Water Damage Restoration in Penn Hills, PA

The Pittsburgh Steelers have invited former Penn Hills star Hollis Mathis to their rookie minicamp. A standout at William and Mary, Mathis won the PIAA 5A title in 2018 on a team that featured future Penn State star and Buffalo Bills cornerback Daequan Hardy.

Mathis played an array of positions with the Tribe. He was a quarterback, running back, and wide receiver. He was just the second player in NCAA history to finish his career with more than 1000 passing yards, rushing yards, and receiving yards.

Mathis grew up in Penn Hills and was a standout there before embarking on his excellent career in college as a versatile player. At his pro day, Mathis ran a 4.59 40-yard dash and projects likely as a wide receiver.

Mathis’ best tests were his explosiveness drils, where he posted a 36.5-inch vertical and a 10-foot-10-inch broad jump.

A 6-foot-1, 174-pound player, Mathis has a trait in versatility that no one else at the camp will have. It simply adds that he is from Pittsburgh, but he will now have the opportunity to prove what he can do during his rookie minicamp stint.

He is one of seven players known to have received an invitation to the rookie minicamp, which is expected to take place in two weeks.

The Steelers team total wins line has been set at 8.5 on DraftKings for the 2025-26 NFL season. Our complete DraftKings Sportsbook review provides a guide on how to use their platform.

Daniel Matsook describes the Penn Hills School District of today as a “different place” from when he started as chief recovery officer in 2019.

At the time, the district reported a negative fund balance. Officials were taking out loans to pay teacher salaries. And the district quickly ran out of money when they paid those loans back, forcing them to ask the Pennsylvania Department of Education for its yearly subsidy early.

But this month the district painted a drastically different picture.

The Penn Hills School District last week celebrated the one-year anniversary of exiting Pennsylvania’s financial recovery program, a move the school board topped off by passing a proposed $106 million balanced budget that does not raise taxes.

“There’s a positive vibe in the district. … Whenever I come in and I see it from a different lens, from a different height, I just see and feel a different place,” Mr. Matsook told the Post-Gazette.

The update followed years of upheaval in the district of more than 3,000 students.

Problems largely started in 2007 when the district was contending with $400,000 in debt. At the time, the state stepped in with the goal of reducing costs by downsizing the high school. But rather than following through with the plan, district leaders instead chose to design a new elementary and high school featuring high-end materials such as chandeliers, floor tiles imported from Italy and a white roof at the high school instead of a cheaper black one.

The decision increased the district’s overall debt to nearly $6.5 million.

The situation continued to worsen and in 2017 Penn Hills was put on financial watch.

But a year later then-state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale issued a scathing report citing a “total breakdown” in oversight and a “shocking” $18.8 million deficit. That was reinforced in 2019 in an Allegheny County grand jury report, which detailed a lack of understanding of future costs and obligations related to the projects.

That same year, state officials placed Penn Hills in financial recovery, seizing control of the district’s finances and appointing a financial recovery officer to form a financial plan.

From there Mr. Matsook took the reins and alongside the school board created a plan to cut staff to match declining enrollments and freeze salaries. The district also raised taxes by a total of 2 mills over five years and worked to reduce the number of students attending charter schools.

By May 2020 Penn Hills received its first round of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, funds given out during the COVID-19 pandemic. In all, the district received $18.1 million in pandemic relief funds — those funds ceased in September — which were used to cover building maintenance costs and to bolster its fund balance that at the time only totaled $600,000. Today the district has a $16 million fund balance, the proposed 2025-26 budget shows.

And Penn Hills officially exited the recovery program last May, making it the third district across Pennsylvania to do so.

“From a recovery standpoint we’re extremely happy and excited about celebrating one year when most districts are worried about what’s happening with their budgets and they’re raising taxes,” Mr. Matsook said. “We’re not doing that.”

Ongoing recovery

For Penn Hills Chief Financial Officer John Zahorchak, the past 12 months have been about “making sure you don’t slide back.”

To do that, Mr. Zahorchak has focused on ensuring long range financial projections are aligned to the district’s goals and priorities. Often, he prepares for multiple scenarios that include charter school tuition payments, which have continued to rise, and the uncertainty of federal funds, which have been at the center of conversations as the Trump administration continues chipping away at the U.S. Department of Education.

“We have to strive to keep that balance,” Mr. Zahorchak said. “And I think that's the most important thing, is just to be prepared. We do a lot of forecasting and a lot of financial modeling just so we can see as things change within and without our control how that's going to, in fact, affect us long-term.”

Other decisions, Superintendent John Mozzocio said, included bringing security and mental health services in-house. The district in August also announced that several charter school students in the district will take public transit, a decision that was expected to save Penn Hills nearly $411,000 in transportation costs.

Officials have also applied for and received nearly $4 million in school improvement grants.

In addition to making financial changes, district leaders developed dashboards focused on finances, academics, charter schools, human resources and restorative discipline practices. The goal of the dashboards, which are updated on a monthly basis, are to help officials maintain stability and to keep administrators up-to-date on the latest numbers.

“Having a tool in place that we can monitor on a monthly basis instead of finding out in six months or finding out in 12 months, oh geez what went wrong, we are tracking it monthly,” Mr. Matsook said. “To me, that is a key component to our recovery.”

Looking forward, the district plans to expand on its success so far.

“We’re going to continue, from my perspective, tightening up the system so everybody knows what the other person’s doing, everybody knows what the expectations are on the academic and financial,” Mr. Matsook said. “Tightening up the system has been a tremendous success for the Penn Hills School District.”

Mr. Mozzocio pointed to the district’s new PHorge Academy, which when it opens next year will give students the opportunity to pursue four career paths while in high school including in business, robotics, information technology and health care. To build on that district officials are now talking to local colleges and universities about offering credit opportunities to students.

District leaders are also looking into summer programming to help students struggling in certain subject areas.

“We haven’t even scratched the surface,” Mr. Mozzocio said, “of what we want to do.”

First Published: May 19, 2025, 11:44 a.m. Updated: May 19, 2025, 6:30 p.m.

A woman in Penn Hills is still cleaning up after severe storms ripped through western Pennsylvania in late April.

Cynthia Ames can't seem to catch a break.

"This is overwhelming," she said.

More than two weeks after April 29's intense storms, she is still left with a big mess to clean up at her home. Piles of branches and logs are littered across her yard

"I don't have tools," Ames said. "I have clippers. That's it. And so I come and cut what I can with the clippers."

Her and her son's cars were totaled during the storm. She said they didn't have comprehensive car insurance. Their fence, roof, and heating and cooling system were also damaged.

She added that she has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, saying it's not safe for her not to have air conditioning.

"I'm exhausted and I can't sleep at night because I have sleep apnea and COPD," she said. "I just cough all night."

"There's dust and debris," she added. "So we all got sick from that, whatever debris came through the HVAC system into this house."

She can't even begin to think about making repairs. She is also paying $800 a week for a car to get to work.

"We can't even pay the bills right now," Ames said. "We're paying to get to work. We're paying for a car to get to and from work so we can maintain our jobs."

Ames told us she's still waiting to hear back on her homeowner's insurance, but she's confident she won't have to pay for everything

After years in a state program for financially-distressed school districts, Penn Hills School District officials told board members Wednesday that they expect to finish the current budget year with surplus funds.

Chief financial officer John Zahorchak presented board members with a $106 million balanced budget proposal for the 2025-2026 school year. Administrators did not propose raising taxes, and residents who qualify for the homestead property tax exclusion are expected to receive a bigger tax reduction.

Superintendent John Mozzocio, who joined the district in November 2023, said Penn Hills is moving from “survival mode” to “growth mode.”

“We have a lot of momentum in the Penn Hill School District — financially, academically,” Mozzocio told WESA. “And we have to ride that wave to continue the growth mindset.”

Penn Hills graduated from the state’s program for struggling districts last year after a series of teacher furloughs, tax hikes and bond refinancing.

Doing so has replenished the district’s cash reserves — at one time overdrawn by $18 million. District officials told school board members Wednesday they now expect their fund balance to reach $16 million for the 2025-2026 school year.

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District chief recovery officer Dan Matsook said the district's efforts to stay solvent last year were made possible, in part, by the $18.1 million in pandemic aid it received from the federal government.

Matsook told school board members Wednesday evening that the district is now in a better position than many other districts scrambling to sustain staffing levels and programs previously propped up by federal dollars.

“The ongoing challenge, obviously, is sustainability,” Matsook said.

To prevent that, district officials have worked to rightsize staffing levels to match enrollment, cut down on the number of employees over age 65 on district healthcare plans and worked with state lawmakers to secure additional state funding.

Lawmakers helped the district secure several million dollars in state grants for building improvements at Linton Middle School. Zahorchak said Penn Hills is also planning for an additional $4 million in state education funding for next school year, pending any changes during state budget negotiations next month.

Academically, the district is working to improve test scores at each of its three schools and launch new student programs. The district worked with public television station WQED to upgrade the broadcasting center at Linton and launched a program for aspiring nurses.

At the high school, the district has developed programs through which students can earn certifications and college credits in robotics, IT, nursing, and business entrepreneurship.

“We're trying to tie in where kids are interested and where their passions lie to draw them back to the district or keep them here,” Penn Hill superintendent John Mozzocio said.

News from WESA

Meanwhile, administrators have set up several dashboards to continue to monitor district finances and charter enrollment, as well as student disciplinary infractions and graduation rates. Those dashboards will be posted to the district’s website at the start of next school year.

“This isn't about raising taxes,” Matsook added. “This is about protecting the fund balance and looking out far enough to make sure that you're being responsible.”

But charter enrollment and transportation costs continue to be a strain on the district’s budget. Zahorchak said the district plans to spend over $20 million on charter tuition payments next school year — roughly a fifth of total expenditures.

As of April, 1,041 local students attended charter schools, both in-person and online. Zahorchak told board members Wednesday that he expects charter school tuition payments to increase by $2.2 million, although he said efforts to retain families this year have kept the number of students enrolled in the district stable.

Over the summer, Penn Hills offered teachers pay incentives to participate in a door-knocking campaign in the hopes of convincing families to re-enroll their students in the district. A new charter high school focused on entrepreneurship will open its doors nearby this fall.

“But the other factor is the tuition rate per student is continuing to go up,” Zahorchak told WESA. “So we're trying to figure out ways to utilize the budget in a way that helps offset those increasing costs.”

School board members are expected to adopt a final budget in the coming weeks.

PENN HILLS, Pa. — In 2019, a grand jury described the finances of Penn Hills School District as catastrophic, leading the state to place the district in financial recovery.

Now, six years later, the district is celebrating a financial surplus.

“Six years ago, Penn Hills was gasping for breath; that’s how bad it was here,” said Dr. Daniel J. Matsook, the district’s chief recovery officer.

In 2019, the Penn Hills School District had approximately $172 million in debt.

“There were bills on the doors, indicating we were delinquent on our light bills. They were going to shut our lights off; that’s how dire the situation was,” School Board President Erin Vecchio said.

A report showed that in 2009, the district’s debt was $11 million, which skyrocketed to $165 million by 2015. By spring 2019, the district was expected to run out of money, prompting the state to put it in financial recovery status. However, six years later, the district is now celebrating its turnaround.

“We are moving out of survival mode into a growth mindset,” said Penn Hills School District Superintendent Dr. John P. Mozzoci.

The district has balanced its budget for the current calendar year without raising taxes. It utilized $4 million in grant funding for building renovations, including upgrades to the pool and media center.

Additionally, it has established an in-house security team, improved academic performance scores, and introduced new programs in nursing, IT, and robotics. Looking ahead, the district identifies its biggest challenge as the cost of charter schools.

“The number one threat to our sustainability is the expense related to charter schools. Some commonsense changes can be made regarding how they are funded,” Matsook said.

In Pennsylvania, school districts are responsible for funding charter schools, paying a set rate for each student that attends, which costs them thousands in tuition and transportation.

Penn Hills believes that changes can be made at the state level in Harrisburg.

“They are ruining public education, and the people in Harrisburg need to take action to stop it,” Vecchio said.

The district will hold a formal budget meeting on Wednesday at 6 p.m. to present its current budget for board approval.

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