Quaker Valley School District officials welcome new assistant finance director, commend outgoing administrator

Quaker Valley School District official have tapped a Penn State alum as their next assistant finance director.

School directors voted 8-0 on April 24 to hire Jim Giovannitti of the South Hills to serve under recently promoted Brooke Baker.

Baker was named district director of finance and operations Scott Antoline’s successor as of May 1.

Antoline retires at the end of June after serving Quaker Valley for eight years.

District officials welcomed Giovannitti at their April meeting and thanked Antoline for his service.

“I’m thankful and excited for the opportunity to join this great district and to work along side the team of people dedicated to making this success happen,” Giovannitti said.

Giovannitti, 40, graduated from Baldwin High School in 2002 and earned a bachelor’s in accounting from Penn State University in 2012.

He served as a staff accountant for Pennsylvania Transformer Technology in Canonsburg from 2012 to 2019. He left there to take an accounting job at Duquesne City School District and currently serves as its finance manager.

“Conceptually school business is pretty consistent from a district-to-district basis,” Giovannitti said. “The ‘what’ is the same, but the ‘how’ is different. Quaker Valley School District’s tax base is obviously a lot more robust than Duquesne’s would be. The ‘what’ is reflecting taxes. The ‘how’ is the tax base. Each community is different when it comes to revenues and expenses and funding.”

Quaker Valley Assistant Superintendent Andrew Surloff said it’s that extensive school knowledge and math skills that helped Giovannitti stand out from about 10 other candidates.

“He was very adept at explaining his background in school operations and school finance,” Surloff said.

“One of the things we do in the hiring process is ask them to look at various data points and whatnot and do an analysis for us. He was very thorough. That, coupled with the recommendations we received on his behalf, made him our recommended candidate.”

Baker said she looks forward to working with Giovannitti and welcoming him to the team.

His Quaker Valley start date is scheduled for May 13. Starting salary was listed at $78,500.

Antoline will be on hand the next two months helping with the transition.

Several former board members, including last year’s finance committee chair Jeff Watters, were at the meeting and heaped praise on the outgoing administrator.

They called Antonline a man with strong character and capabilities as well as team player and friend.

School Director and board treasurer Geoff Barnes talked about an early conversation with Antoline that turned into what could have been a documentary on public education funding models.

“Your depth of knowledge and your generosity in sharing it has paid enormous dividends to every stakeholder in this district, and for that we’re deeply grateful,” Barnes said.