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Westmoreland commissioners suspended with pay the woman they hired less than a year ago to run the county election bureau.
Records obtained Wednesday by the Tribune-Review indicate bureau Director JoAnn Sebastiani was suspended Tuesday and will continue to be off the job through Friday.
No reason was given for the suspension.
Commissioner Doug Chew declined comment and would not confirm that Sebastiani was suspended. Commissioners Sean Kertes and Gina Cerilli Thrasher did not respond to requests for comment.
“We can’t talk about personnel issues,” said county Solicitor Melissa Guiddy.
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A Southmoreland School Board member on Friday challenged the results of last month’s primary, claiming the Westmoreland County Election Bureau failed to include an open two-year seat on the ballot.
In a handwritten lawsuit, Catherine Fike asked a judge to set aside results from the Democratic and Republican primaries in which five candidates were nominated to run for four four-year seats this fall.
Fike was re-elected to a four-year board seat in 2019. Her term expires at the end of 2023.
Brian Shipley finished as the top vote-getter in both party primaries. According to Fike’s lawsuit, Shipley in March filed nomination petitions with the county election bureau declaring his candidacy for a two-year seat.
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Westmoreland County officials said
this week no decisions have been reached about how it will handle bills recently received from an Ohio direct mailing company that claimed mechanical issues caused two delays in sending ballots out to voters this fall.
The county received two invoices earlier this month totaling more than $149,000 from Midwest Direct Presort Mailing for the printing and mailing of ballots. The Cleveland-based company was hired in September by the county commissioners to work with the elections bureau this fall.
The county has yet to pay those bills. One charged the county to print about 10,000 ballots that were distributed in person to voters at the courthouse. Another bill for $142,000 was for printing and mailing ballots directly to more than 76,000 voters ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.
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Westmoreland County commissioners on Tuesday rescinded a nearly $5,000 grant awarded last week to a Salem gym after it refused to accept a provision that requires recipients to pledge to adhere to state covid guidelines.
Officials said representatives of Matshark Fitness, which operates as Wallace Training Systems, declined to sign off on a contract required to accept the grant commissioners approved this month to help small businesses recoup losses and costs associated with pandemic.
Melissa Guiddy, county solicitor, said a signed contract is required before money is handed over. That contract requires entities that accept the money to “follow orders of the governor and state health department.”