Hubris has reached a new low at the Allegheny County Airport Authority.
As both the Tribune-Review and Post-Gazette reported last week, the authority this month awarded CEO Christina Cassotis a 2017 bonus of $146,000. That’s on top of her annual salary of $344,000. Additionally, she was paid a $10,000 retention bonus and received $78,000 in retirement contributions.
The authority’s board chairman says the board was “amazed by the progress” Cassotis made in attracting new flights to Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT).
Never mind that much of the new business is publicly subsidized, many of those deals defile sound business practices and the “progress,” as this institute detailed (in Policy Brief Vol. 18, No. 7), mirrors improvements in the national economy.
Thus, “the notion that PIT is a world beater in obtaining flights ignores the fact that other comparable airports are doing just as well and some are doing better,” institute scholars Frank Gamrat and Jake Haulk noted in February.
But I digress.
As both newspapers also note, while Cassiotis’ bonus was made public, it was not voted on at a public meeting. The Airport Authority, of course, is a public authority and must operate under provisions of the state’s Sunshine Act.
The authority’s solicitor, however, appears to have pooh-poohed such a notion. He claims that Cassotis’ bonus framework – a minimum of 15 percent — is laid out in her contract “with no board discretion.”
And that because the board gave its chairman the authority to assess her performance and give Cassotis “any bonus is excess of the minimum,” neither a public vote nor public comment opportunity apparently was required.
That’s news to the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, which says the law is pretty clear that the public has a right to sunshine. That being this public authority holding a public vote and allowing for public comment.
The public’s business being conducted behind closed doors is anathema to sound public policy.
Then there’s this:
An airport spokesman further defends Cassotis’ bonus compensation by noting that no local, state or federal tax dollars are used; it comes from fees paid by the airlines.
Ah, the logic of dissemblers proffering a distinction with no difference.
Once again, class:
The Allegheny County Airport Authority is a public authority. No matter the origin of the money Cassotis is being paid, she is a public official. And her pay is public money because the authority is a public agency doing the public’s business and, lest we forget, throwing public money at airlines to fly in and out of Pittsburgh.
Hubris, it once was written, is just one step ahead of loss of integrity. “Leaders” who don’t think the rules of transparency apply to them quickly lose their integrity.
The Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area’s population declined for the fifth-straight year in 2017, U.S. Census Bureau estimates show, as reported by the Post-Gazette. Allegheny County’s population declined for the fourth-straight year. City of Pittsburgh population estimates have yet to be released.
But Greater Pittsburgh’s population loss last year of 8,169 was the greatest of any metro area except Chicago. Allegheny County’s 4,505 drop was the fifth-largest among U.S. counties.
But, but, but weren’t all those publicly financed amenities – think three new professional sports complexes, a new convention center and the North Shore Connector, among others – supposed to make Greater Pittsburgh a destination nonpareil?
Or are we a mere one more public shakedown away – think Amazon – for Greater Pittsburgh to arrive, finally, in the pols’ proverbial promised land?
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
