The North Huntingdon township board of commissioners voted to increase the number of summer interns hired from eight to 14.

The commissioners discussed making the change at their March 13 work session, but they waited to hear back from township department heads if they needed more workers. At the regular meeting a week later, interim township manager Michael Turley told commissioners the department heads requested an additional five interns, which, combined with a new intern for the administration that Turley requested, brought the total to 14.

Turley said two interns would go to the parks department and three would go to public works.

Commissioner Lee Moffatt asked Public Works Director Rich Albert why the additional three interns were not included in the original 2008 budget. Albert said he had included them, but former township manager Kelly Wolfe reduced the number because of budgetary constraints.

Although Moffatt expressed concerns about the increased expense of hiring 14 interns, Commissioner Angelo Furlin said the cost would not increase significantly. He said in previous years, the township has not spent all the money allocated for interns because some of the interns did not work the entire summer.

After Furlin made a motion to increase the number of interns hired to 14, commissioners David Herold, Anthony Martino and Donald Austin joined Furlin to pass the measure, 4-3.

However the motion did not address the matter of how the interns would be hired, which prompted a heated discussion at the work session. At the time, commissioners Fred Patter, Rich Gray and Moffatt objected to a proposal to have each commissioner pick two interns from his ward, and instead wanted the township to continue leaving hiring decisions to department heads.

After the meeting, Turley said he had not received any input on the matter, and the motion only changed the number of interns.

"I know that at least some are going to be picked by the directors," he said, explaining that those interns would be involved with recreation department programming.

Township Solicitor Bruce Dice said in the absence of a motion from the board, the most logical approach would be to stick with the current hiring system.

"I would think they would follow the procedure they had in place," he said.

Dice said if the commissioners wanted to alter the hiring method they would have to vote make the change.