Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor (also the highly presumptive Mayor-elect of the City of Pittsburgh) says county finances are “unsustainable” for the long term.
He’s being too kind. They are a mess.
It’s a simple matter of spending more than is coming in – tens of millions more — coupled with a generalized recalcitrance to economize. And it comes fast on the heels of last year’s still-onerous property tax hike (reduced from an outrageous level in the political process) and exhaustion of federal Covid “relief” money.
Perhaps one of the larger messes in this Mess, Et Al., is the county’s pension fund that continues to be funded at a paltry 31 percent. “Acceptable” funding is considered to be 80 percent.
Expect the county powers that be to soon begin arguing for the exact opposite of what they should be — more tax hikes. But attempting to tax one’s government jurisdiction to prosperity is, in a phrase, “economic ignorance.”
Without serious efforts to cut the size and expense of Allegheny County government, ever darker times will be ahead.
The cover page teaser headline on a local newspaper’s website about the remade Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) was a hoot, and possibly with a tinge of truth to it:
“Fake flyers needed to simulate busy day at Pittsburgh airport’s new terminal.”
But when one clicked on the cover teaser to go to the story itself, the headline read “Volunteers needed to take Pittsburgh International Airport’s new terminal for a test flight.”
The cover page teaser headline was changed later in the day to match the clicked-on story.
We are left to wonder if the teaser headline so blew the minds of the sensitive types at the Airport Authority that they promptly got on the blower to complain.
Yes, you may laugh here. Because, yes, that’s funny stuff.
But perhaps that original cover page teaser headline was a copy editor’s Freudian affirmation of the machinations the Allegheny County Airport Authority has played with passenger numbers at the Findlay Township operation.
What comes to mind specifically were those subsidized British Airways flights, the subsidies rationalized by intimating that the direct flight between London and Pittsburgh bring a bolus of European tourists to Pittsburgh and, thus, a huge local economic impact.
We remind that the “bolus” never has been quantified. That, as the Allegheny Institute has steadfastly argued that such subsidies merely export dollars abroad.
Back to PIT’s call for volunteers. It’s seeking between 3,000 and 4,000 fake flyers to put the new $1.7 billion terminal through its paces to identify any bugs in the new operation and formulate fixes.
It’s a legitimate endeavor, of course. And it should be fun for those fake flyers who sign up to participate. We just hope that at least one of these volunteers has the ornery sense of humor to wear an I.D. sticker with “FAKE FLYER” written on it in bold black letters.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
