HARRISBURG — People in Pennsylvania will go to the polls on April 23 to choose the candidates for state treasurer for their parties.
Only registered Democrats and Republicans can vote for candidates during spring elections. The winners will compete in November’s election, which is open to all voters.
The state treasurer is one of three elected row officers in the commonwealth and has a crucial role in managing state money. They can serve up to two four-year terms.
State revenue goes into the Treasury, and the office is responsible for using it to pay state bills for things like contracts and workers. The treasurer also invests state savings and sits on the boards of Pennsylvania’s two large public sector pension funds.
The position is often considered a starting point for higher office; Former treasurer U.S. Sen Bob Casey (D., Pa.) is an example.
Current Republican Treasurer Stacy Garrity is seeking a second term. She has highlighted accomplishments like reducing fees and removing minimum deposit requirements for PA 529, the state-managed college savings program, as well as reducing fees for PA ABLE, a savings program for people with disabilities.
Two Democrats, state Rep. Ryan Bizzarro (D., Erie) and Erin McClelland, a former substance abuse counselor and project manager for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, are running to replace her.
Bizzarro has focused on national political issues like abortion access and challenging “extremism,” while McClelland has emphasized fighting pension privatization and advocating for labor and environmental supply chain standards.
What are the responsibilities of the treasurer?
Pennsylvania’s treasurer manages state finances, handling withdrawals and debts to ensure that the commonwealth’s bills are paid and investing savings. The Treasury has direct control over approximately $50 billion in state savings.
The treasurer also holds a board seat on Pennsylvania’s two public sector pension funds, SERS and PSERS, with tens of billions of dollars in savings for state workers and public school teachers, respectively. This position on the board gives the treasurer some influence over how these two pension funds share information and manage their money. For instance, the last two treasurers have urged the funds to reduce spending on expensive fees to private investment managers.
The treasurer produces regular reports on state finances and promotes fiscal policies they believe would best serve the commonwealth.
In addition, they oversee a significant list of tax-free savings programs, including Keystone Scholars, which provides $100 to any Pennsylvania baby born during or after 2019 to start their postsecondary savings.
The office also handles payments for unemployment compensation and the State Workers’ Insurance Fund (SWIF), and manages a high-profile program that allows Pennsylvanians to claim unclaimed property.
Democrats
Ryan Bizzarro
A lifelong resident of Erie County, Bizzarro graduated from Edinboro University (now known as PennWest Edinboro) and Gannon University.
Bizzarro worked as a mental health specialist for the Erie city school district, and also helped victims and witnesses for the Office of the Erie County District Attorney.
He has been in the legislature since 2013, representing a swing district in the perennial bellwether county.
He has consistently voted with the Democratic party on important issues, especially in recent years, although he has sometimes gone against party positions. He was one of many state House Democrats who supported a law in 2013 that stops health care plans from covering abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the pregnant person's health is at risk.
Bizzarro helped to pass a law in 2017 that made Pennsylvania's animal cruelty laws stronger, including rules against exposing dogs to very hot or cold temperatures. This session, he has introduced bills that would make candidates clean up yard signs within 10 days of an election, allow first-time homebuyers to have a tax-free savings account for buying a home, and reduce lawsuits aimed at silencing critics. His last bill passed the state House without any opposition last year and is waiting for action in the Senate.
A few months after starting his campaign, Bizzarro suggested a bill that would make the Treasury automatically give back any unclaimed property worth less than $10,000 to owners who can be contacted. But with the Democratic majority in the state House, he also voted to change a separate bill by the GOP to make that amount $100 instead of the original $5,000.
Unclaimed property includes forgotten savings bonds or money in old bank accounts, and has been a particular focus of Bizzarro’s campaign. Along with his bill, he has suggested having more staff to actively find people with unclaimed property, giving yearly reports on the amount of unclaimed property in the state, and raising more public awareness of the issue.
He also wants to start new programs to get more people to join the PA ABLE and 529 savings programs and carefully review state contracts to look for possible wage theft — things he called “central to the treasurer’s job” in an email to Spotlight PA.
Bizzarro has also spent a lot of his campaign time on political issues that are not directly related to the Treasury.
In his campaign video, Bizzarro said one of his top priorities is to protect Pennsylvanians from Garrity, who he said “uses Harrisburg as a platform, spreading lies and promoting extreme agendas.”
Garrity has been a longtime supporter of former President Donald Trump and recently endorsed his 2024 campaign. She also spoke at a January 2021 rally in Harrisburg that was organized to encourage state lawmakers to decertify the 2020 election results. In a 2022 Facebook post, she celebrated the expected reversal of Roe v. Wade, which removed nationwide protection for abortion access.
Endorsements: Pennsylvania Democratic Party; Democratic politicians including state House Speaker Joanna McClinton of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania U.S. Reps. Matt Cartwright and Madeleine Dean; Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.
Erin McClelland
McClelland is from Western Pennsylvania and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and Chatham University.
She has worked in substance abuse and mental health counseling, project management, and program directing for fifteen years.
McClelland was a process improvement manager with the Institute for Research, Education and Training in Addictions, and established Pennsylvania’s first orthomolecular recovery program for addiction.
McClelland mentioned to Spotlight PA that she operated a small business and emphasized the significant impact it had on her perspective on finance and workers.
She later served as a project manager for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services.
McClelland previously ran for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 12th District in 2014 and 2016, securing the Democratic primaries but losing in the general election.
On her campaign website, McClelland expressed that running alongside Trump in 2016 revealed to her the neglect of rural and working-class voters by her own party.
In a campaign prospectus, she stated that the 2024 election will gauge the commitment of Pennsylvania Democrats to good union jobs, economic equality, and global human rights.
McClelland criticized the incumbent treasurer’s support for a Democrat-sponsored bill creating Keystone Saves, a statewide retirement plan option for employers. She labeled it as the “George W. Bush Great Recession Starter Kit” and criticized it for being privatized and unregulated.
While the bill garnered bipartisan support in the state House, McClelland opposes it, referring to it as the “George W. Bush Great Recession Starter Kit” and a “privatized, unregulated, self-directed, non-employer sponsored ‘retirement plan.’”
According to her campaign website, McClelland aims to safeguard workers and taxpayers from risky financial products and scam investments like the Keystone Saves program.
Citing the Biden administration’s 2021 signing of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), McClelland advocates for strengthening the state treasurer’s contract oversight authority by requiring companies to demonstrate that their supply chains are free of goods from countries with human rights abuses records to be eligible for state contracts.
McClelland expressed her enthusiasm to discuss the various opportunities outside the office that complement the treasurer's role, not just the internal responsibilities, to Spotlight PA.
Republicans
Stacy Garrity
Garrity, originally from Bradford County, graduated from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.
Garrity served as a U.S. Army Reserve colonel and was known as “the Angel of the Desert” during her tenure at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, where she was cited in a 2004 NPR story for creating a non-prison-like environment.
Garrity, a decorated soldier, was sent on three missions: Operation Desert Storm (1991), Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003), and Operation Enduring Freedom (2008). She was given two Bronze Stars and the Legion of Merit award.
While serving in the Army Reserve, Garrity became one of the initial female vice presidents at Global Tungsten & Powders Corp, a Pennsylvania-based company that creates refractory powders used in making electronics and tools.
In 2020, she was elected treasurer, displacing Democrat Joe Torsella. In her quest for a second four-year term, she has focused on openness, promised to give back unclaimed property, and expressed her desire to reduce state spending.
Regarding her efforts to increase transparency, Garrity cites an important achievement: updating the Treasury’s transparency portal to improve public access to state budget and spending information, including calculated totals and more details at the agency level.
She also highlighted her progress in returning unclaimed property. The Treasury assists in returning these financial assets (often abandoned due to relocation or oversight) through targeted outreach and a searchable online database, allowing Pennsylvanians to reclaim their lost property. Garrity has overseen a significant enhancement of the property return system, which began under Torsella.
At present, the Pennsylvania Treasury holds $4.5 billion in unclaimed property. During her four-year term, Garrity claims she has facilitated the return of $550 million. Her campaign quoted her as saying that, under her leadership, the Treasury has “set all-time records.”
Bizzarro and Garrity have clashed during the campaign, especially regarding unclaimed property. Bizzarro contends that Garrity’s claims of setting records are deceptive as her calculations do not consider the new unclaimed property received by Pennsylvania regularly. He argues that she exaggerates the scale of her achievements.
He argues that Torsella’s numbers were better when calculated differently.
Garrity disagrees. She said, “I’m more interested in the number of claims being paid out and the amount of money being returned. People are still being impacted by inflation, so I believe we should focus on the effect we’re having on families across the state, not on some theoretical percentage calculation.”
The Unclaimed Property Professionals Organization recently evaluated the property return records of all 50 states and categorized them into four tiers. Garrity stated that Pennsylvania is in the top tier.
“So regardless of the method used to assess it, here’s the bottom line: Under my supervision, Pennsylvania’s unclaimed property returns are better than ever,” she said.
McClelland has largely steered clear of the unclaimed property controversy, describing the issue as an “easy sell [that] doesn’t take a lot of thought or really aggressive analysis on a complex system,” in a conversation with Spotlight PA.
Garrity has faced criticism for her associations with former President Donald Trump, notably for speaking at a rally that aimed to question the results of the 2020 election, a day before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S Capitol.
At the rally, Garrity, who was about to become treasurer, said that the recent election is now forever stained.
Bizzarro has been the main source of criticism, saying at a recent press event, “Stacy Garrity urged people to question the honesty of our election. … She used her platform to promote and spread falsehoods that incited the Jan. 6 attack on our democracy.”
Garrity countered Ryan’s deceptive claims about her involvement in January 6, stating, “I was not even in Washington at the time. In reality, I released a statement condemning the Capitol attacks as they were happening. My presence at a rally in Harrisburg on January 5th was to express that the electoral process had been tainted by unelected officials who disregarded the election law as it was written.”
Garrity has also shared her views on abortion (she favored the repeal of Roe v. Wade) and greater investments in Israel after the Hamas attacks in October.
Support from: Pennsylvania Republican Party.
Jannelle Andes, Genevieve Hartnett, Alaysia Lane, Bill Meincke, and DJ Waller are students in the American Journalism Online program at New York University. They reported this story as part of a collaboration with Spotlight PA. Spotlight PA's Stephen Caruso contributed to the reporting.
