LEHIGH CO., Pa. – A political fight is brewing in Lehigh County.

A veteran County Commissioner is pushing back on the newly elected County Executive’s new hires and future hiring plans. 

The hires haven’t been approved by the board and were not included in this year’s budget. 

After learning of the new hires through a press release, two term Lehigh County Commissioner Ron Beitler took to social media, opposing County Executive Josh Siegel’s actions.

Siegel says the hires are vital to carry out his plan. Beitler says Siegel is overstepping his role and accuses him trying to turn the County Executive role into a political apparatus. 

“This is money that we approved for nurses, corrections officers and caseworkers, and now that he wants to slide that over into other cabinet level uses,” Beitler said on recently elected County Executive Josh Siegel unilaterally expanding his cabinet, using a budget that wasn’t his.

Siegel recently hired a Chief of Staff and Communications Director without board approval. He also wants to also add a Multimedia Specialist and Community and Intergovernmental Liaison while eliminating 8 already budgeted county positions at Cedarbrook Nursing Home and the County Jail.

Beitler adds a Chief of Staff hasn’t been used in more than a decade. He recently took to social media calling out the moves, saying they’re more suited for the Governor and members of Congress, not local level administrations.                                                          

“It’s a very different style than Phil Armstrong had, who is very much collaborative in the way that he approached government. This is more like my way or the highway mentality, and that’s not the way that our board has been used to conducting ourselves over the last four years,” he said.

“I am replacing what I think were caretaker administrations that had no energy, no ideas, no vision for the county. And if I’m going to be able to actually make my vision a reality, I need the administrative capacity to deliver on those items,” Siegel countered. “If we want to talk about the services we provide, if we want to justify our existence as government, we have to engage with people where they’re at, and that means Tiktok and Instagram, YouTube.” 

For the positions to stick, the Board of Commissioners does need to approve the proposal, and it also needs a sponsor to get to a vote.

The board meets on Wednesday.