Last week a columnist wrote a piece of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (oversight board) and its tussle with the City of Pittsburgh’s Mayor and asked “[the Governor] and the Democratic leaders in Harrisburg are the ones dawdling on filling the three ICA vacancies, by the way. Do they see that as a backdoor way of making the ICA disappear?.”
While the columnist stated that the oversight board is akin to a British upper house, it is actually modeled on one from the state’s largest city, Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, which was created by state legislation in 1991.
Both pieces of state legislation (this is the ICA law for Pittsburgh) contain identical language on the number of appointees (five) and who appoints them (Governor, Senate pro tem, Senate Minority leader, House Speaker, House Minority leader). Both pieces of legislation say that the terms of the appointees are coterminous with the person who appointed them and that they serve at the pleasure of the person who appointed them. A vacancy in an appointment is supposed to be filled within thirty days.
Right now, according to the PICA website, the board has a full compliment of appointees. The ICA, as we have read in numerous reports, including the column, has two. Of the three vacancies, one was due to resignation, one due to death, and one due to the term of the former Governor ending and placing the appointment under the control of the current Governor. The ICA board has obviously dealt with plenty of turnover during its existence (for example, read here, here, here, here, and here) and though there may have been some delay past the 30 day time frame seats have always been filled.
