Editorial: Westmoreland County handles elections office like an afterthought

Westmoreland County commissioners have come to a decision about who will run the elections bureau, and it seems to be a decision they could have made official a long time ago.

Greg McCloskey will continue to serve double duty as he has done since taking on the responsibility of the elections bureau in addition to his primary role as public works director. He will just be doing it officially, with a new job description — and salary — that covers both offices.

The county has been without the steady presence of a dedicated leader of the office since JoAnn Sebastiani was fired as director in June 2021 after less than a year. One could point to a lack of stability that goes back a year earlier as commissioners have struggled with the bureau since the departure of Beth Lechman in 2020.

Lechman resigned between the presidential primary and the general election that year. She was replaced temporarily by her deputy, Scott Sistek. Shortly thereafter, they moved Sebastiani over from the tax office to run the elections, with Sistek at her side.

Until Sistek was fired weeks later, just a month out from the election. Sebastiani was then fired after the 2021 primary. She filed a lawsuit claiming politics and a hostile work environment were at play.

Although a job listing was posted, the position was never filled. The elections bureau was restructured in summer 2021. Then, Greg Kline was hired in October as quality assurance manager for elections at a salary of $80,000 — only to resign this past summer.

If you are confused about how one of the county’s key functions as an office of government is being conducted, well, that makes sense. The lackadaisical way that filling this office has been handled is at odds with its critical importance.

To be fair, there is a cost savings. Even with a significant salary increase for McCloskey, the $27,435 he will get is much less than the $52,770 Sebastiani was making. Sure, there is Kline’s salary, but commissioners insisted when he was hired that his role was about more than elections and that they were still seeking a director.

Perhaps there was an attempt to find a replacement, but the entire production always seemed to lack effort and urgency.

How is this possible, as Pennsylvania has become one of the nation’s greatest electoral battlefields? State lawmakers argue about the way in which elections are conducted, and they do it loudly and often. The importance of the job being done on the ground here is talked about on cable news and in court cases.

Yet in Westmoreland County, it seems to be an afterthought — part-time job tacked onto the full-time obligations of the guy who already had the responsibility of literally keeping all the county properties functioning.