Gov. Josh Shapiro is accepting donations for the repairs the state-owned governor’s mansion will need after the April arson, Spotlight PA reported in Friday’s edition of the Sun-Gazette — and his staff are dragging their feet on identifying who those donors are.

The governor’s decision to resist releasing the names of donors to renovate the damaged governor’s mansion is unfortunately not surprising. Too often public servants attempt to evade the type of record-keeping essential to permitting the accountability that the checks and balances of our system are meant to ensure. As we have noted and criticized in past editorials, other officials have similarly attempted — too often successfully — the transparency our system requires to truly work.

Shapiro himself has resisted this type of necessary transparency, in regards to accepting gifts from donors who likely have ties to organizations and entities which seek state funding or other assistance.

As we noted last Monday, a competitive race for governor in 2026 is “the strongest chance to secure commitments from the governor to more clearly and firmly prioritize transparency and accountability in a second term.”

And as we said in August of 2022, when examining the circumstances behind both the failure to retain records of texts and communications by the Secret Service under the Trump Administration and the use of private emails by former Secretary of State to circumvent that avenue of record-keeping, “transparency and accountability are key provisions of ensuring good governance.”

As we have urged before, voters need to hold officials accountable for declining to provide the public with all the information necessary to assess how they are governing — whether its Hillary Clinton, President Donald Trump or, as frequently lately as it has been, Gov. Josh Shapiro.