Apr 25, 2018 2 min read

CHARLEROI – Charleroi Area School Board bumped the district’s longtime athletic director from a full-time position.

The board Tuesday voted 4-3 not to extend Bill Wiltz’s contract as a cost-saving measure. Wiltz is paid a salary of $25,000, but the position will now be part time at a salary of $8,500 beginning July 1. The board voted to advertise the position in-house. The position will now be held by a district employee and class periods during the day will be designated for athletics.

School board President Ken Wiltz abstained from the vote because Bill Wiltz is his brother. School directors Joe Caruso, Elaine Pappasergi, Barbara Pepper and Charles Yakich voted in favor of the change, while Heather Keranko, Thomas Nutting and Antonia Pellegrini voted no. The current position was a yearly contract.

“This has been a hard decision, as you can tell with the vote,” said Superintendent Ed Zelich.”We have discussed this for months. We are on a tight budget.”

The board is facing a preliminary budget deficit of $500,000 with an anticipated budget of $24 million. The board will have a special budget meeting at 5 p.m. May 9. Zelich said the district has been cutting costs with a change in health-care providers, attrition and cost-sharing programs.

“We will be going through the budget line by line,” Zelich said.

The board also voted to enter into an agreement with Charleroi Area Regional Police Department to provide a full-time police officer for the elementary center. Zelich said in light of the recent national events that the board felt an additional officer on the campus was needed in case of an emergency.

“We are living in different times,” he said. The district currently has two officers and one security guard. Zelich said that one of the officers is away from campus a lot of the time because of court appearances.