Penn-Trafford School Board challenger dies, 2 incumbents remain

Though the Penn-Trafford community will feel Sara “Sallie” Bradley's absence from school board meetings and sporting events, her name remains on the primary ballot to challenge incumbents Nick Petrucci and Scott Koscho for the Democratic nomination in the Region 1 school board race. Petrucci and Koscho also are running for the Republican nominations.

Bradley, who died Friday at the age of 74, was a longtime supporter of Warrior athletics and even naming her St. Bernard Greego after the school's green and gold color scheme. A former teacher, Bradley served on the board from 1987 to 2007, when she lost in the primary. Despite failing to win back a seat in 2009, 2011 or 2013, Bradley regularly attended school board meetings to share her views on district spending or promote the community groups with which she was involved.

If Democratic voters in Trafford, Level Green and parts of the 3rd Ward in Penn Township choose Bradley as one of the two nominees on May 19, the party will be able to select someone to take her position in the general election, a spokeswoman for the Westmoreland County Election Bureau said.

Four years ago, Bradley topped Koscho by just two votes in the Democratic primary to move on to the general election. However, she fell 879 and 574 votes shy of Petrucci and Koscho, respectively, in the November race.

Petrucci and Koscho both said they want to continue serving to help guide the district through the conclusion of the $32 million remodeling of the high school.

Petrucci, a retired special-needs teacher, is seeking his 10th four-year term on the board. He has been a longtime proponent of the district setting aside more money in its budget to help pay for improvements to the other aging buildings. The high school — built in 1972 — is the district's newest school, while McCullough Elementary dates back to 1924, and Penn Middle School opened in 1937.

Often, Petrucci said, he can't find a second person on the board to support his goal of saving up for other building improvements.

The district also has an administration building that was built in 1897.

“Anybody in Penn-Trafford that doesn't think we're frugal, just look at our administration building,” said Petrucci, 72.

Petrucci also has been a backer of a $6 million remodeling project at Central Westmoreland Career and Technology Center.

One area where Petrucci and Koscho disagreed last year was on the new four-year contract the school board gave the teachers.

In a 6-3 vote — with Petrucci for and Koscho against — the board approved a deal that locked the salary steps on the pay scale, preventing an increase from the previous deal. The most-experienced teachers — those at the top of the 17-step scale — also accepted a two-year pay freeze before receiving a bump in salary. Shorter-tenured teachers will continue to move up one step every year.

District officials estimated that almost half of teachers would take a pay freeze over the course of the deal, which Petrucci said is fair to taxpayers and the educators.

“For us to ignore the performance they're doing, I don't think it'd be the right thing to do,” said Petrucci, who was on the board's negotiating committee.

While Koscho said he appreciated the committee's work, but he was looking for more concessions. At the start of the process, board members were seeking the same across-the-board pay freezes from teachers as they received from administrators and other unionized employees, he said.

“I just felt, from a fairness approach, that everybody should take (a pay freeze),” said Koscho, a two-term incumbent.

Also last year, Koscho was the only board member who voted against a 2-mill tax increase in the 2014-15 budget. At the time, Koscho explained that he preferred only a 1-mill increase to help pay for the district's rising contribution to the teachers' pension costs. The board also pledged to use 1 mill worth of tax revenue toward district operations this school year.

Koscho described himself as a fiscal conservative who represents a cross section of perspectives in the district. His parents, who are retired, still live in the district, and he has four children going through the school system.

With two children who still are at the middle and elementary school levels, Koscho said he recognizes the board will have to return to strategizing how the district should update its schools in the coming years. Administrators collected feedback from the community in 2011, but officials will have to begin evaluating the long-term use of buildings as the high school project winds down in summer 2016, he said.

“It's critical to get community input,” Koscho said.

Chris Foreman is a staff writer for Trib Total Media.