The Auditor General has completed and released his office’s audit of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority as requested by the Mayor of Pittsburgh and recommends an agreement by which “…the city commits to use gaming revenue to reduce Pittsburgh’s sizeable municipal pension liability and in exchange, the Commonwealth agrees to dissolve the ICA”.
The office’s press release on the audit notes that “… even after the ICA is eventually dissolved, Pittsburgh will likely remain under the oversight of advisors as part of the Municipalities Financial Recover Act, better known as Act 47. Pittsburgh is one of 19 cities across the state currently in “Distressed” status under Act 47.”
So here we are three years after the November 2012 recommendation by the City’s Act 47 team that they should be the ones to go because the ICA would still be in place.
The audit states that “our review concludes that the City had balanced annual operating budgets and five-year financial plans approved by the ICA board for calendar years 2013, 2014, and 2015. The ICA’s approval of three consecutive balanced budgets appears to meet the standard set in the ICA act that would allow the DCED secretary to proceed with dissolving the ICA”. If that is the case, then why the need to broker a separate agreement on the gaming money with the state?
