Hallam, Fitzgerald spar over proposed Allegheny County minimum-wage bill

Two political rivals in Allegheny County government are sparring again, this time over a proposal to raise the minimum wage for county workers to $20 an hour.

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald claims the county council bill is legally flawed. Allegheny County Councilwoman Bethany Hallam, one of the sponsors of the legislation, says his opposition is politically motivated.

The two have disagreed over numerous county government issues. But Hallam said Fitzgerald’s opposition to the minimum-wage proposal, relayed in a county-issued news release, appeared to be political because it came a week before the May 16 primary.

Fitzgerald has endorsed Hallam’s opponent in the race, small-business owner Joanna Doven of Squirrel Hill.

“I can’t look past that a county press release appeared to be campaigning PR when the current county executive has endorsed my opponent,” said Hallam. “It felt political.”

In response, Fitzgerald said, “I want to be fiscally responsible. I was not the one who rammed (the legislation) through a week before the election.”

On Tuesday night, an Allegheny County Council committee advanced a bill that would set $20 an hour as the minimum wage for county workers by 2026. There would be incremental increases to $18 an hour next year and to $19 an hour in 2025.

It will now go before the full council for consideration.

Hallam, D-North Side, said it’s necessary to raise county workers’ wages to retain and attract more employees to county government, which has lost a large section of its workforce.

“This is not just to attract workers, but to keep the ones that we have,” Hallam said, arguing that all county departments are struggling to find and retain their workforce.

Fitzgerald said in a news release issued Wednesday that the legislation would cost taxpayers $30 million and “require the largest tax increase in the history of this government.”

The county government has an annual operating budget of just more than $1 billion.

He said that the county law department said Hallam’s bill violates county and state law by taking away labor unions’ ability to bargain wages.

“It’s disappointing to me that this legislation would move forward when it’s clearly fatally flawed,” Fitzgerald said. “This undermines the idea of good, responsible government that was put in place with this county’s Home-Rule Charter when it was enacted by the voters 24 years ago.”

Fitzgerald said all full-time employees in county government will make at least $18 an hour by the start of next year. He said he has been influential in raising those wages through bargaining with the unions. He said he supports increasing minimum wage laws at the state and federal level, but said “it is not the purview of council to negotiate wages.”

Hallam said plenty of county workers are underpaid and need more to get by. She said that county council’s solicitor told her the bill was legally sound and that council has the authority to set rules about the personnel system and setting wages.

She said her minimum wage bill wouldn’t apply to any current labor contracts, and would only set a floor for how much workers could earn in all future contracts.

It would apply to all county workers, whether they are in a union or not, as well as part- and full-time workers.

Fitzgerald and Hallam have been at odds on many issues, including battles over fracking in county parks and policies at the Allegheny County Jail. Hallam was part of a coalition to override a past Fitzgerald veto, while Fitzgerald has been able to block and replace at least one of Hallam’s bills — one dealing with the county’s paid sick day law.

With regard to the minimum-wage proposal, Hallam said Fitzgerald is acting hypocritical because he was part of a coalition to establish a “living wage” rule that would have created a minimum wage for county workers and contractors in 2001.

That bill failed. But Fitzgerald, a county councilman at the time, voted for that bill and said at the time he was disappointed it failed.

The current minimum-wage bill is scheduled for a vote before the full Allegheny County Council on May 23.

Fitzgerald said he is not confident that it will pass.

Hallam disagreed. She said that if Fitzgerald is planning to veto the bill, she is confident that enough votes could be amassed to override it.