Outgoing Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald reflects on 12 years
Many things make Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald swell with pride when discussing his 12 years as the county’s top elected official, but one accomplishment appears to connect them: no increase in property taxes.
“We’ve been able to hold the line on the cost for the homeowner,” he said. “At the very same time, we’ve been invested in all of these assets.”
Fitzgerald points to improvements to county parks and trails, air quality management that has brought the county into federal compliance, a full rainy day fund, a billion-dollar upgrade for Pittsburgh International Airport and repairing virtually all county-owned bridges. All were accomplished without raising taxes, he said.
This isn’t always the usual dynamic for local governments. Westmoreland County leaders voted this month to raise taxes by 32%, and some local municipalities also are hiking taxes. But Allegheny County government has been able to hold steady.
Some county assets have been neglected and drawn criticism — most notably the Allegheny County Jail — but Fitzgerald is leaving office as a popular incumbent who has garnered praise from labor groups, Democrats, business groups and even some Republicans.
His 12-year tenure in Allegheny County officially ends Jan. 2, but Fitzgerald is moving into a role that arguably expands his influence. Starting next month, Fitzgerald will become executive director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, a federally designated metropolitan planning organization in charge of guiding government investment for the 10-county region surrounding Pittsburgh. Its service area covers covers Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington and Westmoreland counties.
“The relationships I have in Harrisburg and Washington, I say it puts me in a good position to be able to go and get our fair share for this region,” Fitzgerald said. “If you follow much of my career over these last 12 years, I’ve not just been about Allegheny County. I’ve been about supporting the entire region of Southwestern Pennsylvania.”
Pittsburgh born
Fitzgerald has called Pittsburgh home seemingly his entire life. He grew up in Bloomfield, attended Central Catholic High School and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University.
He has been involved in Allegheny County government for more than two decades. Fitzgerald was an inaugural member of county council in 2000 and served as council president from 2004 to 2011.
When he was elected executive and took office in 2012, one of his biggest goals was to put the county on stable economic ground. He said he believes he has accomplished that.
The county was at risk of a downgrade by rating agencies when he first entered office but now regularly receives A grades, he said. In 2012, the county had only about $5 million in its fund balance, or its rainy day fund. Now the balance is at $50 million.
“We didn’t shock the system, but we slowly and gradually increased the rainy day fund to make sure that our borrowing is competitive when we go out for capital projects like roads and bridges,” he said.
Time will tell for what people see as his legacy, he said, but he does hail infrastructure improvements.
A $1.5 billion upgrade is underway at Pittsburgh International Airport that is meant to modernize the aging airport. It’s being funded by airline fees and federal funds. Along with the growing number of destinations the airport has attracted — now up to more than 60 from 37 several years ago — Fitzgerald said the new airport will make people proud. It is set to open in spring 2025.
“When that airport opens a year and a half from now, people are going to be amazed,” he said. “The improvement on customer availability and the passenger experience will be noticeable.”
He also touted his administration’s effort to secure needed funding for Pittsburgh’s Bus Rapid Transit project, now called the University Line, and to repair the county’s poor-rated bridges.
With money from the recently passed county budget, he said, all the poor-rated bridges will be repaired.
“When I came into office, 72 of our 300 bridges were rated in poor condition,” he said. “In a year, that number is going to be down to zero.”
Praise and critique
Fitzgerald has been praised, particularly by trade unions, for his ability to bring state and federal funding to Allegheny County and the region.
“In my opinion, nobody worked harder to bring infrastructure funding back to Allegheny County,” said Darrin Kelly, Allegheny-Fayette Central Labor Council president. “He was the driving force behind so many projects in Allegheny County.”
The region received an outsized share of project funding and jumped other, larger regions because of Fitzgerald, Kelly said. There were disagreements, but they never got in the way of work to improve Allegheny County, he said.
“We always agreed to move forward because we had the complete vision for the region and can only accomplish our goals by forging strong relationships,” Kelly said. “Whether you liked him or disliked him, nobody can question how hard he worked for Western Pennsylvania.”
Former Allegheny County Executive Jim Roddey said he gives Fitzgerald an A or A-minus for his work over the past 12 years.
“He is smart, he understands business, and he has done a good job,” Roddey said.
Roddey, a Republican, agreed with Kelly and said Fitzgerald has exuded an unmatched work ethic. Roddey said Fitzgerald worked harder than he did when Roddey was county executive and harder than Fitzgerald’s predecessor, Dan Onorato.
“He worked harder than any of us that had had this position,” Roddey said. “He was everywhere.”
Fitzgerald could have improved his management of the jail and, over the last couple of years, the homeless population, Roddey said.
The jail has seen a series of controversies and lawsuits over the years as well as persistent work shortages and high employee turnover. County homeless shelters have been full of late and have struggled to house people seeking shelter.
A Fitzgerald critic
Allegheny County Councilwoman at-large Bethany Hallam, D-Marshall-Shadeland, is a longtime Fitzgerald critic and has lamented Fitzgerald’s management of the jail and homeless shelters. She said he will have a negative legacy of problems at the jail.
She also said Fitzgerald should have facilitated a countywide property assessment and that it would have been the right thing to do because he was term-limited.
Property tax fights were elevated after a judge ruled last year that Allegheny County “failed to administer the property tax assessment appeal system in a just and impartial manner.” Fitzgerald responded by reopening the window to allow property owners to appeal, but Hallam said it was a sign Fitzgerald skirted responsibility.
“Our property tax is on verge of collapse, and he is not taking responsibility,” Hallam said.
Some of these disagreements led to a more contentious relationship between county council and Fitzgerald during his final term, including veto overrides over parkland fracking bans and the executive’s authority to set wages for county employees.
Fitzgerald has pushed back against many of council’s priorities and continually has tried to strongarm decision-making out of council’s hands, Hallam said.
“The majority of council never got an opportunity to work with him,” she said. “From the beginning, he made the relationship combative.”
Fitzgerald said disagreements between him and council have been overblown. He and council end up agreeing on the majority of the county’s responsibilities, he said.
“Over the last 12 years, pretty much all my budgets, for example, have been passed pretty much without much change,” he said. “The millage wasn’t changed in the 12 years, and the capital budget projects that we highlight — whether it be trails, bridges, roads, the courthouse roof — all got approved.”
One area where Hallam and Fitzgerald agree is his ability to put the right people in charge of county agencies.
Fitzgerald said he is proud of hiring and appointing people like former county manager Willy McKain, current chief of staff and county manager Jennifer Liptak, former Health Department director Dr. Debra Bogen, Allegheny County Airport Authority CEO Christina Cassotis and Pittsburgh Regional Transit CEO Katharine Kelleman.
“When people who know their stuff way better than me would make recommendations, I pretty much would follow them and provide the political support,” Fitzgerald said.
“You can argue,” Hallam said, “that he has put very smart people into powerful positions that have run the county well.”
No consolidation
Fitzgerald said his biggest regret while serving as county executive was not getting a bill through the state Legislature that would allow municipalities in Allegheny County to voluntarily disincorporate.
The county has over 130 municipalities.
Fitzgerald said many of them are too small or too cash-strapped to offer residents adequate public parks, hire enough police officers or pave roads. He said this has been a contributor to uneven growth in the county, where rich municipalities have thrived, but many poorer ones have not seen much benefit.
“I think there are some communities that really do need to consolidate and at least have the option to become part of county government,” he said. “Right now, it’s impossible.”
What’s next?
A major part of Fitzgerald’s work at the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission will be focused on bringing better internet access to rural communities such as Greene, Fayette and Lawrence counties, he said.
“In some of these counties, they have not seen investment,” he said. “In some of these communities, there are housing developments that aren’t even connected to the internet. So you start with that basic infrastructure service that allows people to succeed in today’s world.”
Allegheny County Executive-elect Sara Innamorato replaces Fitzgerald on Jan. 2. A challenge for her and the rest of local government will be redeveloping Downtown Pittsburgh, Fitzgerald said.
“I think it’s a challenge for the administration coming in to work with the mayor, the state, building owners and other partners to figure out what’s the new model of a big office building or commercial space when people are only coming into work to 20%, 30% or 50% of the time,” he said.
Investment at the state and federal level will be critical, as will be bringing nonprofits and other leaders together, Fitzgerald said.
But when asked whether he thinks rebuilding Downtown can be accomplished without raising taxes, Fitzgerald said, “That remains to be seen. And again, you’re going to have to be somewhat innovative.”
Ryan Deto is a TribLive reporter covering politics, Pittsburgh and Allegheny County news. A native of California’s Bay Area, he joined the Trib in 2022 after spending more than six years covering Pittsburgh at the Pittsburgh City Paper, including serving as managing editor. He can be reached at rdeto@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.