(The Center Square) – State Treasurer Stacy Garrity on Thursday told Pennsylvania State Police her agency cannot legally pay for more than $1 million in security improvements at Gov. Josh Shapiro’s private home in Montgomery County, setting up an awkward financial situation involving multiple branches of state government and triggering a condemnation from Shapiro’s office.
Requisitions for $1,072,795 in payments tied to the work “do not, in the opinion of the Treasurer, appear to be lawful and correct, and therefore warrants for payment will not be issued,” Garrity told Pennsylvania State Police General Counsel Brendan J. O’Malley in a letter dated Thursday.
A spokesperson for Shapiro, Rosie Lapowsky, called Garrity’s announcement “a completely unprecedented and shameful political action without legal basis.”
Shapiro, frequently mentioned as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidiate, is running for re-election. Garrity is almost certain to be the Republican nominee for governor who will face Shapiro on the November ballot.
The sequence of events that led to the Thursday announcement began in April, 2025, when an attacker firebombed the publicly owned Governor’s Mansion in Harrisburg while Shapiro and his family slept. The family escaped safely and an extensive security review was done. The publicly owned mansion was restored and upgraded in more secure fashion, and security upgrades were made at Shapiro’s private home, as well.
Garrity told reporters on Thursday that guaranteeing the governor’s safety was “essential” and “an attack on the governor is an attack on all of us.” Nonetheless, while the tab for repairs and upgrades at the public building were covered in the 2025-26 budget, she said her office does not have legal authority to cover work at a public official’s private home.
Contractors that did the work were hired by state police. A spokesperson for the agency was not immediately available for comment.
Garrity said she could not tell the General Assembly – which approves funding for the state police – or the governor’s office how to cover the payments due to contractors. However, she noted the process for creating a 2026-27 budget has a long way to go and putting a “line item” for the repairs in the budget might be something to consider.
Lapowksy condemned Garrity’s announcement “following an attempted assassination” and said state police authorized the payments “to fulfill a core mission of their duties – to protect the governor and his family after the Governor’s Residence was firebombed and rendered uninhabitable.”
State police, she said, are exploring options to make sure their “authority is protected and the vendors who completed this work are paid in full.” Garrity, Lapowksy said, should “put partisanship aside, follow the law, and show some humanity.”
The Republican chairman of the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee, Sen. Jarrett Coleman of Lehigh County, began putting questions to the Shapiro administration about the private-residence expenditures in October. In December, his committee issued subpoenas related to the bills and the work.
“There are black and white legal requirements that need to be met before the Treasurer can pay bills; as I’ve said for months, the work done on the Shapiros’ private, personal real estate doesn’t meet the requirements under the law,” Coleman said Thursday. He said he planned to introduce “a legislative solution” to the situation soon.
Kate Flessner, a spokesperson for Sen. Joe Pittman of Indiana County, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, said, “We are just learning of the Treasurer’s decision. We will be evaluating the matter and determine what, if any actions need to be taken.”
Democrats joined Lapowsky in criticizing the treasurer.
The top Democrat in the Senate, Jay Costa of Allegheny County, called Garrity’s decision “unconscionable” and “a disgrace” while a spokesperson for the House Democratic caucus, Nicole Reigelman, said Garrity’s “transparently cynical attempt to politicize” the Shapiro security situation was reprehensible.
“With threats of antisemitism and political violence on the rise, the assassination attempt on our governor demands that we take all necessary steps to protect him and future governors and their families,” Reigelman said. “The administration has clearly demonstrated to the legislature that all decisions were directed by law enforcement and handled in accordance with state law, including approval of the contract by the Office of Attorney General.”
