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Sharon, Pa., official focuses on future
SHARON, Pa. — Sharon’s new city manager says he wants to focus on the future, not on his parting of the ways with his most recent employers in an Allegheny County township.
Thomas Lavorini, 58, of Butler, Pa., will take the administrative helm as the city’s government starts a new course. It’s transitioning from leadership that includes a council with an elected mayor to a council with a hired manager — finally ready to make that change residents decided on three years ago when they voted in a home-rule charter.
A search committee including home-rule transition team members and city council members chose Lavorini from 45 candidates, said Ed Palanski, chairman of the transition team.
At a council meeting Thursday, he was unanimously hired and is to begin Monday. He’ll be around as council tries to finalize its 2010 budget without raising taxes — though a preliminary budget does show a property-tax increase from 26.1 mills to 28.1 mills.
He sees his day-to-day duties as chief administrative officer and chief financial officer as well, at least until the city hires a finance director, he said.
Mike Donato, council president, said that, technically, Lavorini’s day-to-day duties will be similar to those of outgoing Mayor Bob Lucas.
“The difference is the manager is more of an expert in the financial aspect,” Donato said. “Anyone could be elected mayor,” he said, but the requirements for the manager’s job are “more stringent.”
Lavorini will be paid $67,500, and his benefits will cost the city $12,000 a year, council said.
As he focuses on his future with the city, he did not want to discuss the past. “I’m looking forward to coming here,” he said after his hiring, to a standing ovation
Lavorini had been the manager of Ross Township in Allegheny County for 18 years when, in a 5-3 vote in August 2008, township commissioners dismissed him.
He was being paid $90,000 a year in the township of 32,000 people, twice the population of Sharon.
When the Vindicator asked him about his firing Thursday, he said he would not comment on the “personnel matter.”
Palanski, who spoke to the Vindicator Wednesday in a telephone interview, said Lavorini was the most attractive candidate for several reasons.
“He has 30 years’ experience in municipal management,” Palanski said, adding that his experience from western Pennsylvania is a plus.
He said the search committee did “extensive background checks” on Lavorini and was satisfied that his dismissal from Ross was “a change in the political wind” there.
Daniel DeMarco, who is president of Ross Township’s nine-member board of commissioners and had cast one of the votes to oust him, said Friday he wishes Lavorini well in Sharon.
DeMarco said the fact that the township is facing a deficit along with a conflict between some commissioners and Lavorini’s “management style” contributed to his dismissal.
He said the township’s former finance director became the new manager — “he has more of a financial background.”
He also said those who voted to dismiss Lavorini believed some township day-to-day operations could be run “more efficiently.”
“He had his opinion it was efficient,” DeMarco said. “It was a difference of opinion.”
DeMarco said Lavorini is “extremely knowledgeable when it comes to municipal government.”
“It was time [for Ross] to move in a new direction,” DeMarco said. “I think he’ll do a great job for Sharon. He’s new for them.”