Starting in April 2022, contractors wanting to do business with Delaware County government will have to disclose any political contributions they have made as county officials work to eradicate pay-to-play contracts.
At the last council meeting, council voted 4-1 to approve an ordinance that would require contractors to disclose if they have made contributions for candidates running for certain county or state offices as well as political parties or political action committees. Failure to do so could result in termination of the contract and a three-year ban of doing business with the county.
Those voting in favor of the measure included council Chairman Brian Zidek, Kevin Madden, Vice Chairman Dr. Monica Taylor and Elaine Paul Schaefer. Christine Reuther opposed it.
The ordinance would apply to any contractor anticipating to receive $50,000 or more from a county contract for goods, supplies, materials, equipment, consulting, professional or other services or for property that is provided or leased to the county.
Jonathan G. Lichtenstein of the Delaware County’s Solicitor’s office said the contractors would have to make these disclosures at least eight days before the meeting at which the contract is being considered by county council.
Disclosures include reportable contributions within the past 24 months to candidates for county council, District Attorney, Sheriff, Controller, Register of Wills in Delaware County, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas or Magisterial District Courts in Delaware County, any seat in the Pennsylvania General Assembly which represents residents of the county or for any statewide office in Pennsylvania.
The disclosure also includes contributions to Pennsylvania state committees of a political party, county committees of a political party or municipal level committees of a political party, political action committees with the donation intended be directed to one of the applicable candidates.
Such disclosures must be made from the owner of the business entity as well as the officer or directors, shareholders or partners with 5 percent or greater ownership interests and spouses of each of these.
For those contracts greater than a year, annual updates will be required from the contractors starting in 2023.
The completed disclosure forms will be included in the publicly posted agenda materials for the applicable council meeting and will also be posted on the county website.
“Penalties can include being banned for a period of up to three years, or if legally permitted, the contract may be terminated, penalties will be determined by a majority vote of county council,” Lichtenstein said.
Reuther explained her thoughts on this ordinance.
“I also support the intent behind this ordinance but as I’ve expressed it at other meetings …. I think this is more window dressing than it is an effort to add actual transparency,” she said. “I think at a time when we’ve had concerns that we haven’t gotten enough responses to RFPs … it worries me and it worries me that qualified people who we might want to engage don’t want to have all the political contributions of themselves and their spouse up on the website.”
She supported creating a publicly available database of campaign contributions that would be on the county website.
“I don’t think at the end of the day it’s going to as a matter of course make any difference in what we do from a procurement perspective, it’s only going to make a difference if people choose to weaponize it,” Reuther said.
Schaefer agreed for the need for digital records and she supported this ordinance.
“I view this as a small step, a useful tool, not a panacea, a useful tool in helping our public understand when there is somebody who is donating a lot of money and then, perhaps, getting a contract,” she said.
Schaefer also addressed the concern that this would place a burden on county staff.
“A contractor is going to have a form and it’s going to say, ‘Have you made a donation to one of these people?’ and the answer is going to be yes or no,” she said. “If it’s yes, what is it and it’s now disclosed, you’re done. If it’s no, again, you’re done. The only time that our staff or verification will be involved is if someone says no and its challenged. I don’t see this as being overburdensome.”
Madden said there’s no easy steps in creating these changes but it’s a step in the right direction.
“This stuff is really hard,” he said. “We talk about pay-to-play and getting money out of politics and not allowing vendors to make political donations in return for getting contracts and that sounds really basic, right But when you actually get into the weeds of how that works, you end up with ordinances that are four pages long and have lots of definitions and there’s a lot more to it.”
However, Madden stressed it’s an important starting point.
“It’s important not to let perfectionism stand in the way of progress,” he said, adding that either they or a future council could improve it.
“It was only a few years ago that contracts would come before us … that hadn’t been bid out in 20-plus years,” he said regarding himself and Zidek. “And we looked at it and we said, ‘Guys, why don’t we bid this out?’ … We owe it to the taxpayers to understand what alternatives there are.”
However, the then-Republican majority on council chose not to bid those items out.
“Then, we looked and we said, ‘Why … why would they be so averse?’” Madden said. “What we found through a lot of effort … we saw that those vendors that hadn’t had their contract with the county bid out in 20-plus years were significant political donors to the party that was in power. That was wrong.
“We all agree that was wrong,” he said of the all-Democratic current council, as he added that the ordinance being considered, “really cuts to the core of that.”
