Philadelphia has had an elected Sheriff since 1838. The Sheriff’s office is responsible for transporting prisoners to and from court, courtroom security, serving writs and warrants, and conducting Sheriff’s sales.

The Sheriff’s office has been plagued by mismanagement and corruption for at least 20 years. Its functions could easily be moved to departments that provide greater accountability.

City Controller audits have found (1) the Sheriff’s office’s payroll and personnel system was at a “very high risk of fraud and abuse” (2008); (2) “101 service firearms and 109 PFA weapons were missing from the Sheriff’s Office inventory” (2020); and (3) the Sheriff’s office does not maintain a comprehensive accounting system to track financial transactions, fails to keep adequate records for fee revenue, and is “unable to accurately account for the fee revenue it collects.” (2022)

The Sheriff’s office has a long history of ethical issues.

• John Green, who served as Sheriff from 1988 until 2010, was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to accepting $675,000 in bribes and kickbacks for awarding $35 million in no-bid work to a vendor.

• Jewell Williams succeeded Green as Sheriff. In 2015, Inquirer investigations showed that all but one of the 20 top overtime earners in the Sheriff’s office had also contributed to Williams’s re-election campaign, and that 67 of the top 100 overtime earners made one or more contributions to Williams’s campaign since he took office in 2012. In 2017, three women accused Williams of sexual harassment, retaliation, and creating a hostile work environment. The accusations spurred City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart to conduct a government-wide audit of sexual harassment policies.

• Current Sheriff Rochelle Bilal took office in 2020. During her term, Bilal fired three staffers who alleged “financial impropriety and sexual harassment” (resulting in whistle-blower lawsuits), hired a former Philadelphia police officer who had been fired after being accused of sexually assault, saw her top legal aide moonlight as a criminal defense attorney, saw a Sheriff’s deputy charged for selling methamphetamine and guns to a confidential FBI informant, and was alleged to have misused funds to increase the salaries of herself and her top staffers.

Eliminating the Sheriff’s office would require City Council to pass a proposed amendment to the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter to eliminate an elected Sheriff and voter approval of the amendment.

A 2009 report by the Committee of Seventy stated there are “relatively easy options” to transfer the Sheriff’s relatively ministerial duties elsewhere in City government, with the Finance Department and Police Department assuming duties such as warrant and civil process service, prisoner transport, court security, and sheriff’s sales.

The Register of Wills performs several ministerial functions, including (i) issuing marriage licenses and keeping marriage records, (ii) probating wills, (iii) issuing letters of estate administration, (iv) keeping records of wills, estate inventories, and related documents, (v) acts as an agent for filing and paying inheritance taxes, and (vi) serving as the Clerk of the Orphans’ Court.

We believe there are three reasons to eliminate the Register of Wills as an elected position:

• Except for issuing marriage licenses, nearly all functions performed by the Register of Wills are performed by the court system in other cities. In Philadelphia, these functions could be moved to the Orphans’ Court, a division of the First Judicial District.

• The obscure nature of these functions makes it impossible for voters to evaluate the qualifications of candidates for this office. A 2019 Inquirer editorial stated “the existence of the Register of Wills on the ballot is unfair to voters. It is almost impossible to assess candidates, and voters are forced to make a decision in the dark -- making the election not about merit but about political clout. The sooner it goes away, the better.”

• The Register of Wills has traditionally handled hiring through political patronage (i.e., hiring committee people, ward leaders, and others with political connections). Former Register of Wills Ron Donatucci was known as the “prince of patronage.” The Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority has argued bringing the Register of Wills’ functions into the City’s civil service system would create opportunities for non-political applicants and remove the appearance of cronyism that fosters mistrust in the government.

In 2009, the Philadelphia Law Department took the position that eliminating the Register of Wills may require an act of the General Assembly. As an initial step, City Council could hold hearings and seek input from the City Law Department to clarify the path forward. Philadelphia Law Department took the position