Allegheny County Executive-elect Sara Innamorato focusing transition on community input

With less than a month until she takes office, Allegheny County Executive-elect Sara Innamorato is undertaking a large transition effort with a focus on gathering community input from across the county.

“I want the county’s priorities to be the community’s priorities,” Innamorato told a crowd of about 200 people at the Community College of Allegheny County’s North Side campus on Wednesday.

Innamorato said her transition effort will be the largest community engagement initiative undertaken by Allegheny County government. It will focus on several priorities, including affordable housing, equitable economic development, green energy jobs, transparency in government, workforce development, reliability in transportation, high-quality human services and safe communities.

Input is being gathered through surveys and canvassing. Innamorato’s transition team will hold public events to explain their findings and hold workshops to determine the best way to move forward.

She said the transition team’s work will help guide the first 100 days of her administration. She takes office on Jan. 2, 2024, replacing Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, who is term-limited and could not seek a fourth term.

Innamorato said there are some issues that will see her immediate attention when she takes office, such as addressing homelessness.

“There are a number of things we must do immediately, and one of them is ensuring that we have enough shelter capacity to care for the people who are currently unhoused in our communities,” she said.

Regarding the budget adopted by County Council on Tuesday, Innamorato said it gives the county a good starting point to continue services including paving, bridge repair and parks and recreation.

She said it also will set up her administration to hire people for new roles. She said she is open to keeping department directors from the Fitzgerald administration who wish to stay. There are some high-profile vacancies that need to be filled, such as Allegheny County Jail warden and top posts in the health and economic development departments.

“We are interested in keeping folks who are currently there,” she said. “We want to make sure that the core government function can continue to run.”

In all, Innamorato said there are more than 1,000 open positions in county government.

“We really need to focus on creating that pipeline and staffing up and getting those department heads in place in order to go out and do transformative things,” she said.