Nov 19, 2025 By Mike Jones 5 min read

The Washington County commissioners are considering moving duties from the nonprofit Washington Drug and Alcohol Commission “in-house” under the umbrella of its Department of Human Services, although discussions appear to be in the preliminary stages with some pushback over the possible changes.

County Human Services Director John Tamiggi during Tuesday’s agenda-setting meeting asked the commissioners to vote Thursday to send a letter of intention to the state Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs to “retain and internally operate” the single county authority designation that has been WDAC’s role since 2002.

The proposal appeared to surprise Commissioner Larry Maggi, who questioned why they were considering moving away from the arrangement with WDAC, which holds the contract with the state to manage drug and alcohol services in Washington County that include intervention initiatives, prevention, treatment and recovery programs.

“You want to discuss it here in front of everybody?” Maggi asked his fellow commissioners while suggesting they delay a decision on the matter to review it further. “Why are we doing it?”

“Why do you not want to do it?” Commission Chairman Nick Sherman said.

Maggi said WDAC has held the “single county authority” for more than two decades and has been successful in helping drug addicts and alcoholics in their recovery, especially when ordered by the courts. He added that he had concerns about the cost to bring the program into Human Services since preliminary budget plans would apparently add a director and deputy director to oversee the program.

“I’ve not heard any complaints from citizens, the judicial system, probation or anybody. And I’m just curious why we’re changing,” Maggi said.

Sherman responded that they’re not adding any new positions and that he thought the change would be more cost-effective bringing the program into Human Services rather than contracting that work out to a nonprofit.

“This is just a letter of intent … to look at the options management and inevitably (the state Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs) will come in and say, ‘We’ll approve the county or not approve the county to move forward on it.’ So I think this board is looking at it and I think everything we do we should look at cost savings, if there are better services that can be provided if there is more state funding to do it this way,” Sherman said. “I think there’s no harm in looking at all options of how we manage all aspects of county government.”

Sherman added that there are similar arrangements in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, and that the state will review the logistics to determine whether it’s feasible. He said they will work through the budget numbers and make an ultimate decision on any changes at a later date.

“It will stay intact. It’s just a different management,” Sherman said. “People aren’t losing jobs. It just transfers over to the management under the umbrella (of DHS). … A lot of counties have done it that way. I think it’s a good model.”

Tamiggi said there was a study conducted with input from probation, Human Services and even the Washington Drug and Alcohol Commission. He said the findings from the study showed the centralized effort would bring overall efficiency to the program.

“Based on that, we thought it was appropriate to request action to mobilize,” Tamiggi said.

Tamiggi said the letter of intent is the first step after the report was finalized, which would then get the process moving and could take six months to implement, although no final decision has been made.

“It’s not something that would happen overnight,” Tamiggi said. “Before we wanted to take full-blown action we wanted to (approve the letter of intent).”

“This is the study we had months ago,” Sherman said. “It was all detailed in there.”

But Maggi questioned whether he ever received the 34-page report, which Tamiggi admitted wasn’t finalized last Thursday. Maggi said he and the commissioners did not get a copy of the report until after Tuesday’s meeting.

“I think this should be reviewed a little more locally,” Maggi said. “I just adamantly disagree with the way we’ve handled this.”

Washington Drug and Alcohol Commission Executive Director Cheryl Andrews attended Tuesday’s agenda discussion and asked the commissioners to table a decision, although it appears that it will be on the agenda at Thursday’s voting meeting. After the meeting, Andrews questioned why they were considering moving the program into a county agency when the nonprofit has been functioning well for 23 years.

Andrews, who raised concerns about the allocation of grants from the county’s opioid settlement fund during the commissioners’ Nov. 6 meeting, said her nonprofit has “worked collaboratively” with previous boards, so she was unsure why officials were considering changes now.

“Instead of reinventing the wheel, they need to support the (single county authority) in place,” Andrews said while predicting any changes would take one or two years to implement.

The commissioners will vote at 10 a.m. Thursday in the public meeting room on the ground floor of the Crossroads Center building at 95 W. Beau St. in Washington.