As expected, Allegheny County Chief Executive Rich Fitzgerald has gone to court over County Council’s imposition of a $20 minimum wage for county employees by 2026.
The ACE, though supporting higher minimums, says the council exceeded its authority in raising the wage floor. County Council voted for the hike, Fitzgerald vetoed it, then the council overrode that veto. He also says such an increase will necessitate a stiff tax hike.
But at the heart of the dispute is Fitzgerald’s contention that the council does not have any county Home Rule Charter warrant to set wages. That purview, per the charter, rests solely with the executive branch, he says.
It is a classic separation of powers question, one properly placed before the court.
But in reacting to the lawsuit — in which Fitzgerald asks the court for an expedited declaratory judgment to allow the budgeting process to proceed – one council member offered an exceedingly troubling quote.
As the Tribune-Review reported it:
“Councilwoman Bethany Hallam, D-Brighton Heights, called the legal action ‘irrelevant.’
“’A declaratory judgment cannot prevent [the] council from appropriating the funding necessary to implement this pay raise in the 2024 budget, nor can it prevent the next county executive from implementing the pay raise using that appropriation,’ Hallam said Wednesday.”
Rule of law? What rule of law?
One of the coordinated talking points coming out of the Democrat-controlled County Council is that Fitzgerald’s legal action is akin to a “temper tantrum.”
But should the court rule in the ACE’s favor and the full council follows Hallam’s lead in refusing to follow the rule of law, such a temerity tantrum must not go unsanctioned by the courts.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
