Report: County's human services agency needs oversight

GREENSBURG, Pa. (AP) -- Westmoreland County needs to create an administrative position to oversee all the county's human services.
That conclusion is based on the results of an investigation into the starvation death of a 4-year-old girl.
Kristen Tatar had been under the agency's care but was released to her parents' custody in September 2001 before they moved to neighboring Armstrong County. That's where the girl's body was found stuffed into a picnic cooler behind their home last summer.
Tatar's parents, Janet Lynne Crawford, 35, and James Anthony Tatar, 41, are awaiting trial on criminal homicide charges that they starved her to death.
They say the girl had an eating disorder.
Westmoreland County Commissioner Terry Marolt said he agrees with the report that says the county's Children's Bureau needs more outside oversight. The agency also needs less caseworker turnover and a renegotiated union contract to help prevent that, Marolt said.
Children's Bureau Director Marilyn McSparrin won't discuss the Tatar case, but disagreed with many of the recommendations.
Supervising troubled families is "an ongoing balancing act for a very, very busy agency," McSparrin said.