The City of Greensburg is no longer conducting health inspections of restaurants or food trucks.
Starting this month, eatery owners must contact the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to arrange inspections, then file the results with the city.
Owners will pay about the same under the new process, which will streamline operations in the city planning department, according to Greensburg officials.
“The health inspections were a drain on city resources,” councilman Randy Finfrock said.
Greensburg has laid off one inspector as a result of the change, whose annual salary was just over $45,600.
Under the old system, restaurants would get annual inspections from the city, paying a $100 fee. Now they will pay $85 a year to get an inspection from the state, and $35 every two years to file their inspection with the city.
“We didn’t want to get in the way; we wanted to expedite and streamline so that business owners were able to get what they needed,” said planning director Jeff Raykes.
The move comes as part of a broader city initiative to cut down on red tape in the planning department.
The city recently dissolved its Historic and Architectural Review Board and created a new online zoning map for developers.
The planning department collected $8,370 from restaurants and $4,100 from food trucks in health inspection fees in 2019, according to Raykes.
