Westmoreland County lost five of its top administrators this year through resignations and retirements, creating what one official called a “brain drain” in local government.

The latest to leave was Amanda Bernard, who resigned as the county’s human resources director in late August to take a similar job with a local ambulance company.

“I don’t think the county is the best of payers, which we’ve tried to address with some people,” said Commissioner Doug Chew.

He, along with Sean Kertes, took office in January to form a new Republican majority on the board of commissioners. They joined Democrat Gina Cerilli, the lone holdover from the previous board.

Since February, numerous top officials have departed, included Area Agency on Aging Director Kate Johnson and Brenda Oravets, who ran the county’s purchasing department. Both had been with the county since the early 1980s.

County leaders were forced this spring to hire a new juvenile detention center administrator and, last month, appointed a new head of the elections bureau following resignations of directors in charge of both department.

The lost experience will be hard to replace, said Controller Jeffrey Balzer, who, along with the three county commissioners, sets salaries for county employees.

“When you lose someone with 35 years of experience, it’s a problem. That’s institutional knowledge that’s no longer there,” Balzer said.

Kertes said a number of factors led to staff turnover, including concerns over covid-19 and the county’s limited financial ability to compete with the private sector for quality employees.

“We have to look at this internally and look at the wages to see if we can pay departments heads more to retain them,” Kertes said.

The county’s salary board recently approved new pay scales for several department head positions recently filled.

Carrie Nelson, who served as Johnson’s deputy in the aging department, will earn $70,000 annually; and Nicole Kramer, the former second in charge, was promoted to run the juvenile detention center at $61,265 a year.

Gerald Radebaugh, who last month took over the county’s purchasing department, will earn $60,400. Radebaugh was the lone recent department head hired from outside county government.

Commissioners last month made JoAnn Sebastiani head of the elections bureau, hiring her away from the county tax office.

Bernard is the latest official to move on from the county. She originally was hired in 2012 to serve as the commissioners’ assistant chief clerk and later served as the human resources director for the county-owned nursing home. She was appointed head of the human resources office in 2018, when the county ended a contract with a private consulting company that had operated the personnel department.

She earned an annual salary of nearly $72,000. The county is seeking resumes for her replacement through next week.

Bernard, though, will continue to serve as a temporary employee, earning up to $50,000 this year, to negotiate new labor contracts this fall with three county unions and serve as a consultant until her replacement is on the job.

“We’re losing years and years of experience,” Kertes said. “We have to be better to keep these department heads.”

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