Editorial: Westmoreland commissioners can set example with human services department

Westmoreland County commissioners are moving forward with plans to take all of the county’s various human service offices and fuse them into one department.

On Thursday, they hired a consultant — Don Goughler, 76, of Harrison — to assemble the pieces and hire a director to take the reins.

This is a smart move for multiple reasons.

First there is the obvious. There is a lot of overlap in the kind of needs handled by offices that serve children, seniors and people with behavioral health issues.

Putting them under one umbrella could at least allow the offices to support each other. At best, it could show a real cost benefit to the county, which ultimately helps all of the residents, including the people relying on the human services. Considering that those services take up a full third of the county’s budget, that could be significant.

But there is also the opportunity for the county to lead by example.

Pennsylvania is plagued with duplication of services and therefore duplication of expenses because of all of the little fiefdoms that exist. There are more than 2,500 municipalities in the state. U.S. Census Bureau data shows more than 30 of them have a population of under 100 people; more than a quarter have less than 1,000.

Despite the fact that consolidating could save money and improve services for many areas, reducing the amount of tax burden on property owners, the idea of merging with another entity makes people skittish. Consider the Wilkinsburg- Pittsburgh proposal, for example.

A successfully integrated department structure for Westmoreland County could be a good example to any of its municipalities that might consider working together or merging some services like police departments.

But just because it’s a good idea doesn’t mean there aren’t things to address.

A $250,000 grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation is funding the rebuilding of the offices into one entity as well as the hiring of a new director. That hiring, however, is not something the commissioners say will be happening on a deadline.

“We want to make sure whoever takes this position obviously has the qualifications and skill sets that is needed for the job,” Commissioner Sean Kertes said.

The commissioners have proven to be free with designating people to handle things short-term, like Goughler or like Public Works Director Greg McCloskey who is also the county’s interim head of the election bureau. McCloskey has been in that role for months and months while little progress has been made in finding a new full-time, permanent person to do the job.

Finding the right person is exactly what should be done, but making it a priority is important, too.