remnant from the days when Philadelphia had a separate county government, and the position remains independently elected, along with other so-called row offices, like the sheriff and city commissioners.

Donatucci, who died in 2020, was an outspoken advocate of the office’s old-school patronage system. He argued it was superior to civil service, which bases city hiring on standardized testing and other professional credentials.

“If there is an issue with an employee that’s recommended, say by a ward leader, there’s nobody better to call than their godfather or godmother, and say, ‘You better tell them to tighten up,’” Donatucci told The Inquirer in 2015. At the time, the office’s 63-member payroll included six Democratic ward leaders and 21 committee people.

The register of wills has broad discretion over hiring and firing of the office’s at-will employees. However, the lawsuits against Sabatina allege that, because he runs a government office, he violated their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association — specifically, their right to support Gordon, or no one at all.

“The unlawful reason here is he wanted to bring in people that were politically loyal to him,” said Creech, who likens Sabatina to a “Tammany Hall”-style party boss, a reference to the former New York City political machine. “Did he clear out that department because they were terrible employees? Of course not.”

Michael Foreman, a professor at Penn State Law who teaches courses on employment discrimination, said just because a government official has the power to fire employees doesn’t make it sound policy. Wholesale terminations can lead to a loss of institutional knowledge.

“You’re going to set a precedent for the next person to do the same thing,” Foreman said. “Is that really the way you want your government to work?”

The Committee of Seventy, a Philadelphia-based good-government group, has been pushing for years to reform or eliminate three city row offices — register of wills, sheriff, and city commissioners — and fold them into city government or the court system.

“These are core city services. There is just no reason for them to be separately elected,” said Andrew McGinley, the Committee of Seventy’s vice president of external affairs. “The cost for taxpayers is huge. It’s hundreds of thousand of dollars in settlements, and they’re just moving people in and out of jobs needlessly.”

A 2023 lawsuit filed by the Democratic leader of Northeast Philly’s 57th Ward shows how the register of wills office and the city’s Democratic apparatus intertwine, and how that can cost taxpayers.

Patrick Parkinson was hired by Donatucci in 2016 to serve as a deputy, then was fired by Gordon in 2022, allegedly because he refused to donate to her campaign.

In his suit, Parkinson said Gordon also pressured him to arrange a meeting between her and Philadelphia Democratic Party chair Bob Brady, a former congressman, and to “support her politically” during that encounter.

Held over lunch at the local Democratic Party HQ, the tete-a-tete devolved into a shouting match between Gordon and Brady.

Text messages exchanged between Parkinson and Gordon supporter Kevin Price after that fiery encounter, introduced as supporting evidence in Parkinson’s lawsuit, allude to efforts by both Brady and even the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 labor union to exert influence over office hires.

“Congressman [Brady] was upset with [Gordon] over laying off Ward Leaders … Tracey feels humiliated and disrespected because you let another man yell at her and never tried to protect her!” Price wrote to Parkinson in 2022. “She stood up for [you] when Local 98 wanted you terminated!”

When Sabatina took office in January 2024, Parkinson was rehired for a $93,000-a-year administrative role, along with other ward leaders and committee people, records show.

Then, in November 2024, the city paid Parkinson $120,000 to settle his wrongful-termination case under Gordon.

Ross Feinberg, a Republican who ran against Donatucci in 2015, said the register of wills office has no incentive to change. The massive Democratic voter registration edge in Philadelphia severely limits Republican influence in City Hall.

“When there are no real checks and balances, this is what happens,” said Feinberg, who held news conferences outside the register of wills office during his campaign, calling for it to be abolished and folded into the court system.

City Council has shown little appetite for reforming the row offices, which would likely require an amendment to the city’s Home Rule Charter. And when Councilmember Isaiah Thomas peppered Gordon with questions about tangled property titles during a virtual hearing in 2022, she didn’t take it well.

Gordon first told Council she needed a break because she felt “harassed” and rushed by Thomas, Metro reported at the time.

Then, forgetting to silence her microphone, she said: “This guy is horrible. F— him.”