Controller questions legality of hiring
County controller Benjamin Holland is questioning how someone was hired to the recently created position of county procurement director without input from him as a member of the Salary Board.
Holland shared a copy of a letter he sent Friday to solicitor Wil White asking questions and expressing concerns about the process in which Shawn Pugh was hired for the position.
In the letter, Holland said he learned about the hiring when he read an article in Friday’s Butler Eagle saying that Pugh resigned from his position as borough manager of Slippery Rock effective Aug. 23 to become the county director of procurement.
Holland said the salary board created the position May 11, but did not set a salary even though it is required to do so by state law.
“If, in fact, Mr. Pugh was offered the position with the county, one can reasonably assume that a ‘salary’ also would have been offered. Did the Salary Board take action? If so, as a voting member of the Salary Board, I was not afforded any opportunity to comment, or express approval or disapproval, on the matter,” Holland said in the letter.
Eagle staff writer Molly Miller contributed to this article.
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