Wilkinsburg Mayor Dontae Comans, cradling his son Beau, speaks at the Wilkinsburg Land Bank press conference on July 19, 2023. (Photo by Alexis Wary/PublicSource)
by Charlie Wolfson, PublicSource
“Annexation is dead. What’s next?”
Those sentences led an advertisement for a July 31 community meeting in Wilkinsburg, and the question permeates discussions among borough activists and elected officials.
A July Commonwealth Court ruling left the two-year-old effort to annex the borough into Pittsburgh stalled, if not deceased. While the debate over annexation was a binary choice — to join the city or not — where the borough goes from here is much more complex.
The borough’s challenges haven’t eased; tax revenue is in low supply and blight is widespread. The borough council is undergoing major change, with new members and a young mayor poised to shake up the municipal government. And a commission elected last year is exploring the possibility of drafting a home rule charter for the borough, perhaps the most drastic possible change to borough government other than annexation.
“We want to get people excited about rebuilding Wilkinsburg,” said Renee Haynes-Johnson, a Government Study Commission member and a Democratic nominee for borough council in the upcoming elections.
Home rule and the trickiness of taxation
Under Pennsylvania law, all boroughs have the same basic government structure and limited taxing power. Voters can decide to make their borough into a home rule municipality, though, which effectively transfers some governing power from the state Capitol to local borough leaders. Wilkinsburg voters began the process of making that change last year when they approved a Government Study Commission.
The seven-member commission is tasked with deciding whether the borough should adopt a home rule charter, and if so, what it should say. If it produces a draft charter, voters would either ratify or kill it at a future election. The vote on whether to pursue a charter is scheduled for a late August public meeting.
Home rule has many implications, but increased taxing power is likely the most impactful one. Home rule municipalities have no cap on income tax rates while boroughs are not allowed to set rates above 1%.
Numerous home rule municipalities in Allegheny County have exercised that power, with many setting income tax rates between 1% and 2%. The City of Pittsburgh leads the pack with a 3% earned income tax.
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