Mar 10, 2018 2 min read

A West Pike Run supervisor has agreed to pay more than $1,900 after state Ethics Commission investigators found he used his position to change township rules to make himself eligible for a pension when he retired early from working as a roadmaster.

An order made public Friday said Supervisor Phillip Podroskey, 62, had entered a consent agreement to pay the state $1,443 – the amount of the “private pecuniary benefit” in pension checks he reportedly received from January 2015 through September 2016 as a result of his actions, according to his agreement with the commission – plus another $500 to the commission, “representing a portion of the costs” of the investigation.

The state ethics law bars any public official from using “the authority of his office … for the private pecuniary benefit of himself, a member of his immediate family or a business with which he or a member of his immediate family is associated.”

Podroskey, who’d previously been a township police officer for 24 years but didn’t receive a pension because the police pension plan had no vesting period, has been a supervisor since 2010. He worked as a roadmaster from when he took office through the end of 2014, receiving wages that averaged about $38,500 a year.

Podroskey was part of a 3-0 vote in September 2014 to amend the township’s pension plan to create an “early retirement window” allowing township employees who were 59 and had five years of service with the township by the end of that year to begin receiving pension benefits. The vote occurred ahead of Podroskey’s planned retirement at the end of that year.

Podroskey, who turned 59 the month after the vote, was the only member of the plan who was eligible for the window. He’d reportedly participated in discussions related to the changes to the pension plan.

Podroskey didn’t immediately respond to a message left at the township offices seeking comment Friday afternoon.