Data Deluge

Date: June 19, 2016 Author: Cruncher Comments: Leave a reply

I have been working on making available and easily viewable election data from the primary on April 26, 2016, and I believe I am finally at a point where it is ready. My goal is to make each competitive race easily digestible, giving the totals but also breaking out the results by municipality, ward (where applicable), electoral district, and by neighborhood for any election applicable to Pittsburgh. You may notice data from a smattering of municipalities in Westmoreland county, plus Peters Township in Washington county, and these are the rationales behind which races I show and for which municipalities:

This website is intended to be focused primarily on the 37th Pennsylvania Senatorial District, and most discussions and comments will usually be confined to the district and the communities within it.  However, the district is, with one exception, composed entirely of municipalities within Allegheny County, and much of what happens elsewhere within Allegheny County, especially Pittsburgh, affects the county as a whole.  I have therefore included data for all communities within all Senatorial Districts that are composed of, in whole or in part, municipalities in Allegheny County. These include the 37th, 38th, 42nd, 43rd, and 45th districts.  Outside of Allegheny County, the 37th district includes only Peters Township, and the 45th district includes eight communities in Westmoreland County: the Cities of Lower Burrell, Arnold, and New Kensington, the Boroughs of Hyde Park, West Leechburg, Vandergrift, and East Vandergrift, and Allegheny Township.

It may be an unusual hobby, but I enjoy accumulating and analyzing data as it can tell you a lot about a given community or area and can also lead to some oddities, such as:

  • Ben Avon Heights had the highest turnout out of all the communities covered, but it also the only one to not vote for the winner in either Presidential primary, voting for Sanders and Kasich.
  • Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, and Marco Rubio each managed to win at least one electoral district each, but that is only because each of those districts had so few Republicans that they each received the sole vote cast within that district:
    • Bush won Pittsburgh’s Ward 13, District 9 (Homewood), and Pittsburgh’s Ward 26, District 5 (Northview Heights)
    • Carson won Pittsburgh’s Ward 5, District 12 (Hill District)
    • Rubio won Pittsburgh’s Ward 12, District 10 (Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar)
  • Additionally, a single Write-In candidate won the following districts in the Republican Presidential primary:
    • Pittsburgh’s Ward 5, District 3 (Hill District)
    • Pittsburgh’s Ward 13, District 6 (Homewood)
  • There were several districts that did not record a single Republican vote in the primary at all, with at least one in Duquesne, McKeesport, Penn Hills, Pittsburgh, and West Mifflin
  • John Rafferty won every single municipality in the Republican primary for Attorney General, except for two low-vote communities where he tied (Braddock and Trafford) and one that he lost.  The one municipality that he lost to his opponent, Joe Peters was, indeed, Peters Township. Peters won Peters!. This makes me wonder how many of the voters in these primaries knew or cared about who they were voting for, as I am guessing that Peters appealed to the residents of Peters because Peters was named Peters. Washington County does not provide turnout data, so I unfortunately cannot see if the turnout for that election was higher than it was for other municipalities.
  • Congressional, Senatorial, and Assembly districts are composed almost primarily of municipalities, and where those municipalities are split, the split follows the borders or electoral districts, with only one exception I can find.  For whatever reason, the 14th Congressional district includes a very small piece of Whitehall’s electoral district 1. This, to me, seems inexplicable since Congressional districts are, by far, the largest of the electoral districts in Pennsylvania, including roughly 700,000 people in each. Given the large size, I cannot see why it was important to include those few blocks of Whitehall in the 14th instead of the 18th Congressional district given that the population is trivial compared to the overall population of each district. See the image below – the blue line is the Congressional district border while the black line is the border between Whitehall and Brentwood.

Whitehall-Brentwood Border

 

Update

Date: June 18, 2016 Author: Cruncher Comments: Leave a reply

For various reasons I haven’t posted anything for a while.  Within that long gap, a majority of state and territory primaries and caucuses have come and gone and we now have two presumptive Presidential nominees.  The Pennsylvania primary has also winnowed down the number of candidates for various races, leaving the Senate race between Katie McGinty and Pat Toomey and the Attorney General race between Josh Shapiro and John Rafferty Jr.  The Pennsylvania Senate is also back to full strength as Republican Thomas Killion defeated Martin Molloy and will have the honor of running again this coming November.  This leaves a ratio of 31 Republicans to 19 Democrats in the Senate.

Locally, both Guy Reschenthaler and Ed Eichenlaub have defeated the perennial candidate of “Write-In” and will face each other for the 37th district seat this coming November.  There is a slight advantage in registered Democrats in the district, and though the following stats may be insignificant, Reschenthaler received more actual votes that Eichenlaub, 34,153-32,332.  This difference is smaller than the difference in Peters Township alone, meaning that Eichenlaub has to win the rest of the district by a significant margin in order to make up for the loss he, and any Democrat, is bound to see in Peters.  Matt Smith won only 38.95% of the vote there in 2012, and Heather Arnet won 29%, with both losing by over 2,000 votes.  Eichenlaub’s name recognition probably works against him as he was named on 80.59% of the Democratic ballots while Reschenthaler was named on 91.43% of the Republican ballots.  That means Eichenlaub will need to work hard to increase his name recognition and make the voters comfortable with him.

Reschenthaler seems to have gotten busier in the Senate has he is now the prime sponsor on four bills:

SB 1155, which creates special plates for active members of the armed forces

SB 1161, which sets deadlines on the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) to mail tax credit award letters to businesses applying for Educational Improvement Tax Credits (EITC) or Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credits (OSTC)

SB 1189, which increases fines related to lobbying disclosure and also adds verbiage regarding the Internet (capitalized!) and electronic receipts

and SB 1231, which requires social service employees to report suspected incidences of animal cruelty

These are in addition to his I-want-Tim-Murphy-to-like-me SR 275 urging the US Congress to pass Murphy’s Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act.

The first is far from groundbreaking and is now under consideration in the House after being passed unanimously by the Senate.

The second is largely of the result of this year’s budget impasse, where the letters were not sent out until December, leaving the businesses who applied without enough time to actually make the contributions required by the credits.  The bill allows the businesses also to apply the credit to either the year they applied or the year they made the contribution.  I would like to think that businesses would be willing to contribute funds towards educational scholarships whether they get a tax credit or not, but I guess charity will only go so far.  I have to wonder if a contribution is truly charitable if it is made only because the contributor gets some sort of financial advantage out of it.

The third is a part of the “lobbying reform package” announced by Scott Wagner and allies on December 10th, with the bill itself being introduced on April 19th.  I also seems to make changes to the law that don’t seem terribly significant, but I could be wrong.

The fourth is as simple as the summary, requiring a social services employee to report suspected animal cruelty to a registered animal cruelty prevention society, such as the ASPCA.

Reschenthaler also endorsed Marco Rubio for President some time ago, but there is no word yet on any endorsement of the remaining Republican candidate for President.

Primary Update

Date: February 28, 2016 Author: Cruncher Comments: Leave a reply

So it seems that Guy Reschenthaler has a possible opponent after all as Ed Eichenlaub has succeeded in submitting enough petitions (see page 4 of link) to make himself an official candidate in the Democratic primary on April 26th. Eichenlaub has apparently never before ran for public office, but he has extensive experience in public service as he is an Allegheny County Health Inspector. Aside from pages from sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn, the only easy-to-find web presence is from a 2013 WTAE report on tips to keep a kitchen clean. One reason for starting this site is to try to create public awareness of the political process in general, and Pennsylvania and the communities within the 37th Senatorial District specifically, and I applaud any political novice who is willing to put in the time, effort, and money to run for office. It is not an easy thing to do and the hurdles involved are possibly greater than many think.

The difficulties will be even greater for Eichenlaub as he is running against a man who, though only a Senator for the past few months, has political experience that extends to his prior time as a magistrate judge in district 05-02-16 (Jefferson Hills, Pleasant Hills, South Park). He ran in 2013 and won both the Democratic and Republican primaries against his much older or more experienced opponents. One, Sean Audley, had been a practicing lawyer for 23 years, and the other, Edward Snee, was a long-time police officer and had been serving as a South Park Township Supervisor for four years.  Audley and Snee were both registered Democrats with Reschenthaler being the sole Republican. Despite this, Reschenthaler won both party primaries, 1,179-312-281 on the Republican side (not surprising given party affiliation of the candidates) and 972-698-664 on the Democratic side, and this within an area that had an overall 12,034-8,297 registration advantage for the Democrats. combining both primary votes, Reschenthaler won 863-299-175 in Jefferson Hills, Reschenthaler’s home municipality, 652-439-139 in Pleasant Hills, Audley’s home municipality, and 636-272-631 in South Park, Snee’s home municipality. As you can see, he won a majority of all votes in all three municipalities and won each primary tally within each municipality except for the Democratic primary in South Park, which Snee won handily, providing him with roughly half of the overall number of votes he received in both primaries in all municipalities. In other words, Reschenthaler was able to win both Democrats and Republicans to his side in significant numbers, overcoming what should have been a natural advantage for Audley in terms of experience and party affiliation. Not having been a resident in the area at that time, I do not know what that might have been, but I would like to find out.

Regardless, Reschenthaler has political experience, financial means, and strong support from his local community on his side. This has visibly manifested itself in the form of a formal protest against the signatures provided by Eichenlaub, filed under docket number 98 MD 2016 in the Commonwealth Court by Carole King, Albert Fencik, Jr., and Janice Cmar. All three petitioners live in Jefferson Hills and are citizens of some prominence. King served as Borough Treasurer from 1978-1990 and Police Clerk from 1990-2012, earning sufficient respect that the Borough Council publicly commended her in 2012. Cmar is, in fact, the mayor of Jefferson Hills, having been sworn in by Reschenthaler as his first act as Magistrate Judge in 2014.  Fencik is a little more obscure, at least by web-searching standards, but he was probably once a resident of Lincoln Place as this 1986 letter to the editor of Pittsburgh Press would attest and disliked the 4% wage tax that Pittsburgh levied at the time. Regardless, Reschenthaler has some significant residents of Jefferson Hills supporting him and are willing to help him out in this contest. That means Eichenlaub will have his work cut out for him even if he managed to get past the objection.

Slow News Month

Date: February 4, 2016 Author: Cruncher Comments: Leave a reply

January has ended with four days of Senate sessions with six bills passed, two of which are concurrences with House-amended bills that had already passed the Senate. The Senate (and House) will not reconvene until February 8th, which can only mean there are no important issues facing the Commonwealth that need immediate attention.

Guy Reschenthaler also now appears as the Prime Sponsor for a resolution submitted to the Senate. Since this is a resolution, it is NOT the lobbying-violation-fine-increase bill announced last month, but instead it is SR275: “A Resolution urging the Congress of the United States to pass H.R. 2646, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015.” I can only assume that Reschenthaler has begun taking a keen interest in the mental health of Americans and that this resolution has nothing to do with the fact that the sponsor of H.R. 2646 is Tim Murphy, the well-entrenched and well-funded U.S. Congressman from the 18th Pennsylvania district, which includes almost the entirety of the 37th district of the Pennsylvania Senate. Otherwise, one may think that the resolution is specifically geared to curry favor from Congressman Murphy.

Also, someone pointed out to me that Reschenthaler does NOT provide an email address that can be used to contact him or his office directly, and that anyone who wishes to do so should use a form provided on his website. I wanted to see how this compared with the other Senators and discovered that only three, John Sabatina, Patrick Stefano, and Reschenthaler do not provide an email link on their Senate page, and though Sabatina and Stefano provide links to their websites, Facebook page, and Twitter feed, Reschenthaler only provides a link to his website. Perhaps this is just a reflection of how new he is to the Senate as he does have a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, a (probably personal) Google+ page, and even a YouTube channel (with nothing on it). Interestingly, 10 Senators who provide an email link actually link to the “Contact Me” form on their website, which means only 36 of the current 49 Senators provide a contact email address. Of the 13 who do not, 12 are Republican and 1 (Sabatina) is a Democrat.

The 2016 Election Season Begins

Date: January 21, 2016 Author: Cruncher Comments: Leave a reply

It is now January 20th, the Senate has been back in session for two days, and in six days the election season for 2016 will begin. The Bureau of Elections, Commissions, and Legislation has placed the year’s election schedule online, and January 26th is the first day that nomination petitions can be circulated. It remains to be seen if there will be any competitors to the current most junior Senator, but I am hopeful that there will be some measure of competition. Even in cases where the incumbent is well-entrenched, such as with Tim Murphy, it is always better to have at least some choice given to the electorate. If Reschenthaler runs unopposed, he may very well become entrenched until he sees some opportunity to move up or out. The last three senators from the 37th district have all resigned (Tim Murphy in 2003, John Pippy in 2012, and Matt Smith in 2015), so that trend may very well continue if Reschenthaler gets no competition.

Once the office of Matt Smith, now it is the office of Guy Reschenthaler, though without a name change.

Once the office of Matt Smith, this building is now the office of Guy Reschenthaler, though without a name change.

Reschenthaler’s State Senate page is available and shows two offices serving the district, one in Moon and one in Mt Lebanon. I haven’t been by the office in Moon, but a drive past his office in Mt Lebanon yesterday showed that the signage is a bit behind the times. I’m guessing that either the budget impasse has not allowed funds to be made available to replace the signage, or Reschenthaler is saving every dime he has to retain his seat against any rival in the election this year. Interestingly, Matt Smith’s personal senate page is still up, seemingly unchanged after his resignation in June. That is, everything is frozen in time except for his Twitter feed.

Lastly, Reschenthaler was one of five Senators, led by Scott Wagner, to announce a package of six bills to try to reform lobbying in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with Reschenthaler’s particular contribution being  bill to “increase penalties for violations of the lobbyist law from $2,000 to $4,000, with penalties increasing for repeat violations.” This doesn’t strike me as being particularly groundbreaking in itself, but it does indicate that Reschenthaler is initially aligning himself with Wagner, a distinctly non-establishment if not Tea Party-aligned Republican from York County whose package of bills is raising questions of his intent.

Back to 49 We Go

Date: January 6, 2016 Author: Cruncher Comments: Leave a reply

the9thWhile in the process of setting up this blog, I found out, using more effort than it should have been, that Dominic Pileggi, Senator from the 9th district, which includes parts of Chester and Delaware counties, resigned effective January 3rd, 2016, so that he can serve as a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County, a position to which he was elected in November.  As per usual, he will be replaced in a special election sometime in the future, on a date to be determined.  This means that I will need to make some changes behind the scenes to make some of the blog’s pages work with 49 senators instead of 50, it also means that Guy Reschenthaler’s term as the 50th Senator in seniority will be a short one.

What most intrigues me about this news is how hidden this information was. While running through the list of Senators on the PA Senate website, I discovered that no Senator was listed for District 9.  Seeing that the most recent Senator for this district was Pileggi, I did a Google search for his name and saw that his Wikipedia entry still listed him as the Incumbent. Another search result was to his Senatorial webpage, which had suspiciously excised any reference to Pileggi himself and had become a generic 9th District webpage. Ultimately I had to go to his Facebook page to find the news of his resignation from a post he left on December 29th. No announcement of any type was to be found on the Senate home page, no explanation was given on that site as to why no Senator was listed as representing District 9. You have to find this out explicitly by either viewing the print-friendly list of Senators or by using the “Find My Legislator” form to see the Senator listed as “VACANT”. I wouldn’t expect his resignation to be trumpeted on TV and print news in Pittsburgh, but I don’t think it should be that hard to find, especially for anyone interested enough in the Pennsylvania Senate to view its webpage. I wonder how many people in his district are even aware of this happening, given the traditionally low turnout for odd-year elections and my personal experience in seeing the lack of knowledge of Matt Smith’s resignation in the 37th district just last year.

Somewhat amusingly, the Pennsylvania Senate Republicans website lists “9th Senatorial District” as a currently-serving GOP Senator. You may think this presumptuous since, in theory at least, a Democrat could perfectly well win this seat in the special election. However, as a grand total of three men, all Republicans, have held this seat since 1949, an assumption of victory may not be so far-fetched. Although long held by Republicans, it is in an area of the state with largely Democratic representation, so perhaps a Democratic victory is not so improbable.

Whither Haysville?

Date: December 26, 2015 Author: Cruncher Comments: Leave a reply

HaysvilleAllegheny County is infamous for having the largest number of municipalities of any county in Pennsylvania, with 130 in all.  This has resulted in quite a variety of different types of communities, from large and thoroughly urban cities like Pittsburgh and McKeesport, to sparsely settled but geographically large townships like Findlay or Fawn.  You can’t get to 130 without a number of very tiny boroughs like Wall, or Chalfant, or the tiniest of them all, Pennsbury Village.  45 municipalities in all are entirely within Allegheny County and are less than one square mile large.  One of those is also the smallest municipality by population: the Borough of Haysville.  This 0.2 sq mi speck sits on the north side of the Ohio valley within the Quaker Valley school district and sports a 2010 population of 70.  This low population leads to a low number of registered voters:  56 in all in 2015.  Of these voters, only 18 cast any ballots at all, and each of these 18 voters encountered a situation unique to Haysville; not a single candidate was listed for any Haysville office.  Up for election were Mayor, Tax Collector, Constable, and what appears to be five members of council, and absolutely no one had their name on the ballot as the official candidate.   As such, every vote was a write-in candidate and not everyone who submitted  a ballot bothered to put in their suggestion for each office.  Most overlooked was Tax Collector, which received a grand total of three write-in votes.  I can only hope that they were not three different names, as I do not know what would happen if any municipal office election resulted in a three-way tie of one vote each.

Here are the final vote count for each office:

Mayor: 12 votes out of 18 ballots cast

Tax Collector: 3 votes out of 18 ballots cast

Member of Council (vote for 3): 36 total votes, 12 per slot out of 18 ballots cast

Member of Council (vote for 2): 13 total votes, 6.5 per slot out of 18 ballots cast

Constable: 10 total votes out of 18 ballots cast

With eight municipal offices and a total population of 70, fully 11% of the population of Haysville can serve in its government at one time!

My hope is that Haysville is still able to function as an independent borough without any obvious interest shown by its population to participate in its government, but the borough is very likely the first example someone can point at to argue that 130 municipalities in Allegheny County is too many, especially with the lack of interest shown in local government just about anywhere.

For the record, here is a list of municipalities in Allegheny County, 10 boroughs and 1 township, that are smaller than one square mile and have a population of less than 1,000 in 2010. Municipalities in the 37th Senate District are bolded.

Place Population Size
Chalfant 800 0.16 sq mi
Pennsbury Village 661 0.08 sq mi
Wall 580 0.48 sq mi
Glen Osborne 547 0.46 sq mi
West Elizabeth 518 0.25 sq mi
Thornburg 455 0.42 sq mi
Rosslyn Farms 427 0.47 sq mi
Ben Avon Heights 371 0.18 sq mi
South Versailles Twp 351 0.85 sq mi
Glenfield 205 0.86 sq mi
Haysville 70 0.20 sq mi

Municipal Referenda in the 2015 Election

Date: November 21, 2015 Author: Cruncher Comments: Leave a reply

Mt LebanonThe 2015 elections in Allegheny County featured two municipal referenda: one for Bethel Park and one for Mt. Lebanon, and both concerning changes to the Home Rule Charter for each.  As a resident of Mt. Lebanon, I was embarrassed to find that I had no clue about the context of the proposed change, which was phrased as follows:

Shall Section 321. Ordinances Authorizing Indebtedness, of the Municipality of Mt. Lebanon Home Rule Charter be amended to require that one notice be published seven (7) to thirty (30) days before debt is incurred, as more fully described in Mt. Lebanon Ordinance No. 3268?

At first glance it sounded good; it is perfectly reasonable (and in fact, required by state law) to require that a notice be published a reasonable amount of time before a new municipal debt is incurred. The trouble is that I had no idea what this was being changed from, and therefore I was not informed as to the potential effect of that this change would have.  Was this a brand-new provision? (I did not know about the state’s requirements at the time I voted.) Did this make the requirement more stringent than before?  Less stringent? I did not know, and therefore cast an uninformed vote.  This, as stated before, is embarrassing to me to admit and was one of the impetuses to start this blog.

Fortunately, after researching it after the fact (I cannot emphasize how much I recommend all voters to research issues on the ballot before an election), it turns out to be almost utterly innocuous.  I could only easily find one article on the web about it, from Mt. Lebanon Magazine, which, fortunately, seems to sum it up very well. This referendum item is the result of a review of the Home Rule Charter and is intended to make the notice requirements less stringent while still complying with state law.  Previously, the charter stipulated that a debt-related notice should be posted two times, but this was seen as more effort than was necessary.  The measure passed quite comfortably, with 6,070 votes for (84.17%) and 1,142 votes against (15.83%), so it was quite uncontroversial and is enshrined in the Mt. Lebanon Home Rule Charter.  1,475 voters (16.98%)  who submitted ballots did not cast a vote on this issue, and I wonder what percentage of voters also did not know what this measure actually meant and either skipped it or voted based upon the text alone.

One thing I took away from this is that I will try to find a way to be informed of these and other municipal notices when they are published.  The obviously will (normally) not be front headline matters in the Post-Gazette or Tribune-Review.

Bethel ParkThe Municipality of Bethel Park had its own referendum (called a “Home Rule Charter Question” on the ballot), which was much, much more contentious.  The text was as follows:

Shall Article VI, Public Safety, of the Bethel Park Home Rule Charter be amended to provide that the Chief of Police of the Municipality of Bethel Park Police Department shall be directly responsible to the Municipal Manager of the Municipality of Bethel Park, rather than to the Council of the Municipality of Bethel Park?

Unlike the Mt. Lebanon referendum, this succinctly makes it clear what the Charter will be changed from and what it will be changed to.  Once again, a quick web search only turns up one article about the referendum, but The Almanac doesn’t go into much detail as to what the practical ramifications of the change might be, only that the Bethel Park council was unanimous in voting to add it to the ballot and that the original language was said to be “a mistake”.

Apparently a large number of people in the Municipality disagreed as the change barely squeaked by with a vote of 3,357 (50.69%) in favor and 3,265 (49.31%) against, with 499 (7.00%) ballots submitted leaving the question blank, a notable difference from the number of missing votes on the Mt. Lebanon referendum. I will assume that this issue was better known within Bethel Park despite the lack of obvious reportage, and therefore more voters felt comfortable in casting a vote. However, it might also just be a case of the wording making it clearer what would change in the charter versus what the charter would change to as in the Mt. Lebanon referendum. Simply reading the text makes it relatively clear what the vote is truly for, and an otherwise uninformed voter would likely feel more comfortable making a vote based solely on what was printed on the ballot.  Either way, the 28.22% of registered voters who cast a ballot on this issue were plainly more divided than the Bethel Park Council, but the matter passed regardless.

Peters Township Teachers Strike – Salary Data

Date: November 16, 2015 Author: Cruncher Comments: Leave a reply

PetersAs many people know, the teachers union in Peters Township is currently on strike and will remain so until November 27.   One of the major points of contention is salaries, with the union asking for $2500 annual raises and the district asking for $500 annual raises  expect for the highest step, where the annual raise would be $200.  This is certainly a large gap and it made me wonder how the salaries of the teachers of Peters Township compared with those in other districts, especially when taking family and per capita income into account.

The linked article above gives the (presumably full-time) salary range in Peters as $45,900 to $104,864, with 62% below $63,000 and an overall average of $71,540.  It is difficult to find a source for this data online despite the fact that the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Pennsylvania School Performance Profile had included such data (from 2013-14) earlier in the year.  Fortunately, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review had compiled the data and made it available on its website, which made it possible to view salaries for Peters and any other school district in Pennsylvania.

I then took the cornucopia of data estimates made available by the US Census Bureau through the 2013 ACS Survey to compile population and income data for every school district in Allegheny County plus Peters Township.  I took the Per Capita income data and recomputed it not as per capita, but per adult.  In other words, I took the total estimated income and divided it by the population aged 18 and over, thereby producing a rough per capita income for the population that is most likely to have one.  The results when comparing this with the average teacher salary (as of the 13-14 school year) are interesting.  Below are the 13 school districts in Allegheny County or the 37th Senate District that have a average family income greater than $100,000.  Note that four of the 13 school districts are wholly or partially within the 37th Senate district.

School District Population Students Pop 0-17 Family Mean Per Capita Per Adult Mean Teacher Salary Adult/Teach Diff
Pine-Richland 22,949 5,819 6,420 $166,291 $50,430 $70,018 $60,167 ($9,851)
Upper St. Clair 19,272 4,438 5,108 $156,623 $51,112 $69,544 $66,559 ($2,985)
Peters 21,417 5,509 6,119 $148,275 $46,247 $64,745 $69,070 $4,325
Quaker Valley 13,747 2,728 3,097 $162,468 $53,289 $68,785 $74,393 $5,609
Avonworth 10,478 2,004 2,512 $132,117 $43,426 $57,120 $65,911 $8,791
South Fayette 14,677 3,010 3,620 $118,780 $39,175 $52,001 $61,177 $9,176
Fox Chapel Area 28,829 5,707 6,676 $157,403 $50,978 $66,341 $77,432 $11,091
Mt Lebanon 33,072 6,762 7,948 $139,373 $45,876 $60,389 $71,511 $11,122
North Allegheny 50,687 10,696 12,174 $148,534 $47,570 $62,607 $74,183 $11,576
Hampton 18,386 3,925 4,381 $130,015 $42,236 $55,448 $68,210 $12,762
West Jefferson Hills 19,913 3,515 4,134 $103,227 $35,733 $45,094 $63,665 $18,571
West Allegheny 20,450 3,867 4,696 $104,669 $36,339 $47,171 $66,842 $19,671
Moon Area 27,243 4,477 5,311 $103,563 $34,601 $42,979 $63,621 $20,642

Other things to note: As shown here, the “per-Adult” income is lower than the average teacher salary for every district save two, Pine-Richland and Upper St. Clair, and Peters is right behind them with the lowest positive differential.  What this tells me is that, relative to other school districts with comparable income levels, the teachers in Peters are comparatively underpaid.  This can be partially explained by the fact that Peters Township has a high per-adult income level, but Fox Chapel Area and North Allegheny have a comparable income level but also have a much higher average teacher salaries.

  • The average teacher salary is always higher than the median teacher salary as a low number of highly-paid teachers skew that statistic upward.  This can be seen in the 62% figure for Peters above, i.e. a majority of teachers make less than the average salary.  This would indicate that most teachers have an even greater differential than shown in the chart.
  • Both the census data and the salary data are a couple years old, which is why the Peters-specific information is somewhat higher than shown in the chart.  However, the census and salary information are from the same year and it is safe to assume that the 2015 values are similarly comparable to each other.
  • You can view the full list of school districts wholly within Allegheny County or the 37th Senate district.
  • I’m glad I’m not a teacher in the Pine-Richland school district.

2015 Winners by Municipality

Date: November 6, 2015 Author: Cruncher Comments: Leave a reply

Heather Arnet won:

Pennsbury Village 67.39% 48 votes
Mt Lebanon 57.55% 1279 votes
Leetsdale 56.98% 36 votes
Rosslyn Farms 55.30% 14 votes
Emsworth 54.19% 32 votes
Glen Osborne 53.28% 9 votes
Glenfield 52.46% 3 votes
Whitehall 50.08% 5 votes

Guy Reschenthaler won:

Sewickley Heights 74.59% 89 votes
Peters 71.00% 2017 votes
Jefferson Hills 66.22% 753 votes
Haysville 62.50% 4 votes
Aleppo 61.50% 92 votes
Ben Avon Heights 60.71% 24 votes
Sewickley Hills 60.69% 37 votes
Ohio 60.02% 178 votes
Upper St. Clair 59.92% 844 votes
Edgeworth 59.62% 70 votes
Findlay 58.24% 133 votes
Pleasant Hills 57.91% 296 votes
Moon 57.17% 622 votes
Crescent 57.09% 74 votes
North Fayette 56.00% 202 votes
Bethel Park 55.93% 822 votes
Bell Acres 55.88% 36 votes
Bridgeville 55.51% 111 votes
Collier 54.46% 117 votes
Kilbuck 54.36% 17 votes
Oakdale 54.03% 24 votes
Thornburg 53.33% 11 votes
South Park 52.88% 138 votes
Leet 52.87% 20 votes
South Fayette 52.72% 188 votes
Sewickley 52.56% 41 votes
Robinson 52.12% 112 votes
McDonald 51.06% 1 vote