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Pittsburgh’s Parking Fiasco

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Pittsburgh is one of only a handful of cities with a parking authority that owns considerable numbers of parking facilities. Then too, Pittsburgh for years has had one of the highest, if not the highest, parking tax rate in the country. Revenues from parking make up a significant part of the city’s budget. Indeed, a sizable fraction of the parking tax revenue is to be diverted to pension funds in an attempt to stave off a state takeover of the pension plans. The problem: the state agency that must approve the plan might well find the proposal inadequate and the hole created in the city’s budget the diversion requires will need additional revenue from somewhere-spending cuts are anathema in Pittsburgh.

Where to find the revenue? Higher metered parking rates. The City owns the parking meters and can order higher rates be levied. However, the Parking Authority operates the meters and collects the money and is not sending the money to the City. What’s more there will not be enough revenue in the most optimistic scenario to make up for the parking tax diversion to pensions.

In sum, the City Council and the Mayor can reach agreement on virtually nothing but the unwillingness to make the kinds of cuts in spending and employee levels that will be required in any long term effort to right the City’s financial ship. How incomprehensibly irresponsible.

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