Wolf's Business Shutdown Waiver Prrogram Highly Flawed, State Auditor General Says

HARRISBURG, PA — The waiver process the Wolf administration devised for businesses attempting to stay open during last year's pandemic shutdown was significantly flawed, state Auditor General Timothy DeFoor said Tuesday.

DeFoor released a 159-page audit of the Department of Community and Economic Development's waiver mechanism, criticizing it for a lack of accountability and transparency that angered many business owners struggling to stay afloat in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak.

“This audit revealed a flawed process that provided inconsistent answers to business owners and caused confusion,” DeFoor said in a news release. “While the pandemic certainly presented some unique challenges, the process was hastily assembled on the fly, unevenly administered and should be reformed before anything like it is ever used again.”

In March 2020, Gov. Tom Wolf closed businesses the state considered non-life-sustaining to attempt to limit the spread of COVID-19. But businesses were allowed to request a waiver from the shutdown edict and nearly 43,000 of them did.

More than 7,000 waivers were granted, but many business owners complained that they had to stay closed while businesses similar to theirs were permitted to remain open.

DeFoor said the administration’s guidelines for determining whether a business was life-sustaining was revised nine times between March 21 and May 28, 2020. A "frequently asked questions" document designed to assist businesses was changed 14 times.

“While these changes were somewhat understandable in light of the evolving circumstances, they certainly contributed to the confusion felt by the business community,” DeFoor said.

If a waiver program is ever needed again, DeFoor said state officials should ensure the waiver application includes detailed instructions and a section for the applicant to attest to the accuracy of the information provided. Steps should also be taken to ensure the state's information database contains complete justification for the decisions made, as well as the dates for each step in the process.

In a formal response included in the audit, Dennis Davin, the state's economic development secretary, disputed some of the audit's findings.

However, Davin said, "We certainly want to learn from prior experience in the event that a similar program ever becomes necessary again.

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