No, California Treasurer Fiona Ma should not be sharing hotel rooms with her employees

Next time California Treasurer Fiona Ma wants to “save money” on hotel rooms for the state, here’s a suggestion: Drive home.

Ma maintains it was her unchecked zeal for frugality that led her to frequently share hotel and other lodgings with two of her top aides, one of whom went on to accuse the treasurer of sexual harassment in the context of the unusually close quarters. Ma has denied the allegations in the lawsuit but failed to acknowledge that cohabiting with her subordinates constituted at best a serious lapse of judgment that can’t be blithely chalked up to fiscal conservatism.

The treasurer’s penny-pinching rationale is particularly flimsy given that most of the expenses were for rooms in Sacramento while Ma and her aides lived in the Bay Area. Facing a similar situation with limited resources, plenty of the regular taxpayers who footed these bills might have spent a couple of hours on a freeway or train rather than pay for a hotel room — let alone make the dubious decision to shack up with an employee.

Ma commonly shared hotel rooms and other lodging with her staff, according to a Bee review of expense reports. They included her chief of staff, Genevieve Jopanda, and the former director of a committee administering affordable housing programs, Judith Blackwell, who sued the treasurer in July for alleged harassment, discrimination and wrongful termination.

A former assemblywoman and gubernatorial aspirant, Ma said in a statement to The Bee’s Editorial Board that sharing rooms was just one of many ways she has saved the state money during her political career, including carpooling and opting for less expensive hotels.

“I am frugal and I look for ways to save taxpayers money,” she said. “I ran for this job to responsibly manage the state’s fiscal resources through challenging times, and I begin with myself.”

The treasurer’s chief of staff likewise noted in one report that she stayed with her boss “to save money,” adding in a statement that the arrangement was designed to “maximize efficiency and minimize costs to taxpayers consistent with all ethical and legal requirements.”

The treasurer’s practice doesn’t appear to run afoul of any law or official policy, but it’s difficult to characterize as ethical or appropriate in any modern context, particularly after the #MeToo movement unearthed countless examples of inappropriate workplace behavior in the Capitol and beyond. Even if Ma weren’t held to an especially high standard as an elected official, her power over her employees, particularly those who are political appointees, requires a clear separation between personal and professional matters.

Nor is this an isolated instance of questionable judgment on Ma’s part. The treasurer also reportedly pressured employees to work in their offices in the teeth of the pandemic. She also managed to obtain a COVID vaccination back in December, when the shots were available only to front-line health care workers and a few other select groups.

Blackwell’s suit alleges that Ma shared much more than a hotel room with her, including gifts of jewelry and marijuana edibles; unsolicited glimpses of her boss in an office-inappropriate state of attire; and, on one occasion, a bed. Ma has called the allegations “baseless” and looked forward to “bringing the truth to light in court.”

The treasurer is certainly entitled to her day in court, but she’s not entitled to run a state agency responsible for trillions of dollars in transactions each year. Ma at least owes the public an apology and the reassurance that she can carry out her crucial duties without exposing the state to needless liability or its employees to untenable conditions.