Arnold mayor fined $10,000 over ethics violation involving son’s hiring

The Pennsylvania Ethics Commission has fined Arnold Mayor Karen PeconiBiricocchi $10,000 after finding she violated state ethics law by participating in the city’s hiring of her son.

Ms. Peconi-Biricocchi’s son, Wesley Biricocchi, applied to be a city police officer in October 2013. Ms. Peconi-Biricocchi was a member of the Arnold Civil Service Board, which schedules, organizes and scores civil service exams for the city.

Although she was provided with a report on each of the 11 applicants for the position before the testing process began, Ms. Peconi-Biricocchi did not recuse herself from the civil service board during the applicant testing process, an ethics commission investigation found last month.

Instead, she actively participated in the testing process. At one point in the process, the commission found, she wrote a substitute question on a 10-question oral exam administered to the three final candidates for the job.

Ms. Peconi-Biricocchi did not consult the other five people involved in applicant testing before writing the new question. Mr. Biricocchi earned the maximum score of 30 points on the substitute question, while the other two candidates each earned three points.

Ms. Peconi-Biricocchi became a member of Arnold City Council in 2014, while the hiring process was still ongoing. As a council member, she participated in discussions of the final three candidates.

Although council initially voted 3-2 to hire another applicant to fill the position, with Ms. Peconi-Biricocchi voting against, that candidate eventually declined the position. Council then selected Mr. Biricocchi. Ms. Peconi-Biricocchi abstained from voting on her son’s hiring.

The commission also concluded that Ms. PeconiBiricocchi committed a second, separate violation of the ethics act by failing to disclose her income received from the city and her employment by Verizon in mandatory statements of financial interests from 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Ms. Peconi-Biricocchi indicated she would pay the fine in a formal agreement with the city.