In the end, Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto did the right thing: On Friday, he announced that he would “retire,” effective this Friday, Nov. 1.
But that he first chose to do the wrong thing – and was aided and abetted by Mayor Ed Gainey — remains troubling. It’s so troubling that City Council should begin an investigation.
The city’s top cop was caught recently on television officiating a college basketball game. That, after, as a condition of his 2023 employment, he promised to give up his side gig.
The public was not informed before he picked up his whistle anew. It was the result of a back-room deal with the mayor. City Council? It wasn’t informed either. Some members first learned of it when KDKA Radio’s Marty Griffin broke the story.
As for the chief, he says the no-reffing deal was only for a year. Do tell. Shhhhhhh! Secret! But in the firestorm that followed, Scirotto said he would take a pay cut to cover the cost of a new deputy chief he promoted to do his job when he was out of town officiating.
That could have been up to 65 games this season. Scirotto insisted he would use his regular days off and other time-off allotments and would not be officiating on the public dime or time.
Given the travel requirements for that many games — that’s hard to believe.
And as we noted previously, being the chief of police of a large city such as Pittsburgh is a 24/7/365 gig. Scirotto knew that. Or at least he should have. And so should have Mayor Gainey — especially regarding a police force whose officer numbers are down, whose experience has faded and, though it is said crime is being better controlled, still struggles with serious crime citywide.
All this said, the lack of sunlight regarding Scirotto’s return to college basketball officiating only reinforced the notion that some kind of skulduggery was afoot.
And there was. As is usually the case when the public’s business is conducted in the dark.
The winner of this year’s “Fat?! What Fat?! Award” goes to…
Allegheny County Chief Executive (ACE) Sara Innamorato.
Much to her chagrin, the Democrat-controlled County Council is balking at the Democrat ACE’s unprecedented proposal to jack up property taxes by 46.5 percent in her new budget blueprint.
But Innamorato has balked right back:
“What I heard from [County] Council is a lot of rhetoric and not a lot of proposed solutions,” Innamorato told reporters last week. “So, if they are interested in not moving forward with a 2.2 mill [increase], they’re going to have to tell us specifically what they want to cut, what programs they want to end.”
Or, just perhaps, Ms. Innamorato, where to pare county government’s obvious general bloat?
As the Allegheny Institute Research Director Eric Montarti detailed this month (in Policy Brief Vol. 24, No. 36), when compared to peer counties nationwide, Allegheny County government is out of whack. And that means there’s plenty of room for austerity measures.
Concludes Montarti’s analysis:
“Benchmarking, along with the tools in the Home Rule Charter—particularly the sunset review of departments and next year’s once-in-a-decade Government Review Commission—are vital to making sure that county operations are efficient and affordable for taxpayers.
“Savings must be found in other departments and functions in the 2025 budget deliberations.”
It’s time for County Council to get cracking. And it’s time for Innamorato to stop posturing and present her own leaner proposal that will start rendering the fat out of county government.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
