So much for Pittsburgh’s municipal authorities being independent of the machinations of elected officials.
In late September, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto ordered four city authorities to report to him by Dec. 31 on the progress they’re making to, among other things, arbitrarily implement a $15 hourly wage for their employees.
Those agencies include the Pittsburgh Parking Authority, the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, the city Urban Redevelopment Authority and the city’s Housing Authority.
Such a measure already has been ordered for, and adopted by, city agencies under the direct control of Peduto and the city council. Among them — planning, public safety and public works.
The mayor expects the supposedly independent authorities to implement the higher $15 minimum hourly wage for full-time employees by January 2021. And should they not? Well, you can bet the pols will boot board members who refuse and appoint those who will do their bidding.
On Tuesday morning, on KDKA Radio, Allegheny County Chief Executive Rich Fitzgerald lauded the latest and past government moves to set the $15 hourly minimum.
To supposedly bolster his case, Fitzgerald pointed to this week’s announcement by Amazon that it will raise its hourly minimum for its workers and those employed by its Whole Foods subsidiary to $15. The executive also pointed to UPMC’s hourly wage initiative.
Of course, the problem with the Fitzgerald comparison is that it’s apples to oranges – government to the private sector.
And the problem with the mayor’s edict is twofold:
First, even though elected officials appoint authority board members, they have no business interfering with the wage rates for employees of those agencies.
The nod-nod, wink-wink that these authorities are “independent” is bad enough; a blatant directive to set wages at a certain scale is beyond the pale. But, sadly, that’s considered business as usual for pols and their puppet boards.
Second, but no less important, government officials have no business arbitrarily raising wage floors by government fiat. All wages should be based on skill set and productivity.
Period.
Speaking of public authorities, a comment made last month by the solicitor for the Allegheny County Airport Authority should be raising eyebrows and setting off alarm bells.
It came in the aftermath of the authority finally doing the right and transparent thing in forcing two conflicted board members to either divest in the troubled OneJet airline or resign from the authority board, and then barring any board member from becoming similarly conflicted.
The Tribune-Review reported that Solicitor Jeff Letwin “said he did not plan to ask the rest of the board members whether they’ve invested in airlines.”
How’s that work? Doesn’t the solicitor have a responsibility to ascertain whether the authority board members he advises are operating under not only board rules but eschewing perceived and actual conflicts of interest?
Of course, solicitors do have such a responsibility. But, alas, this is the same solicitor who saw no issue with two board members’ obvious conflicts – and apparently still does not — until some still unrevealed outside source forced the matter.
That said, “Ask nothing; know nothing” hardly is an example of sound public policy.
Speaking of OneJet, when it announced at the end of August that it was suspending all its flights in order to transition to larger jets, it said it would be back in the flying business come Oct. 1.
But October is here and there’s no indication that OneJet is coming back. An email to its customer care address was answered with an automatic reply, undated, that reiterated its plan to “expect inventory to reopen for sale beginning October 1.”
That’s air industry parlance for starting to book flights again.
But not only was its booking website not functional on Wednesday, it was still offering refunds through the end of 2018.
OneJet is being sued by the Allegheny County Airport Authority for nonperformance. The agency is demanding the return of the lion’s share of a $1 million public subsidy, part of an overall $3 million public-subsidy package.
It also was reported that OneJet had not paid federal taxes that dated to before it was offered the Airport Authority subsidy. And that continues to raise the question of a lack of due diligence. Surely, had there been a serious vetting of OneJet’s financial wherewithal, its tax scofflaw status would have been revealed.
So, who is responsible for this quite expensive lapse?
Who?
Well?
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
