Lehigh County leaders clash over proposal to add executive staff, cut unfilled jobs at Cedarbrook, jail

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Lehigh County’s new chief executive is feuding with a commissioner after he moved to fill out his new staff.

County Executive Josh Siegel is looking to add several positions to his executive team by cutting unfilled jobs at the county’s nursing home and jail, a proposal Commissioner Ron Beitler slammed in a news release Thursday.

An administrative proposal shared by Beitler shows Siegel wants a multimedia specialist, communications director and a chief of staff, as well as a community and intergovernmental liaison.

Those positions would cost the county an additional $340,000 in salaries each year and about $125,000 in benefits, according to the proposal.

If approved over the coming weeks, the county would be projected to pay about $387,000 through the end of the year to fund those roles.

Siegel’s administration intends to cover those costs by eliminating eight budgeted but unfilled positions.

That includes three certified nursing assistants, two licensed practical nurses and a treatment case manager at Cedarbrook, the county nursing home, and two corrections officers at Lehigh County Jail.

Eliminating those jobs would cut about $418,000 in spending, according to the proposal.

County officials say that would mean an overall savings of $31,000 in 2026, though costs for the new executive staff would outpace those positions at the county-run nursing home and jail next year.

'Unnecessary cost'?

Beitler criticized Siegel for trying to expand his own office “at the expense of frontline workers.”

When the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners approved former county Executive Phil Armstrong’s budget for 2026, it “paid for nurses, caseworkers and corrections officers, not a chief of staff to do the executive’s job or a multimedia specialist to create county TikTok videos,” Beitler said in a release.

As of Thursday, no commissioners were sponsoring Siegel’s proposal, Beitler said.

But the executive already expanded his staff by filling two of his proposed positions.

Siegel’s administration on Wednesday announced Dan Sheehan, a former longtime reporter at The Morning Call, as the county’s communications director.

And Hillary Kleinz joined as chief of staff after serving as district office director for three years during Siegel’s stint as a state representative.

Beitler said that role went unfilled for almost a dozen years after commissioners deemed it an “unnecessary cost to taxpayers and political in nature.”

The chief of staff job pays $92,248 per year and the annual salary for communications director is $92,000, according to county documentation provided by Beitler.

The other salaries are $89,752 for community and intergovernmental liaison and $65,000 for multimedia specialist.

Bigger staff means better coordination: Exec

Siegel hit back at Beitler and his “toxic politics” in a release of his own Thursday.

In a release shared by Sheehan, he said the commissioner chose “controversy over compromise or conversation” about the proposal.

Beitler has “refused to directly engage with the administration or have productive conversations around its proposals” since Siegel took office in early January, the executive said.

“Governing isn’t done through petty Facebook posts and press releases desperately designed to get media attention,” Siegel said. “It’s [done] through actually talking with the administration.”

Siegel defended his move to hire a chief of staff, saying Kleinz will “better coordinate the administration’s expansive agenda.”

He said the measure would not take away jobs or affect critical services.

“The proposal … doesn’t threaten or jeopardize frontline services, as the positions had been unfilled for years and would continue to remain unfilled,” Siegel said.

Beitler last week officially left the Republican Party to become unaffiliated, commonly referred to as independent. He criticized Republicans and Democrats for allowing issues to "fester" due to party politics.