Editorial: Does Allegheny County need a 46.5% tax increase?
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On Tuesday, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato put her first budget proposal on the table.
The spending plan calls for $3.1 billion in expenses for county services. That’s not radically different from her predecessor’s last budget. A year ago, Rich Fitzgerald outlined his plan for $3 billion. Fitzgerald’s grew 3.4% over the previous year. Innamorato’s proposal is just 3% over his.
That isn’t bad for a year that saw several increases, including raising the minimum wage for county employees. Trims were made here and there, such as a $3 million IT contract that will come to an end.
But what will make county residents blanch is how the $3.1 billion is achieved. The budget comes with a 46.5% property tax increase.
That’s a lot. It will take the county’s property taxes from 4.73 mills up to 6.93 mills. For your average house in the county, assessed at $110,400, that will be an increase of $182.
The knee-jerk reaction here is to blame Innamorato. How can she propose that kind of tax on county residents? What is she spending all this money to do?
It’s to stop the bleeding of years of deficit spending.
On Oct. 1, Controller Corey O’Connor pointed to a $60 million deficit expected by the end of the year. For the first six months, revenue was $20 million behind what was projected. In 2023, the $40 million deficit was covered by federal aid money.
That the county has been running in the red is not new information. Property taxes haven’t been raised since 2011. That’s 13 years, a pandemic, a global economic event and a lot of local problems ago. All of that took money, and none of it was addressed by increasing the county’s income.
And Fitzgerald knew that. He was a member of the Allegheny County Council when the last property tax increase was passed. He did not pass one during his 12-year tenure as executive. He did, however, warn one would come.
“It’s going to happen. It might not be next year … I don’t know when it’s going to be. But it won’t be able to stay that way forever as the operating budget continues to rise,” he said in 2022.
And so it is responsible of Innamorato to address the issue head-on in her first budget.
It also is important to remember the executive’s budget proposal is just the opening volley in the negotiations for where the budget will end up.
Allegheny County Councilman at-large Sam DeMarco, R-North Fayette, recognized costs are up and the county is several years into a deficit.
“If there has to be a tax increase, maybe it doesn’t have to be (46.5%) increase,” he said.
Of course. That needs to be the discussion every year. This is what is needed, this is what is wanted and the finished product is somewhere in the middle.
If previous budgets were addressed that way over the past 13 years, the county could be dealing with a smaller increase that wouldn’t be such a shock to the taxpayers.
Just ask Westmoreland County, which had a 32.5% increase this year after a nominal 2.9% in 2019. Before that, it had been 14 years since an increase.
People understand cost-of-living adjustments. They know they are paying more for gas and bread, so it won’t surprise them when the county is paying more for its necessities, too. Elected officials are not helping their people when they turn a blind eye to uncomfortable realities that need to be addressed.
It seems unlikely Innamorato’s budget will end up in a 46.5% tax increase. But she did the right thing by saying that’s what would fix the problem and jump-starting a necessary conversation.