Westmoreland Commissioner Thrasher appointed to state appeals board

Jun. 27—Westmoreland Commissioner Gina Cerilli Thrasher was confirmed on Tuesday to fill a vacancy on the Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Appeals Board.

Thrasher, 37, a Democrat from Hempfield is serving out her second four-year term and announced in February she would not seek reelection, instead focusing on a career as a lawyer. The quasi-judicial position on the appeals board will likely require she resign from her current job.

The appointment by Gov. Josh Shapiro places Thrasher on the board that is based in Harrisburg and serves as the judicial body that rules on appeals of decisions filed by the state's 90 workers' compensation judges.

"Commissioner Gina Cerilli Thrasher will be a great addition to the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board and will represent Westmoreland County well," said Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Hempfield.

The appeals board is comprised of lawyers and members earn annual salaries of more than $116,000. She earns $92,210 as a county commissioner.

According to the workers' compensation appeals board's website it receives as many as 1,000 appeals each year, issues more than 800 opinions and another 100 orders and well as hundreds of other matters.

A majority of cases are heard virtually, but the board also schedules in-person hearings in Erie, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Scranton.

Thrasher could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Thrasher's a member of a family with deep political roots in Westmoreland County. As a first time candidate in 2015, she was elected as the top voter-getter as Democrats regained a majority of the board of commissioners after losing control of county government for the first time in more than a half century four years earlier. She was the only Democrat elected to the board in 2019 and has served as a minority commissioner for the last three years.

Thrasher graduated from law school as she finished up her first campaign for commissioner and passed the bar to become an attorney after she took office. In addition to her commissioner duties she was hired as a part-time attorney with a Pittsburgh law firm in 2018.

Thrasher gave birth to her first child, a son, in late 2022, and following a three-month maternity leave returned to work earlier this year. She did not attend in person or by telephone the commissioners' public meeting last week nor did she participate in meetings this week of the county's prison and juvenile detention center boards.

She was officially nominated for the appeals board job on June 19, according to state records.

Her resignation, once officially tendered, will set off a process that will result in the appointment of her replacement on the board of commissioners.

Westmoreland County Solicitor Melissa Guiddy said the county's 11 Common Pleas Court Judges will appoint a replacement to fill Thrasher's seat.

Court Administrator Amy DeMatt said applicants for the job will be publicly interviewed by the judges before the job is filled.

"Once the court gets official word of a resignation we will set up a process," DeMatt said.

The court filled two vacancies on the board of commissioners since 2008.

Republican Charles Anderson was selected from a field of 22 applicants in December 2008 to replace Commissioner Kim Ward, who resigned a month earlier after she was elected to the state Senate.

Two years later, in May 2010, the judges selected Democrat Ted Kopas, from a pool of 14 candidates, to replace Commissioner Tom Ceraso, who resigned a month earlier to take a job at the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County.

John Buffone, spokesman for the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, said state law requires judges to appoint replacements who were registered as a member of the same political party of the departing office holder at the time of their election. That means Thrasher's replacement will come from a pool of candidates who were registered Democrats in November 2019.

"It doesn't appear the (county) code specifies a time frame for the vacancy to be filled, just that the county court is responsible for the appointment," Buffone said in an email.

Timing of an appointment could become an issue as an election to fill the three-member board approaches in November. Two Democrats, Kopas and Sydney Hovis, are running against incumbent Republicans Sean Kertes and Doug Chew. The top three vote-getters will take office in late January.

Rich Cholodofsky is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Rich by email at rcholodofsky@triblive.com or via Twitter .