((The article first appeared in Broad + Liberty)
For years, thousands of dollars have flowed from a federal union PAC to two Falls Township supervisors, massive amounts of which they apparently failed to report.
Pennsylvania breaks the campaign year into cycles and requires political committees to report their receipts, expenditures or liabilities if any of those exceed $250 in one cycle. But Falls Supervisor Jeff Dence (D) received $18,500 from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Political Action Committee since 2022 and recorded no such donations on his “Friends of Jeffry Dence” reports.
And Dence’s fellow Democratic Supervisor Jeff Boraski has yet to file publicly accessible “Friends of Jeff Boraski” reports reflecting any of $38,850 in IBEW PAC contributions. As Broad + Liberty reported last September, Boraski merely filed a report covering a 35-day period in November and December 2019 that showed none of IBEW’s largesse.
An inquiry to the Bucks County Board of Elections last week turned up no Boraski campaign files whatsoever, not even the report he filed in late 2019. (Bucks County preserves campaign-finance reports for only a five-year period.)
Yet, since 2022, Federal Election Commission records show Friends of Jeff Boraski got $15,850 in IBEW PAC money. Campaign contributions of this magnitude are rare for local races in a community like Falls Township which has fewer than 35,000 residents.
If Dence, Boraski, and others have evidence contrary to the assertions put forward in this article, they failed to provide it in response to requests for comment sent to both township and personal email addresses.
The inability to see those amounts on the candidates’ committee reports not only clouds the public’s view of the relationship between politicians and the labor group. It ultimately prevents interested citizens from seeing how Dence and Boraski, both IBEW Local 269 members, spend those funds.
IBEW’s influence on Falls Township’s administration is the subject of a years-long Federal Bureau of Investigation probe. The bureau has examined allegations that the municipality delayed issuing permits to pressure local businesses to hire union workers at IBEW’s behest.
Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie (D), who chaired the Falls Board of Supervisors from 2008 to 2020, is among those ensnarled by the scandal. IBEW PAC contributed $20,000 to Harvie’s campaign last year; the union has given four- and sometimes five-figure sums to Harvie’s committee on a nearly annual basis going back to 2009. Two years ago, Levittown Now reported that Harvie testified before the grand jury investigating the IBEW issue.
Special-interest influence, Philadelphia-based Republican election lawyer Matt Wolfe told Broad + Liberty, is a major reason why financial openness is a key responsibility campaigns bear. Failure to report data, especially when candidates conceal contributions from powerful entities, hinders citizens’ ability to understand the pull those groups may enjoy with their beneficiaries.
“That’s exactly why the legislature has deemed it important to report these contributions,” he said. “So that the public has an opportunity to judge what interests the candidate might have….”
Seeming failure to report IBEW donations isn’t Dence’s only campaign-finance omission. His committee paid $224.28 to Democratic former Falls Township Supervisor Jeff Rocco this March and left the “description” space on his campaign report blank. Campaign committees are required to describe all expenses.
The oversight is odd insofar as Rocco committed it himself: He’s Dence’s campaign treasurer and submits all of Dence’s committee disclosures.
And the March payment isn’t the only money Rocco received for unclear activities during recent campaigns. Dence paid his treasurer $302.21 in May 2023 for “Misc. Expense Reimbursement.” Township Supervisor John Palmer (D), for whom Rocco also serves as treasurer, paid Rocco $1,429.31 last November for “Meeting Expense Reimbursement.”
And while “meeting expense” does elucidate that item somewhat, Rocco was vague elsewhere on finance reports. Palmer paid Fallsington resident Anthony Rosso $30.52 in November and described the item as “Campaign Expense Reimbursement.”
Boraski, too, has counted Rocco as a top campaign official. Boraski’s 2012 campaign committee registration names his former colleague as chairman. Since Boraski apparently hasn’t been filing reports, it’s hard to say what political activities Rocco has overseen in that role.
Boraski may not be filing the required disclosures, but other local officials’ filings demonstrate he gets campaign money from various sources. Friends of Jeffry Dence donated $2,000 to Boraski in May 2022. Harvie also donated $250 to Boraski in 2018 and at least $1,000 in 2019.
One member of Falls’s all-Democrat Board of Supervisors, Brian Galloway, did not form a campaign committee and signed a waiver stating he did not intend to raise more than $250 in any reporting period when he ran for reelection last year. That freed him from any obligation to file recent campaign-finance reports. FEC records meanwhile do not indicate he received any IBEW cash.
The remaining supervisor is Erin Mullen who was appointed to fill a vacancy in 2021 and ran for election to her first full term last year. She can at least boast that when she got money from IBEW and other unions, she reported it.
The IBEW PAC Voluntary Fund donated $2,500 to Mullen’s campaign in March 2023 and another $2,500 last August. Her committee donated $550 to the union this April.
Other labor groups also contributed to her 2023 election effort. Donations included $500 from Sprinkler Fitters Local Union 692 PAC Fund and $3,500 from the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 542 PAC.
Although Mullen duly disclosed her funding, she was more opaque about how she spent it. In the “description” space under 14 of her 2023 expenditures, she wrote simply “expense” or “campaign expense.”
Recipients of those payments included Harland Clarke Check Printing ($99.53), Golden Dawn Diner ($103.58), George Moore of Langhorne ($250), Theresa Katalinas of Willow Grove ($500) and Katalinas Communications, a firm based at that woman’s residence. The largest such expense, $13,750, went to Decision Communications, a home-based firm in Levittown. Mullen described another payment, to Levittown Printing in the amount of $131.43, as “Campaign Finance.”
In contrast to other Falls supervisors, Mullen’s lack of transparency isn’t Rocco’s responsibility. Her treasurer is Jack Dence, a relative of Jeff’s who lives at his residence. (Voter records show the only person in the household with that name currently is Jeff’s son.)
Jack Dence himself received $230 from Mullen’s campaign, which they vaguely described as “Reimbursement.”
Neither Jeff Dence, Jack Dence, Boraski, Rocco, Mullen, nor Palmer returned emails requesting comment.
