By Andrew Staub | PA Independent
In the tiny borough of Throop, a five-square-mile patch of former hard coal country home to about 4,000 people in northeastern Pennsylvania, Charlene Tomasovitch needed just 726 votes to win her spot on the borough council in the 2011 municipal election.
Getting on the borough payroll required even fewer votes for the rest of the Tomasovitch family. The councilwoman needed just four votes from her fellow council members for Throop to hire her father, husband and son after she took office in 2012.
Those ties are far from an anomaly in Throop, where council members are quick to say they don’t use their official power to hire relatives, but are always more than happy to cast a vote in favor of employing a colleague’s flesh and blood.
In the process, the council has created an employee roster that might be mistaken for a family tree. Close relatives of at least five of the seven borough councilmembers have worked for the borough within the past five years, according to a review of payroll records obtained through an open-records request.
According to solicitor Louis Cimini, the borough has no anti-nepotism policy that would provide the council direction about how to navigate the ethical minefield of hiring family members. Meanwhile, borough records show local taxpayers have shelled out more than $254,000 since 2010 to fund jobs held by council persons’ relatives.
Council members that spoke with PA Independent showed little concern about the problems or perception the hires could create.
“Does it cause a problem? No, it never really has,” said Thomas Lukasewicz, the council president, whose two stepchildren worked for the borough in the past five years. “The actual employees, the family members, that have worked over the years, there’s never been an issue with any of them, and they’ve always been outstanding workers.”
Muddying the waters?
Job performance and ability isn’t exactly the ethical barometer in these cases.
The Institute for Local Government, which promotes good government in California, in 2003 studied a case in which a recently elected local official thought a nephew would be the “perfect match” for a municipal job. The institute concluded it’d be best to avoid the hire, even it meant the government lost out on a good employee.
Having elected officials’ family members on a government payroll “really does muddy the waters,” Hana Callaghan, director of government ethics for the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in California, said.
The connections can call into question the fairness of the hiring process and raise concern that other employees will give elected officials’ relatives special treatment to curry favor with the people who run the municipality, Callaghan said.
Ultimately, public officials need to avoid even an appearance of impropriety, she said.
“You can swear up and down there is no impropriety here, they’re the best person for the job,” she said. “It still raises that specter, and they have to think about the public trust in all of their actions, particularly in this day and age when public trust is at an all-time low.”
It’s a family affair
A review of payroll records covering 2010-2013 and most of 2014 show that at least 10 people related to five current council members and one former council member worked for Throop in the past five years. Six of those relatives were hired after a family member took office, according to borough records, while another was promoted in the years after her father took office.
Nearly all the relatives were hired to work in Throop’s civic center, a local gathering place for residents who live in the Lackawanna County hamlet just off Interstate 81 not far from Scranton. Borough employees help children with their homework, look after young ones in daycare and oversee recreational activities for seniors and youth.
Nobody will get rich off the jobs, most of which have been part-time and usually have had hourly salaries ranging from $8 to $11.74 an hour.
The Tomasovitch family fared better, with the councilwoman’s son making up to $13 an hour in certain circumstances and her husband making the most of any relative, earning between $17.85 and $20.48 an hour working for the Department of Public Works, according to payroll records.
While their pay might not be considered extravagant, Tomasovitch and her husband in 2014 eclipsed Lackawanna County’s annual median household income of just more than $46,000, making at least $54,894.
That figure is incomplete because the borough payroll records provided run only through September of that year, but it includes Tomasovitch’s $1,875 council salary, her $26,500 salary working as a legislative assistant for her local state representative, as well as the $26,519 her husband made working for the borough for about nine months.
Tip-toeing around family matters
The state Ethics Act, which covers conflicts of interest, precludes public officials from using their office for the financial benefit of themselves or immediate family members.
Throop councilmembers dance around that restriction. They abstain from paying family members, but agree to pay the rest of the borough employees, during a monthly payroll vote.
As many as four council members at a time have had to issue such split votes in meetings since 2010. As odd as they might look, they’re allowable, said a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs.
The officials are just as careful when the borough considers hiring family members, abstaining during the votes that concern their relatives. That doesn’t put the hirings in jeopardy, as meeting minutes show other council members pick up the slack.
“This is a prime example of political insider trading,” said Eric Epstein, coordinator of Rock the Capital, a good-government group. “When it comes to reviewing the status of an existing employee — or procuring the services of a an employee related to a public official — then a neutral referee must be inserted into the process.”
Ethics experts might say the situation stinks as much as Throop Booster Club’s annual cow flop, a quintessential small-town celebration during which people try to predict where a bovine poops. Yet, council members see no need to hold their noses, though two at least acknowledge the hires could lead someone to think something might be amiss.
“The perception certainly could be there, but if you look at the details, they’re kind of legitimate,” said Council Vice President Anthony Gangemi Jr., whose two children have worked for the borough.
Lukasewicz acknowledged that having public officials’ relatives working for municipalities is considered a “no-no,” but said councilmembers aren’t exerting undue influence to hire family.
“I wouldn’t say it’s ever been anybody using their political influence,” Lukasewicz said. “I believe it was just when the opportunity came for an opening, they were put on.”
Those opportunities have abounded, forcing several council members to answer questions about the hires and their family’s employment.
Councilwoman Charlene Tomasovitch: ‘We hire true borough people’
When Throop makes its hiring decisions, it tries to stay local, Tomasovitch said. “We hire true borough people,” she said. That has included her son, Brian Tomasovitch, who made $7,479 as a summer employee in 2013.
“He was just here for a couple months,” Charlene Tomasovitch said.
Her father, Eugene DePasquale, and her husband, Joseph Tomasovitch, both still work as a maintenance worker and for the DPW, respectively.
Like Brian Tomasovitch, both were hired after Charlene Tomasovitch took office. As of September 2014, Joseph Tomasovitch had made $26,519.84 working for the borough, according to payroll records. DePasquale made $18,511 from 2012 through September 2014.
DePasquale is not the same Eugene DePasquale who serves as Pennsylvania’s auditor general.
Tomasovitch said she opposed her husband’s hiring because she knew it might raise questions, but she also said she doesn’t take issue with so many councilpersons’ relatives working for the borough.
“Do I think it’s a good thing? Yeah, I do,” said Tomasovitch, who also noted her daughter worked for the borough’s civic center before she made it on council.
Councilman David Repchick: ‘I don’t believe in it.’
Councilman David Repchick said his daughter worked for the borough as a part-time child care employee while she was working on her college degree. She was recommended by the director of the civic center, he said.
“She was not hired because of my council position,” Repchick said in an email. “I don’t believe in it. I actually encouraged her to resign, and she did.”
Repchick took office in January 2008. His daughter, Kristen, was hired that June and worked for Throop until the end of 2013, according to borough records. She made $23,377.94 from 2010 through 2013.
Councilman John Musewicz: Staying silent
Councilman John Musewicz was the lone elected official with family identified as working for the borough that did not return phone and email messages seeking comment. He was equally silent on Jan. 13, 2014, when the council promoted his daughter Kim O’Connor to a full-time civic center employee. Musewicz abstained from that vote.
Musewicz was first appointed to council in November 2005, but his daughter has worked for Throop since August 1998. Gangemi said she got the job “on her own merit.”
O’Connor made $81,080 from 2010 through September 2014.
Councilman Anthony Gangemi Jr.: ‘We don’t just make work’
Gangemi’s son and daughter have both worked for the borough in the time period PA Independent examined, though Gangemi said his daughter, Aubrey Owens, worked there before he became a council member in 2008. She has an associate’s degree and works part-time at the civic center, the councilman said.
Borough records show Owens was first hired in March 2006, but she did not work for Throop in 2010, according to payroll data.
The council on Aug. 17, 2011, re-hired her as a civic center monitor, a job she had previously held, according to meeting minutes from that day. In office at that point, Gangemi abstained. Owens has made at least $34,803 since 2010.
Gangemi’s son, Anthony Gangemi III, worked as a summer helper for parts of 2012 and 2014, according to the borough. He made $928 over those two years, according to borough payroll records.
The councilman doesn’t see a problem with it because Throop often hires local youth to work for the Department of Public Works or civic center, especially over the summer, he said. Jobs don’t just go to council members’ family, making it a non-issue, Gangemi said.
“We do try to give kids in the town an opportunity if the need is there. We don’t just make work,” he said.
Council President Thomas Lukasewicz: No need to abstain on stepchildren
Unlike the rest of council with family members working for the borough, Lukasewicz does not offer any abstaining vote when it comes time to pay Throop’s employees. That’s because his relatives who have worked there are two stepchildren hired before he married their mother in 2011, he said.
Lukasewicz said he asked the borough solicitor, Cimini, if he had to abstain because of his stepchildren. Cimini told him no, according to meeting minutes.
The council president’s now-stepdaughter, Megan Neri, was hired in 2006 and his now-stepson, Salvatore Neri, in 2009. Megan Neri made $35,597 and Salvatore Neri made $10,977 since 2010, but they no longer work for Throop.
Before that — more than a decade ago and after he was already on council — Lukasewicz said he had a son who got a job working in the civic center for a brief time.
Former Councilman James Barnick: Full-time jobs differ from jobs for youth
After spending 14 years on the council, James Barnick resigned in 2012. His daughter, Kimberly, kept working in the civic center, where she made $14,815 working part-time from 2010 through part of 2013. She was originally hired in 2006, eight years after her father was elected.
Barnick said he sees a difference between helping a college student in need of extra money and hiring someone full-time.
“Then it’s a different story,” he said last year, when PA Independent first began examining the borough’s hiring practices.
In the end, serving the public calls for sacrifice
No matter how many explanations and rationalizations exist for having family on the public payroll, complications remain, said Callaghan.
Holding office brings a responsibility to put the public’s interest before one’s own or their family members, and it’s best that elected officials have “hardline” rules governing the hiring of relatives, she said.
“It’s a sacrifice,” Callaghan said. “They either have to step down or they have to advise their relative to apply elsewhere.”