Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board confirms new warden
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The Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board voted overwhelmingly Thursday to approve a career state corrections officer as its new warden.
Trevor Wingard, 55, who retired from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections in 2022, will start on Monday.
The vote, after board members spent more than an hour peppering Wingard with questions, was 7 in favor, 1 opposed and 1 abstention.
Board member Rob Perkins, a criminal defense attorney, voted in favor after getting Wingard to verbally commit to being transparent with the board, communicating with them in a timely manner and setting health care as a priority at the jail.
“I believe that you have a vision for really listening to the community and collaborating,” Perkins said during the vote. “And one of the things that we don’t always hear is a lot of humility from our leaders of our institutions. And I think you have that, too.
“I think you’re going to be wildly successful.”
Wingard had a 28-year career with the state. He retired as the deputy secretary of corrections for the western region. In 2011, he served for seven months as an interim warden at the Allegheny County Jail and said he wanted to return to the facility to help bring about long-term change.
He will replace former Warden Orlando Harper, who retired in September 2023, as well as an interim and acting warden who have served since then.
Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato announced a national search in the spring, hiring an agency to lead the search and appointing nine people to a warden search committee.
Prior to the vote on Thursday, several members of the Jail Oversight Board expressed frustration with the process, saying that even though they were promised transparency, there were few meetings, and they felt like they were not included.
Bethany Hallam, who serves on county council and is a longtime, outspoken member of the board, was a member of the search committee.
Even so, she said, the committee met only twice over several months, and she spoke with the man leading the search only twice. Hallam said the committee members didn’t get to interview any of the job candidates until they had been narrowed down to the final two.
“I just thought I would feel more included in that process,” she said.
Hallam and others also complained about the short turnaround time they had from when they learned that Wingard was the nominee and having to meet and research him and then vote.
“I think we can all say we could have done a better job through that process — especially the public getting more involved at different times,” said county Controller Corey O’Connor, who voted in favor of Wingard.
Man-E, a citizen member of the board, said the process used to select the nominee was not collaborative.
“I think there’s a lot of expertise on the board … that was not engaged and that was not utilized in a way that it should have been.”
Perkins called the process not “particularly transparent … or inclusive of the board.”
“But ultimately, we have an amazing candidate and the administration to its credit did work with Mr. Wingard, met with us basically every waking hour for the past week,” Perkins said.
Hallam gave her word when she was asked to join the search committee that she would abstain from any vote to approve the new warden.
She did so on Thursday. But, she told Wingard, “I am comfortable with you being the warden. I think you are very qualified. I think your resume is really impressive.”
Man-E was the only person to vote against Wingard.
During discussion, he said he believed Wingard to be “pretty progressive.”
In their discussions, Man-E said, Wingard offered ideas on population reduction, community involvement, programming and education.
“Most importantly, he is committed to transparency and accountability, to not just the board, but to the community at large,” he said. “I do believe that you’ll bring positive changes to the jail.”
But, he continued just before voting no, “I don’t think there’s any good way for anyone to function as a part of an oppressive system. … There’s no such thing as a good warden, and there’s no such thing as a good jail.”
Wingard identified some of his priorities as reforming intake procedures, reducing the jail population and examining re-entry procedures. He said he will spend his first day on the job getting to know his administration and staff and then head out into the facility to meet every person living there and working there.
“That’s going to be all shifts through the first few weeks,” he said. “I’m not a 7 to 3, or 8 to 4-type person.”