HARRISBURG — A first-year state lawmaker plans to reintroduce a bill to require making public at least some details of financial settlements like the one that arose from sexual harassment allegations against former Secretary of Legislative Affairs Mike Vereb.
Rep. Donna Scheuren, R-Montgomery, said Friday that a “healthy number” of co-sponsors have endorsed the concept she laid out in an Oct. 18 legislative memo. The bill, she said, will be almost identical to one that passed the House by a 200-0 vote in 2019 but that failed to move in the Senate during a session dominated by COVID-19.
Ms. Scheuren, who previously worked in private industry and was a school board member in the Philadelphia suburbs, said government must be held to a higher standard than private employers when it comes to financial transparency.
Her memo does not mention Mr. Vereb, whose resignation from Gov. Josh Shapiro’s cabinet was announced late last month. But she said “harassment settlements” that involved taxpayer money would be added to items that would have to be posted on the public PennWATCH website. If the settlement involves a non-disclosure agreement, some personal information could be withheld to avoid inflicting humiliation or invading privacy, Ms. Scheuren said.
“There has to be a happy medium,” she said.
Beth Rementer, a spokesperson for House Democratic leader Matt Bradford of Montgomery County, said the bill would be reviewed after its introduction.
A separate memo being circulated by Rep. Stephanie Scialabba, R-Butler, calls for a ban on the use of taxpayer money in settlements “of a personal nature” involving some upper level staffers, advisors and officials and certain types of conduct, including sexual harassment.
Mr. Vereb and Mr. Shapiro both have deep roots in Montgomery County and represented portions of it at the same time in the state House. Mr. Vereb later worked as a top aide to Mr. Shapiro when he was attorney general, and in January took the high-profile job of being the new governor’s top liaison to the General Assembly.
The Sept. 27 announcement of his resignation did not give a reason, but came as multiple media outlets were preparing stories on a sexual harassment complaint against Mr. Vereb from earlier in the year. Last week, in response to a Right-to-Know request, the Shapiro administration released information that showed the claims against Mr. Vereb resulted in a $295,000 settlement that barred both the accuser and state officials from discussing what happened.
Asked Friday about Ms. Scheuren’s proposal, a spokesperson for Mr. Shapiro, Manuel Bonder, referred to comments the governor made in an interview earlier in the week. Speaking about confidentiality clauses in such agreements, Mr. Shapiro said, “Should lawmakers wish to rethink this approach in the Commonwealth I would be happy to work with them.”
The 2019 bill that passed the House was sponsored by then-Rep. Marcy Toepel, R-Montgomery. On Friday, the now-retired Ms. Toepel said that if lawmakers want to create more transparency in state government, Ms. Scheuren gave them a strong opportunity.
“It is still appropriate and it needs to be done,” Ms. Toepel said.
During the October 2019 House debate of Ms. Toepel’s bill, Rep. Leanne Krueger, D-Delaware, referred to a study sought by lawmakers following revelations of sexual harassment involving some members.
“In June [2019] that report came back and it showed that over the past five years a total of 554 claims of sexual harassment and misconduct were reported by staff of State agencies,” Ms. Krueger said. “At that time over $1.9 million in taxpayer funds were used to settle those complaints.”
Ms. Krueger could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.
Ms. Toepel’s 2019 bill called for the PennWATCH website to include, among other things, information on settlements that tap the state’s Employee Liability Self-Insurance — or ELSIP — program, which has been used to pay settlements of harassment claims in the past. The Post-Gazette has filed Right-to-Know requests seeking recent records of that program.
Kristin Marcell, R-Bucks and also a first-year House member, said she signed on to support Ms. Scheuren’s concept because of the “basic premise” of transparency surrounding public spending.
Ford Turner: fturner@post-gazette.com
First Published: October 27, 2023, 7:50 p.m.
Updated: October 27, 2023, 10:04 p.m.
