HARRISBURG, Pa. — Breaking decades of precedent, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is stripping the state’s lieutenant governor, Mike Stack, and his wife of state police protection following complaints about the Stacks’ treatment of troopers and other state employees.
Wolf released a three-sentence letter Friday addressed to Stack informing him of the decision. The move dropped jaws in the state Capitol, since lieutenant governors have had state police protection for decades in Pennsylvania.
Wolf also told Stack in the letter that he would limit cleaning, groundskeeping and maintenance staff at his fellow Democrat’s official residence near Harrisburg, to only under supervision at pre-arranged times.
“I do not delight in this decision, but I believe it is a necessary step to protect Commonwealth employees,” Wolf wrote to Stack, a former state senator.
Neither Wolf nor Stack have given details about the complaints, although media reports suggested they center around allegations that the Stacks verbally abused their state police security detail and household staff at the official residence, and pressured state police drivers to use lights and sirens to bypass traffic in non-emergency situations.
Wolf and Stack were elected on the same ticket in 2014, but candidates for governor and lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania run independently in the primaries and, once elected, hold what are considered independent offices.
Stack, 53, and his wife, Tonya, live in a state-owned house about 20 miles east of the Capitol. Built in the 1940s, the 2,500-square-foot home has a swimming pool and a five-car garage.
In prior years, it has been tended by kitchen, grounds and cleaning staff, while troopers provided around-the-clock protection to the lieutenant governor and his wife that included driving them around.
