A new administrator is on her way to Palmerton Area School District after its board hired Karissa Belcher on Tuesday as human resources director.

Belcher, who will start on May 6 and make $85,000 per year, comes to the district from Lehigh Carbon Community College where she was assistant HR director.

Jamie Schuler, Palmerton’s assistant to the superintendent, has been handling human resources duties since she was hired in October 2020. This move, directors said, would allow Schuler to focus on her role as curriculum director.

“We want to make sure we don’t have an employee who is sitting here until 10 p.m. at night burning herself out because she is doing two jobs,” Board President Sherry Haas said. “Six days a week, sometimes seven days a week. That isn’t good for anybody.”

Belcher’s hiring passed Tuesday by a 6-2 vote. Directors Earl and Danielle Paules cast the no votes.

“I wouldn’t have an argument if all of our other local schools had a human resources person, but they don’t,” Earl Paules said before the vote. “Ten administrators alone costs us $1.1 million per year and now we’re going to hire another one. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m just trying to look out for the taxpayer and that’s all I have wanted to do since I’ve come on the board.”

Director Alyson Krawchuk said the human resources job comes with a laundry list of important responsibilities that extends beyond the hiring process. Overseeing and planning staff professional development, meeting state and federal mandates and dealing with any employee issues are just a few of the items in the job description.

“Something had to give because by Jamie not being able to focus all of her time on curriculum, it was starting to trickle down and impact the students,” Krawchuk said. “We do need to save taxpayer money, but we also need to take care of our students. When we renew the curriculum or get new curriculum, that needs to be taught to the staff. We also need to make sure our employees don’t get burned out.”

Tuesday was not the first time Palmerton has taken duties away from administrators it already has on staff. Prior to Schuler’s hiring in 2020, Dan Heaney was overseeing the district’s technology department and handling curriculum director responsibilities.

“This is similar to what happened there because with COVID, we had a major increase in the time Dan needed to focus on technology, so we separated that out from curriculum,” Haas said.

District resident Richard Banko said while he understood the mandates the district faces from the state and federal governments, he doesn’t want to see it end up like Bethlehem Steel.

“We lost our job there because the company got too top heavy,” Banko said. “When I left there, for every blue collar worker out on the floor, we were supporting 11 white collar people. You can’t survive like that.”

The addition of Belcher is welcomed by Palmerton’s staff, S.S. Palmer librarian and teachers’ union president Michelle Muffley said.

“It is very important to have that person who people can go to if there is an issue,” Muffley said. “We didn’t have that in the past and we had serious issues. It’s important to be able to do that without any chance of retaliation. I think the board chose a really good candidate.”