Philadelphia’s elected officials must hold the sheriff’s office to account for its incompetence | Editorial

The Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office is an absolute mess — yet the city’s political leaders consistently fail to hold Sheriff Rochelle Bilal accountable for the dysfunction, let alone consider abolishing a department that long ago outlived its usefulness.

Despite extensive Inquirer reporting detailing how the sheriff’s office under Bilal has become a haven for ineptitude that has left Philadelphians exposed to domestic violence, put judges and other courtroom officials at risk, and fallen short of performing some of its basic tasks, the sheriff continues to enjoy robust political support.

Much-needed reform is impossible if Democratic power brokers and City Hall officials cannot stop enabling Bilal’s incompetence.

District Attorney Larry Krasner paints himself as an outsider who struggles to understand the way “transactional politicians” think. Yet, when it comes to Bilal, Krasner seems to be playing by timeworn rules of the old Philadelphia Democratic machine.

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Krasner was endorsed by Bilal when she was the head of the Guardian Civic League, so he is inclined to support her. Given Krasner’s duty to improve public safety, he should have no trouble calling out an office that allowed protection-from-abuse orders to go unenforced and could not account for missing guns under its charge.

State Democratic Party Chairman Sharif Street and city party Chairman Bob Brady are also firmly in Bilal’s corner. At a time when Democrats at the national level are fighting against a president who seems to have made graft part of America’s official policy, the support for Bilal from the Philadelphia branch of the party comes off as hypocritical. Especially after Bilal used public money for a range of questionable discretionary expenditures with little oversight, including paying for a disc jockey and creating an office mascot.

Perhaps most troubling are the endorsements for Bilal from City Council members, particularly Council President Kenyatta Johnson and 4th District Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., who have done little to rein in her office’s spending.

The sheriff has asked Council to give her office an additional $20 million over its current $34 million budget for new staff and a training center. The last time Bilal asked for more money to hire deputies, an Inquirer investigation found her office had diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars meant for new hires to give executive staff substantial pay raises. It was only a City Charter provision that kept Bilal from seeing her own salary more than doubled.

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City Council is charged with acting as a public watchdog, and its members are empowered to hold officials like the sheriff accountable. While Bilal may be unwilling to respond to questions from our newsroom colleagues, she has no choice but to answer to Council members during budget season.

That makes the refusal of even progressive reformers like Kendra Brooks, Nicolas O’Rourke, Rue Landau, and Jamie Gauthier to hold Bilal to account particularly galling. With the public looking for clear answers about the office’s failures, Council had nothing to say.

Council’s silence was especially noteworthy considering a civilian employee accidentally shot himself inside the sheriff’s office the day Bilal appeared before Council — prompting one of his colleagues to say it was “like the Wild West over here!”

This board has long called for the abolition of the sheriff’s office, which has struggled with corruption for more than 100 years. But clearly, the sheriff isn’t the only person to blame. Until they begin to demand accountability from Bilal, Philadelphia’s elected officials share the responsibility.