What happens when there is a smoldering fire, the fire department is called but nobody answers the call?
Pittsburghers could be about to find out.
Pittsburgh Controller Rachael Heisler, the city’s independently elected fiscal watchdog, has repeatedly pulled the fire alarm over the erstwhile Steel City’s deteriorating financial outlook.
As various media outlets have reported, the problem is elementary: The city is spending more than it’s taking in. And the situation has been exacerbated by, among other things, the coming exhaustion of federal “rescue” dollars delivered during the pandemic and successful property tax appeals by Downtown building owners.
And with the continuing population and jobs funk, something must give. If Pittsburgh can’t tighten its fiscal belt, it could be taxpayers involuntarily giving up more of their income through higher taxes.
Be that as it may, Jake Pawlak, director of the city’s Office of Management and Budget, is downplaying Heisler’s alarm. Indeed, the city has financial issues but they are “manageable,” he says.
Famous last words?
Controller Heisler proffers that if 5,000 people moved to Pittsburgh over the next five years, “a lot of our financial issues would not be nearly as severe.”
Would that it were.
But her clarion call is the perfect opportunity – now — for the city to conduct a top to bottom review of its spending, its economic growth-inhibiting regulations and any areas where it can and should explore privatization options.
That would include, but certainly not be limited to, the regrettably already poison-pilled option of privatizing how water is conveyed to the public and the no-brainer privatization of garbage pick-up.
Failure to place these and other major options on the table, and to act decisively to support them, surely will keep Heisler pulling the fire alarms.
Dawdling is no option.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
