Several media outlets, social and traditional, finally are exposing Allegheny County council members – and most certainly others — for the slicksters they are.
As most attention had been focused on a still-onerous, business-killing “parental leave” policy, it’s now being reported that, among other things, an ancillary proposal also mandates that small businesses with 15-plus employees must nearly double the sick time they offer – from 40 hours a year to 72 hours annually – and that small businesses with fewer than 15 workers must offer 48 hours of paid sick leave each year.
Save a mention by the Allegheny Institute in early September (in Policy Brief Vol. 26, No. 32), we don’t recall a whole lot of public discussion about those hardly little changes. Do you?
A County Council committee approved both expanded leave policies last week (after the county Health Department, where the parental leave policy originated, approved it) and the full council could vote on the measures as soon as Oct. 20.
But if those in county government have any sense of propriety (cough-cough, snirt-snirt and awkwardly giggle), they should delay any vote until the full extent of their stealth sick-leave skulduggery is vetted, publicly.
Meanwhile, some Pittsburgh City Council members are patting themselves on the back for proposing more financial transparency in budgeting and spending matters in light of an investigation into the former Gainey administration’s behavior.
Do tell.
As the Post-Gazette reports it:
“In addition to better training for council members on how the city’s budget works and giving the City Controller’s office access to budgeting software, the proposed legislation also puts spending limits on the usage of purchase cards,” better known as “P-cards,” which have proven to be especially ripe for end-arounding.
While that’s all well and good, why did it take the issuance of search warrants and the county district attorney’s probe to shake some commonsense oversight into city operations? Everything proposed should have been standard operating procedure from the get-go.
And, what, city councilors lack the intellectual heft to begin with to ask questions that should be second nature to any person in such a position? If they do, they have no business being on City Council.
Talk about nonfeasance. Why bother to think when rubber-stamping the regressive progressive agenda is mistaken for leadership?
There can be no room for such loosey-goosey-ism (LGI) in government operations at any level. Sadly, it’s quite obvious that the LGI crowd has been controlling Grant Street for far too many years.
And called out for their heretofore complacency (or was it complicity?), they are “Shocked!” – “Shocked!” they say – about what’s been going on.
More’s the pity.
The long-rotting problem for Pittsburgh and Allegheny County is that government has become the proverbial four wolves discussing with a lamb what to have for dinner.
But what, oh, what will the wolves do once they’ve eaten all the lambs?
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
