Three top employees at PA's DPW have been fired

(Harrisburg)  The Corbett Administration has terminated three top employees of the Department of Public Welfare, several weeks after the agency's secretary left.

A department spokeswoman has declined to say why the men lost their jobs, calling it a personnel matter.

They included Philip Abromats, the executive director of audits and regulatory affairs, and special assistants Erik Randolph and Ron Semerjian. Former Secretary Gary Alexander's last day was February 15.

Abromats says he was fired without notice Friday and not told why.

He says he and the other two men had been closely associated either with Alexander or the policies he had advanced.

Alexander was an advocate of welfare austerity measures and opposed an expansion of Medicaid under the 2010 Affordable Care Act.