When electrician Thomas Kostovny met Patrick A. Risha in the parking lot of West Mifflin Area High School, he lost part of his livelihood.

Mr. Kostovny was changing bulbs outside the school a few years back when a black SUV pulled up beside him.

A man got out, said Mr. Kostovny, "And he said, 'Who are you, and what are you doing?' "

Mr. Kostovny, who had done electrical work for the district in which he lives for two decades, told the man that he was changing bulbs.

"And he said, 'We'll see about that!' and drove away," said Mr. Kostovny.

The man was Superintendent Risha, Mr. Kostovny later learned, and the next day a school official told him that Kostovny Electric's bulb-changing engagement was over. Another firm, Canova Electrical Contracting, started getting the bulk of the district's contracted electrical work. Eventually, Canova Electrical of East McKeesport reaped six-figure contracts from the district, sometimes through unusual procedures.

During a decade as superintendent of three school systems -- South Allegheny, McKeesport Area and West Mifflin Area, from which he retired in November -- Mr. Risha, 59, worked repeatedly with contractors whose relationships have included business and political aspects. Sometimes, those contract awards spurred protests by competitors, and one led to a three-year, ongoing court fight. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, since April, has obtained and examined those contracts, documentation of award processes and resulting payment histories through requests under the Pennsylvania Right-To-Know Law.

Some members of the fluid collection of contractors are now in a position to become involved in an emerging building project in McKeesport.

The contractors have repeatedly made contributions to the same political candidates at the same time. In May, numerous contractors who did business with districts led by Mr. Risha appeared on the host committee for a fundraiser for gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett, a Republican and the state attorney general. The event was held at a golf club in which Mr. Risha's son has an interest.

Mr. Risha has also faced allegations detailed in a report that private investigation firm Gentile-Meinert and Associates compiled for the district. First reported by the Post-Gazette and then released by the district pursuant to a public records request, it said that West Mifflin Area employees were told to perform work, sometimes while on the clock, at the homes of Mr. Risha's son and school board member Albert Graham, a chiropractor. West Mifflin Area school board President Michael Price said in an interview last month that the State Ethics Commission is probing matters stemming from the investigators' report.

Visited twice at his home in Rostraver after he did not respond to telephone messages, Mr. Risha both times declined to be interviewed.

One contractor said that contracting decisions reflect nothing more than recognition that, all other things being equal, it's better to do business with someone you know.

"Are you going to hire total strangers, or somebody you know who is qualified?" asked construction contractor Gerald J. Tedesco, who has been involved in projects in West Mifflin and McKeesport, and gave a campaign contribution at the Corbett fundraiser.

"Pat Risha did more for children than any other superintendent in [the West Mifflin Area] district in a long time."

A new school board there wants "to get rid of everybody that had anything to do with him," Mr. Tedesco continued, and that's going to end up "creating enormous amounts of lawsuits."

Early in 2007, around six months after Mr. Risha was selected to head the West Mifflin Area School District by a 5-4 vote of its board, his administration launched the first of several construction projects -- a two-part effort converting district offices into early childhood education classrooms and renovating part of the West Mifflin Borough Building into workspace for district administrators.

The district invited bids from contractors, including electricians, interested in participating. Two electricians responded with dramatically different quotes. Concerned that the disparity could reflect a misunderstanding by the low bidder about the specifications, the district rebid that piece of the package.

In the rebid, the original low bidder did not resubmit, while the other, Frankl Electric of McKees Rocks, lowered its proposed price from $277,140 to $262,695. It was edged out, however, by newcomer Canova Electrical, which came in at $248,200.

After four change orders, though, the district went on to pay Canova Electrical $274,796 for its work on the project, according to records provided by its business office in response to a right-to-know request. That would mark the beginning of a string of district projects, large and small, that would bring Canova Electrical $723,951 through March of this year, according to spending records. One-third of that amount would come in the form of change orders that boosted the amounts of competitively bid contracts, and small jobs that didn't have to be the subject of bids.

The most substantial change occurred to a December 2007 contract to perform electrical work connected to overall West Mifflin Area High School renovations. Canova Electrical won the contract by bidding $36,126, coming in below five other firms whose proposed prices ranged from $46,400 by South Side-based Merit Electrical Group, to $118,750 by Frankl Electric.

The following June, the administration proposed and the board approved, a change order boosting the contract amount by $170,501, to $206,627. Mr. Risha told the Post-Gazette in 2009 that vandalism to school property demonstrated an urgent need for security cameras around a new football field. He said the vandalism amounted to an emergency, justifying the change order.

Mr. Risha did not specify a suspect. Public records show that a district senior was charged in May 2008 with vandalizing the high school, and he eventually pleaded guilty.

There is no legal limit on the number or extent of change orders to a school contract, said Sean Fields, senior associate council for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. Declining to comment on specific district actions, he added that schools "couldn't have a change order that was in effect a new agreement that had not been subject to competitive bidding." State law requires that districts advertise and competitively bid purchases topping $10,000 of furniture, equipment, supplies, appliances and construction work, including "lighting," under which electrical work is considered to fall.

Mr. Fields noted a lone exception to the bidding rules. If an emergency makes part of a "school plant" unusable, bids for the repairs or replacement can be solicited without advertising from at least three responsible bidders. The state education secretary then must approve the winner.

Department of Education spokesman Steven Weitzman said his department has no record of a request for approval of an emergency bid from the West Mifflin Area School District during 2008.

The Gentile-Meinert report includes an account by former schools director of security Joe Gajdos, who told investigators that after the vandalism occurred, he got bids for the security cameras from two firms, and Canova was the winner. Mr. Gajdos was laid off by the new board in June, and this month sued the district in federal court over that move.

In response to a right-to-know request, the district could show no document reflecting a bid process or bid tabulation leading to the change order for the security cameras and lighting. Nor does a contract between the district and Canova Electrical confirming the change order refer to any competitive process.

"Holy Toledo," said Merit Electrical president Andrew Michielli, when told of the change order to the contract for which he was second-lowest bidder. "To get a change order that's four or five times the original contract, that's unusual."

The district paid Canova Electrical a total of $190,663 -- less than the final total contract amount of $206,627 -- for work on the project, according to payment records. The Post-Gazette left telephone messages and twice visited Canova Electrical's office in an effort to interview owner James Canova, but he could not be reached.

On Jan. 21 of this year, after a new majority took over the West Mifflin Area school board and Mr. Risha resigned, new board member Phil Shar made a motion to replace Canova Electrical as designated electrician for low-dollar jobs with Kostovny Electric, giving that firm the first shot at small jobs that don't require competitive bidding. It was unanimously approved.

The new board majority wanted "to promote more West Mifflin people and West Mifflin businesses," said Mr. Price, the board president.

In 1996, Mr. Risha, then an assistant superintendent at the South Allegheny School District, known mostly for his past work as Clairton High School's football coach, became a part of local history.

That year, Republicans Larry Dunn and Bob Cranmer took control of the Allegheny County Commission. The Post-Gazette reported on a new, unofficial group called the Port Authority Construction Management Committee, with Mr. Risha and his cousin, freshly appointed Port Authority board member Sam Anthony, as members.

Two Port Authority executives said publicly that the committee sought to influence the agency's contract awards. Mr. Cranmer pulled out of a campaign fundraiser, co-chaired by Mr. Anthony and Mr. Risha, that would have replenished his and Mr. Dunn's coffers, contributing to a split that eventually fractured their majority.

Mr. Anthony and Mr. Risha denied influencing contracts. Mr. Risha issued a statement saying: "The only profit and goal in my activities is to help the community and improve its educational system." Mr. Anthony later resigned from the Port Authority board.

Mr. Risha's career climb continued. In 1999 the South Allegheny school board, in a 5-4 vote, picked him as its superintendent. In 2003, a lame-duck board gave him a five-year extension. But he left that $124,869-a-year job in March of 2004 after he and the new board "re-evaluated their relationship," in the words of a separation agreement that brought Mr. Risha a $325,908 severance payment.

The separation agreement named veteran municipal attorney John F. Cambest as the go-between, trading Mr. Risha's resignation letter for the payment.

Mr. Cambest and Mr. Risha went on to work together at the McKeesport Area School District. The district had long been represented by Mr. Cambest's law firm, now called Dodaro Matta & Cambest. Its board hired Mr. Risha as superintendent in December 2004.

Mr. Risha earned $115,000 as superintendent in McKeesport. He suffered financial problems. A divorce case, filed by Mr. Risha's wife in 2002, dragged on for six years. He filed for bankruptcy in 2005.

Court filings in both matters show a man with many business interests, a boat valued at $40,000 called the Amanda Jean, a collection of antiques and a Cadillac Escalade.

Mr. Risha's debts at the time of his divorce included $30,000 owed to his uncle, Ray Anthony (father of Sam Anthony), then owner of Anthony Crane Rental. His bankruptcy filing chronicled real estate and business interests that had suffered losses and foreclosures, overdue local wage taxes, $2,382 in incurred dues and fees from the Youghiogheny Country Club, and $500 owed to Mr. Cambest's firm, among other claims.

In 2005 and 2006, Mr. Cambest's firm performed some work for Mr. Risha in divorce court and bankruptcy court. Mr. Cambest said there is no conflict between representing a district and one of its employees, "as long as it's not an adverse interest of the school district."

Mr. Risha quit McKeesport in 2006 after a 5-4 vote by the West Mifflin Area school board to hire him for $127,900 annually.

Mr. Cambest was also the solicitor at West Mifflin Area. Mr. Cambest noted that his firm's involvement with both districts preceded Mr. Risha's arrival, and said that he did not get involved in the superintendent selection processes.

"Normally, as solicitor, we don't get involved in recommending anybody," he said, "because if it goes bad, you get hammered."

The district solicitorships are meaningful pieces of business for Dodaro Matta & Cambest. The firm got $409,364 in payments from the McKeesport Area district and $402,452 in payments from the West Mifflin Area district from 2005 through 2009, according to information obtained under the state's Right-To-Know law.

Solicitorships need not be awarded through competitive processes, and boards can hire and fire their lawyers at will. McKeesport Area's board hired a different solicitor in 2009, before returning to Mr. Cambest's firm this year. West Mifflin Area's board ended Dodaro Matta & Cambest's role there in June, by a 5-4 vote. That board has not yet chosen a replacement.

Mr. Risha's departure from West Mifflin Area stemmed in part from a 5-4 board vote in June 2009 to release girls basketball coach Phil Shar. That vote came the same month that Mr. Risha confirmed that he was working primarily from home due to health issues. The two news stories led to crowded board meetings and a contentious election that saw the overthrow of the board majority by a team of candidates that included Mr. Shar. Mr. Risha resigned the week after the election, after the outgoing board majority voted him a $30,000 severance payment.

That new board retained the private investigation firm. Mr. Price said Ethics Commission investigators with whom he spoke are "looking into the findings that came from the Gentile-Meinert report."

The report chronicled the accounts of school employees who said they performed a variety of tasks, including transporting furniture and windows and laying tile in 2008, and mowing grass in 2009, at the home of the superintendent's son, Patrick M. Risha. The report said the workers indicated that some of the work was done on school time and using school vehicles.

Construction on the younger Mr. Risha's house in Rostraver began in February 2008, according to a permit application on file with Rostraver. The application, signed by the younger Mr. Risha, lists "self" as the contractor.

District workers also told Gentile-Meinert's investigators that they fixed a pool and installed a dishwasher at Dr. Graham's house. Later, Dr. Graham said he paid workers for improvements to his property, declining to say whether they were district employees.

The school board voted in May to continue Gentile-Meinert's work. The district forwarded the initial report to the Ethics Commission and the state attorney general.

State Ethics Commission director John Contino said he never confirms nor denies the existence of an investigation. He said that if the commission gets information or allegations that a public official has used his position to benefit himself, his immediate family or a business with which he or immediate family members are involved, its investigators perform an initial 60-day review, then decide whether to launch an investigation that can take as long as one year. If the commission finds an ethics violation, it can assess fines of as much as three times the value of an official's financial gains, and can refer evidence of criminality to the state attorney general or, less often, the local district attorney.

Asked whether he had knowledge of the Gentile-Meinert report, Mr. Corbett said that he only read about it in the newspaper, and his office would not likely have jurisdiction to investigate its subject matter.

"When you're talking about public corruption cases, we have authority over state employees and state officials," he said. "School districts, that's the district attorney, unless the district attorney [refers it to the attorney general], and I do not recall a referral ... in this one."

The West Mifflin Area district faces a lawsuit for another decision Mr. Risha presided over: an abrupt change in school bus contractors.

In August 2007, as West Mifflin prepared to take on many of the students from shuttered Duquesne High School, the board voted to hire McKeesport-based Pennsylvania Coach Lines, rather than its incumbent bus company Laidlaw Transit, to transport them. Three months later, the board voted to terminate the district's busing contract with Laidlaw and shift all of its business to Pennsylvania Coach.

In doing so, the board nixed a five-year contract that had eight months left to get started on a 101/2-year pact with Pennsylvania Coach. Then-assistant business manager Philip Martell explained at the time that a merger involving a parent company of Laidlaw changed procedures so that the district would have to call Chicago to report problems. Plus, an analysis by the business office estimated that the switch would bring $6 million in savings over 10 years.

The change came without a competitive process, according to district records. Districts don't have to competitively award bus contracts, though some seek and compare multiple proposals, according to Stuart L. Knade, chief counsel for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.

Mr. Risha had experience working with Pennsylvania Coach. When he was with South Allegheny, Pennsylvania Coach got a 51/2-year contract to transport students starting in 2002. In 2003, a week after Mr. Risha was reappointed as superintendent there, the contract was amended to add three more years.

In 2007, after West Mifflin changed contractors, jilted Laidlaw sued the district for breach of contract, and Pennsylvania Coach for interfering with its business, in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. That litigation is still under way.

Pennsylvania Coach president David Sunstein could not be reached for comment.

Two of the contractors with whom Mr. Risha worked in West Mifflin are involved in a proposed McKeesport Area school construction project.

In 2008, while Mr. Risha was the West Mifflin superintendent, the board there awarded a $625,000 contract to manage the $33.7 million construction of a new middle school and demolition of an old one to Pennsylvania Project Management, led by Mr. Tedesco. In February of this year, though, the new board replaced Pennsylvania Project Management with P.J. Dick for an estimated $782,298 to complete the construction project.

Board members provided no explanation for the change, and Mr. Tedesco said the district owes him money.

Mr. Tedesco was a McKeesport Area school board member who voted for Mr. Risha's hire there in 2004. Mr. Tedesco was bumped from the board by voters the following year.

His daughter-in-law, Robyn Tedesco, handled public relations at McKeesport before and during Mr. Risha's tenure there, and followed the superintendent to West Mifflin, where she worked until the new board laid her off in June.

Last year, the McKeesport district sought proposals from construction managers for the construction or renovation of an elementary school, part of an overall revamp that could include two other new or expanded schools. A tabulation of bids released by the school district listed Pennsylvania Project Management as the third-most-expensive of the seven bidders, coming in at between $1.33 million to $1.53 million, depending on the final cost of the project. The lowest quote, from S.P. Smith Construction Services, also of White Oak, was a flat $820,000.

Mr. Tedesco said he beat out S.P. Smith Construction based on superior experience with big projects, and edged out some of the other bidders due to his location within the school district.

Scott Smith, owner of S.P. Smith Construction, acknowledged that since construction management is a professional service, the board had no legal obligation to choose the lowest bidder, or even to solicit bids for such work. It's rare, though, that the fifth-lowest bidder wins the job, he said, adding that he plans to run for McKeesport Area school board next year.

"If taxpayer dollars are going to be spent," he said, "I want to ensure that they're spent as wisely as they possibly can."

In September, a firm controlled by Mr. Sunstein of Pennsylvania Coach bought the former Babe Charapp Ford dealership site on Eden Park Boulevard in McKeesport. The McKeesport school board has discussed using that site, or a portion of it, for a new McKeesport Area elementary and intermediate school, though other sites are also under consideration.

In June of this year, the board voted to spend $60,000 on contractors to explore the suitability of the Babe Charapp site for the school project. School officials stressed that no final decision has been made on the sites for the new schools.

The revamp apparently will be overseen by a new superintendent. Last month, Superintendent Michael Brinkos, who was in the first year of a five-year contract, announced that he will leave to become director of human resources at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit effective Sept. 27. He said the move was driven by a desire for professional growth.

Several of the people with whom Mr. Risha has worked in his districts unite in political activity.

Mr. Sunstein, Mr. Canova and Mr. Tedesco became co-contributors to political campaigns, writing checks ranging from $100 to $2,500.

Two of the three -- usually Mr. Canova and either Mr. Sunstein or Mr. Tedesco -- made same-day or same-week contributions to the campaigns of state representatives Tim Mahoney, D-Uniontown, repeatedly, and to Bill Kortz, D-Dravosburg; and the late Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll, among others.

"Some of [Mr. Risha's] people did come to a [campaign] golf outing" in 2007, said Mr. Kortz. He said he did not know Mr. Risha prior to being elected, but worked with him to integrate Duquesne students into West Mifflin.

In May, Ray Anthony, Mr. Canova, Mr. Sunstein and West Mifflin Area school board member Ned Mervos were listed on invitations as members of a 20-person host committee for a $1,000-a-head fundraiser for Mr. Corbett, now the state attorney general, featuring guest speaker former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Mr. Risha, a registered Republican, did not attend the event, and had no comment on it. State and federal databases show that he very rarely makes political contributions.

The event was held in West Mifflin at the Westwood Golf Club, at which Mr. Risha's son and Mark Latorre, also a host committee member, are part of the ownership team, according to mortgage records. A business owned by Mr. Latorre owns a West Carson Street building in which the younger Mr. Risha seeks to open a strip club -- a proposal that has sparked protests in Pittsburgh's western neighborhoods.

Mr. Mervos is a former Democratic Committee member and longtime school board member who voted for Mr. Risha's $30,000 severance payment. He said he "was invited to go by another party," whom he would not name. Asked why a Democrat attended a Republican fundraiser, he said only, "How would you feel if you were invited to go for a free lunch or dinner?"

Mr. Mervos is a retired West Mifflin coach and administrator, who then worked for and retired from a marketing job with MS Consultants. That Ohio-based engineering firm last year billed $64,434 for survey work on West Mifflin Area schools improvement projects, as a subcontractor to the architect. MS Consultants also has done surveying work on the strip club project, according to a letter on file with the city of Pittsburgh. A political action committee funded by that firm's executives gave Mr. Corbett's campaign $1,000 on May 3.

Among other host committee members was Tammy Rockwell of Ford Business Machines of Connellsville, whose firm last year inked contracts with the West Mifflin Area schools that will bring it $623,460 in office equipment lease payments over five years. She could not be reached for comment.

Tedesco family members were not on the host committee, but attended and gave $13,000, in total.

"I know Pat Risha, but he didn't invite me to that," said Mr. Tedesco. "I like Mr. Corbett as a candidate, and that's the reason I am supporting him, and that's the reason why I gave at that fundraiser."

Mr. Tedesco added that people in his industry give to campaigns in part to get their phone calls returned.

"If you don't also support somebody, later if you call them and want them to recognize something, they may not know who you are."

Mr. Corbett, who faces Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, the Democrat, in the governor's race, confirmed that he knows Mr. Risha. He said he did not know whether the former superintendent was involved in the fundraiser.

"Have you ever been a political candidate?" he asked a reporter. "You don't have the time to get involved in setting up the fundraisers. ... We go where they have the fundraisers scheduled."

He said if host committee members and contributors don't have "a case or controversy in front of the office" then "they're not a problem. ... As far as I know, everything that came out of that fundraiser was vetted, and there were no problems."

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