Former Everson secretary-treasurer to fill revamped fiscal director slot for Latrobe

An Everson native who recently served as secretary-treasurer of that Fayette County borough is set to take on a new role: overseeing Latrobe’s city budget.

Timothy Pisula is set to start work as Latrobe’s fiscal director March 10 after city council this week unanimously hired him for the revamped position.

Pisula, who has amassed four decades of administrative experience in the health and communications fields. is wrapping up work as fiscal director of Threshold, a Greensburg nonprofit that provides housing and rehabilitation services for behavioral health clients.

“Where I’m at now, I’m just a controller,” Pisula said of Threshold. “All the staff is on the clinical side, so it’s just me managing the business and the numbers for them and reporting to (Westmoreland) county.

“Here at Latrobe, there’s a team of people I’ll be able to work with and try to get them all together on what the strategic plan is. So, I’m pretty excited about that.”

Mayor Eric Bartels said Pisula was the best fit for the city among a handful of candidates considered for fiscal director.

Previously, administrative staffer Karen Meholic, as director of finance and administration, was handling budgetary and human resources duties, Bartels noted.

City council has opted to follow the suggestion of consultant Grass Root Solutions: to create the fiscal director job as a position separated from other tasks.

“Our hope is that Tim will be able to just focus on the budget and be the intermediary between all the other department heads and where our budget is at and where we want it to be. That’s our immediate goal.”

Bartels indicated the fiscal director responsibilities may be tweaked based on Pisula’s abilities, “giving him an opportunity to kind of help shape the position.”

“You hire a person for a position, but they’ve got other talents and other experiences. So we’ll kind of see how that meshes in our office and what his past experience can bring.”

The city set Pisula’s salary at about $80,000, according to Bartels.

Latrobe is preparing to handle garbage collection in-house in 2026, after its contract with Republic Services expires.

Pisula said he hopes to draw on his career experience to advise the city on that process.

“I’ve had eight different start-ups,” he said. “Latrobe is starting residential waste service. I think I can help them with that in terms of knowing the pitfalls and how to start a new business and provide great customer service.”

Pisula, 61, previously has served as an executive with Open Minds, a Gettysburg-based behavioral health professional services firm; was executive director of Fayette Health Management; was a program director with Excela Health; and executive vice president and chief technology officer for U.S. Wireless Online.

He co-founded the Foundation Radiology Group in Pittsburgh and founded Digerati.Biz, a business advisory, information technologies and management consulting firm.

He also has served on the boards of the Westmoreland chapter of the American Heart Association and the Donegal-based Mountain Laurel Chamber of Commerce.

Pisula holds degrees in computer and information science, and data processing and accounting. He completed a graduate entrepreneurial fellowship in business administration at the University of Pittsburgh.

He and his wife, Terri, live in Donegal Township and have four children.