Westmoreland officials say reduced children's bureau staffing hours will have no impact on services

Westmoreland County’s Children’s Bureau officials said the expansion of its on-call program to process new reports after business hours will continue in 2025.

The child welfare agency operates around the clock but, until recently, has had staff on duty at the courthouse complex offices until 6 p.m. to handle calls and paperwork that came in after the close of traditional business hours. Most courthouse offices close daily at 4 p.m.

The change will not impact operations or reduce children’s bureau services, county Human Services Director Rob Hamilton said.

“We’re always a 24-7 operation, and that hasn’t changed. No one gets lost in the sauce, and we are always available,” Hamilton said.

For the past several years, the children’s bureau, which is in an annex across Pennsylvania Avenue from the courthouse, had two staffers, a unit manager and supervisor, on duty until 6 p.m. Those employees processed calls from the public that ranged from informational requests and questions about visitation to receiving new child welfare reports from school districts or other mandated reporters.

In previous years, the children’s bureau had as many as six employees working later into the early evening, but staffing issues and additional internal evaluations determined an on-call system would retain the same level of service, according to Children’s Bureau Director Shara Saveikis.

The scaled-back office hours formally were approved as part of the new six-year labor deal ratified in late December by the county and the Teamsters Local 205, which represents about 90 department caseworkers, social workers and office staff.

“We negotiated this to move everybody back to daylight hours because we couldn’t find people to work the 10:30 to 6 p.m. shift,” said John Cerra, a former children’s bureau caseworker who works as a Teamsters Local 205 business agent and member of the union’s negotiating team.

The new labor deal calls for caseworkers and other children’s bureau staffers to receive base raises of 2% in 2025 with each earning an additional 1% pay hike for every year of prior service at the county. Employees will earn 4% raises in each remaining year of the new deal, Cerra said.

Hamilton said children’s bureau, which operates with a $40 million budget that accounts for nearly 9% of all county spending, has five open caseworker positions and the department has one of the lowest employee vacancy rates in the county government.

That new contract comes as the children’s bureau caseload continues to increase. The agency last year fielded nearly 7,900 new reports, an increase of nearly 1,000 over 2023 totals. Saveikis said the children’s bureau conducted 4,266 investigations last year.

She said having staff work in the children’s bureau offices into early evening was no longer essential. Required duties during those two additional hours can easily be conducted by on-call employees, she said.

“There wasn’t a public need for it, so we decided to use our on-call consultants. Since the public didn’t come into the office (during those hours), it just didn’t make sense,” Saveikis said.