Westmoreland commissioners reacquire oversight of real estate program

Westmoreland County Commissioners reclaimed control of a real estate program that generates as much as $2 million annually.

Commissioners last week voted to transfer the Unified Parcel Identifier department back to their control, stripping it from oversight responsibilities of incoming Recorder of Deeds Frank Schiefer.

“It makes sense for the (Geographic Information Systems) department to take it over,” said Sean Kertes, chief of staff to outgoing Commissioner Charles Anderson. Kertes, elected to the board of commissioners last month, will take a seat on the new board in January, along with incumbent Gina Cerilli and Commissioner-elect Doug Chew.

The move is not expected to generate additional revenue for the county, but money will be saved by consolidating it into a department controlled by the county commissioners, Kertes said.

The Unified Parcel Identifier program was instituted more than a decade ago to raise money for projects to improve the county’s record-keeping capabilities. It is funded by a $20 fee assessed to all property records filed at the courthouse.

The program calls for each property in the county to be assigned an indexing number. That number is affixed to all records — such as deeds, mortgages and taxes — associated with that property across all county government offices.

Revenue generated by the fee is turned over to the county budget to fund general operations.

Outgoing Recorder of Deeds Tom Murphy was instrumental in the program’s creation in 2007 during his first stint in office. Commissioners transferred the program to their control after Murphy was voted out of office in 2012 and gave oversight back to him when he was reelected four years later.

Murphy last month was again defeated by Schiefer, who also ousted him from office in 2012. Murphy said he lobbied commissioners to allow him to again oversee the program when he returned to office four years ago and asked that it be removed from the Recorder of Deeds responsibilities when he leaves office next month. Murphy denied the transfer was for political purposes.

“I made the case to domicile it in my office to save money, and now it makes sense to move it back to keep the county from having to hire more people,” Murphy said Tuesday.

Because of job attrition in the Recorder of Deeds Office, Murphy said, at least two additional employees would have to be hired to operate the program. By moving it to the county’s Geographic Information Systems department, no additional hiring will be necessary, officials said.

Schiefer could not be reached for comment.