HARRISBURG — A group of state senators, including Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, are calling into question Gov. Tom Wolf’s appointment for secretary of Labor & Industry.
Two weeks ago, secretary Kathy Manderino announced she was leaving Labor & Industry to begin a new job at the state Gaming Control Board.
“The announcement came just three months after a performance audit revealed how nearly 180 million taxpayer dollars had been squandered under her oversight on a botched unemployment system upgrade,” reads a letter the senators sent to Wolf.
In addition to Scarnati, R-Brockway, the letter was signed by fellow Republican senators Mike Regan, Scott Wagner, Guy Reschenthaler, Rich Alloway, John DiSanto, Scott Martin and Wayne Langerholc.
“At this crossroads for one of the state’s most dysfunctional and mismanaged agencies, Governor Wolf had the opportunity to nominate a new secretary who could not only clean up the operational mess left by their predecessor, but also begin the difficult job of overhauling the Department’s badly damaged reputation,” the letter continued.
Wolf nominated Jerry Oleksiak for the position. He’s the current president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association union and, the senators allege, one of the governor’s political allies.
A request for comment from Wolf’s office was not immediately answered Wednesday.
The senators said Oleksiak has personally donated to Wolf’s campaign, and that the PSEA has “spent over $1 million (and countless more in membership dues) to support Wolf and his pro-union policies.”
The statement from the senators indicated they felt that Wolf’s nomination of Oleksiak was “troubling for multiple reasons.”
“First, it smacks of the very political quid pro quo Wolf disavowed when he promised Pennsylvania voters he’d be a ‘different type of governor,’” the letter reads. “Rather than being transformational, Wolf’s appointment of Oleksiak appears to be transactional.
The senators allege “it is not obvious from his resume” that Oleksiak has the credentials or experience to “correct the problems facing the department he is now nominated to lead.”
Not only is the department mired in “operational deficiencies,” the senators argue, but Pennsylvania now has the sixth-highest unemployment rate in the nation at 5 percent.
The senators said Oleksiak was a teacher and union boss, and questioned “does he have the operations experience to hold agency management accountable for results and improve service quality for taxpayers?”
The letter indicated that Oleksiak opposed public pension reform and advocated for Wolf increasing taxes.
“Will he bring these same anti-growth policy perspectives with him to the Department of Labor & Industry?” the senators ask in their letter. “If not, what initiatives will he propose to put Pennsylvanians back to work? Fortunately, Oleksiak will have the opportunity to answer these questions and more during his Senate confirmation process.”
