Allegheny County / http://www.alleghenycounty.us/SHUMAN/index.aspx
Shuman Juvenile Detention Center, Allegheny County, Penn.
Last week, the two highest ranking managers at the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center in Allegheny County, Penn. were fired, a county representative announced Thursday.
The two fired employees, the detention center’s director, William Simmons, and deputy, Lynette Drawn-Williamson, had received suspensions earlier in the year.
William Stickman, a public safety consultant who retired as Pennsylvania’s deputy secretary of corrections, will serve as the interim director of the facility, while certified public accountant Lillian Reese-McGhee has been appointed as the facility’s new deputy director, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald announced.
Following a poor inspection in May, Shuman has been operating under a provisional license from Pennsylvania’s Department of Public Welfare. A new audit of the facility, conducted by the county’s controlling office, is forthcoming, the Associated Press reported.
Both Simmons and Williamson came to the facility in 2007. James Ellenbogen, chairman of the Alleghany County Council’s Public Safety Committee, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the dismissals weren’t unexpected.
“I’m not surprised,” he told the Post-Gazette. “If anything, I’m surprised it happened now and not earlier.”