About Barbara

Barbara Hafer took office as Pennsylvania's 74th treasurer in January 1997, following eight years of public service as the state's auditor general. She was reelected treasurer in November 2000. Through her work in both offices, she has earned a reputation as a critic of government waste and advocate of fiscal openness and accountability.

Hafer has focused on improving Treasury Department operations to better serve Commonwealth citizens. Her accomplishments include funding tax cuts through more than $1 billion in investment earnings, increasing access to department information on the Internet, greatly increasing the number of electronic payments, speeding the issuance of tax refunds, increasing both the efficiency and security of unemployment benefit payments and using Treasury investments to fund economic development.

Under Hafer, the Treasury Unclaimed Property Program has been returning an unprecedented $3 million a month to Commonwealth citizens while simplifying the reporting process for businesses. Treasury's INVEST short-term investment pool for local governments has more than quadrupled in membership and reached a record $1 billion. Hafer has made TAP 529 (Pennsylvania's college savings plan) better known and more versatile by adding nine investment options to the already popular Guaranteed Savings Plan. The result: more than 110,000 participants and more than $998 million in the program. Hafer also created the HomeBuyer program, using a $500 million Treasury investment that helped more than 5,500 families buy their own homes.

A Registered Nurse, Hafer began her professional life as a public health nurse and health care administrator. After seeing tax dollars wasted rather than channeled to the public health programs that desperately needed them, she began speaking out on public policy issues. A concern for victims' rights led her to found the Allegheny County Center for Victims of Violent Crime in 1973. She also served as executive director of the center, the state's first federally funded agency for crime victims. Through her work in public health and with crime victims, Hafer saw that the real power to implement change lies with those who control the public purse strings. That insight led to a political career and an abiding interest in public finance.

In 1984 Hafer became the first woman elected to the Allegheny County Board of Commissioners. Elected as state auditor general in 1988 and reelected in 1992, she crusaded against waste and for greater fiscal accountability. In 1990, she warned of a looming $1 billion state budget deficit. Ridiculed at the time, her forecast proved precisely right. The failure to heed her warning led to a record tax increase.

As treasurer, Hafer oversaw 89,000 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania payments each day and had custody of more than $85 billion in public funds, including the assets of three pension funds. When she took office, most of Pennsylvania's pension assets were held by an out-of-state custodian. Hafer brought custody of those assets back to Pennsylvania, creating a multi-million-dollar savings and 40 new jobs.

The Treasurer is a statutory member of 17 state boards and commissions, including the three state pension funds. In January 2000 the Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System (PSERS) unanimously elected Hafer chairman of the Board of Trustees. Reelected each year since, she is the first treasurer to chair the Board since its inception in 1917. PSERS is the 14th largest public pension fund in the nation, with more than $50 billion in assets and a membership of more than 247,000 active members and some 145,000 annuitants.

In addition, Hafer has served on ten other boards and commissions, including the Pennsylvania Partnership for Economic Education, the National Honorary Board of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, and the President's Cabinet for Counsel and Advancement of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. She also remains active in public health issues.

Nationally, Hafer has been active in the National Association of State Auditors Comptrollers and Treasurers (NASACT) and served as its president from August 2001 through November 2002.

As NASACT president, Hafer launched a campaign to wage financial war against global terrorism, and became a national leader in the pursuit of corporate governance standards. In September 2001, Hafer began working with fellow state financial officials in seeking more information from the federal government regarding publicly traded companies that have business ties to terrorist sponsoring states. The goal is to make sure public funds are not invested in ways that inadvertently support terrorism.

Hafer's work on corporate reform began in February 2002 when she convened a hearing to gather information on the Enron collapse. With that information she participated in a forum sponsored by the Congressional General Accounting Office (GAO). In May 2002, Hafer testified before a New York Stock Exchange committee on corporate governance accountability. Many of the reforms she advocated were included in the Corporate Governance Rules approved by the NYSE Board of Directors in August 2002. She is continuing that work as an active member of the National Coalition on Corporate Reform.

Hafer also earned nationwide recognition through her service on a special five-member National Executive Committee of finance officers to monitor the progress of Swiss banks in returning World War II-era deposits to Holocaust victims and their heirs. The committee was widely credited with helping to bring about the banks' $1.25 billion settlement with Holocaust victims. In 1999, State of Israel Bonds presented Hafer with a specially created Pursuit of Justice Award, recognizing her for her "compassion and dedication" in leading settlement efforts. The committee continues to monitor Holocaust settlement issues involving various European nations, while Hafer’s staff aids potential claimants.

In 2004, the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program awarded Hafer the national Donald L. Scantlebury Memorial Award for excellence in financial management leadership in the public sector, recognizing her for innovations and technological improvements to government operations.

Treasurer Hafer especially values an award presented to her in May 2000 by her employees' union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees: She was chosen as the first-ever recipient of the AFSCME Council 90 Outstanding Employer Award.

For the last 20 years Barbara Hafer has been involved with the Borough of Gettysburg at the Lutheran Seminary and helping to establish the Gettysburg Arts Festival, the First All American Arts Festival.

In 2001, Barbara Hafer was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania. Since 1949, The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania began the tradition of inviting the Governor to designate several women each year as Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania. Women recognized as Distinguished Daughters are those whose achievements on a national and statewide scale have been so outstanding that they have brought honor and respect to the commonwealth.

In 2005, Hafer started Hafer & Associates, a woman owned consulting firm, specializing in government finances and corporations that work with government finances. In 2009 Hafer & Associates expanded services to include fixed income advisory services.

In 2008, Hafer and two friends established Circles: Body, Mind, and Spirit, a non-profit organization dedicated to the holistic prevention of disease and integrated wellness using a deliberate action plan, and also integrating urban and rural women.

In May 2009, Governor Rendell appointed Hafer to chair the National Governors Association distinguished service awards program selection committee.

A graduate of Dormont High School (1961) and the South Side Hospital School of Nursing (1964), Hafer earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Duquesne University in 1969 and later did post-graduate work at the University of London and the University of Pittsburgh.

Barbara Hafer was married to Jack Pidgeon, retired Headmaster of Kiski School in Saltsburg, Westmoreland County who passed away in May, 2008. She has four children and four grandchildren.