Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato (right) and County Councilman Sam DeMarco in May 2024. DeMarco, a Republican, has criticized the tax increase proposal by Innamorato, a Democrat. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
Innamorato says a 2.2 mill tax increase is the only way to solve the county’s deficit and fund operations — unless unhappy legislators want to propose specific cuts to avoid it.
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Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato and the 15 members of County Council are working toward one of the most consequential and uncertain budgets in recent memory as the county government faces an $80 million deficit this year and the projection of a worse result next year.
Innamorato proposed her solution to council on Oct. 8: a 2.2 mill property tax hike, raising the county’s millage rate to 6.93 and allowing the county to maintain its spending course and replenish its reserves.
“It wasn’t my first choice to come in hot with a tax increase,” she said. “Once you understand that four out of the last five budgets County Council passed included a structural deficit, it is now my problem exclusively to deal with, along with this current County Council.”
Several council members called that plan “dead on arrival,” criticizing the steep tax hike and asking Innamorato to trim it by cutting spending.
The two sides have until Dec. 6 — a deadline set by the county charter — to pass a final budget.
“There’s going to have to be a lot of austerity measures across the board,” Council President Pat Catena said. “We can’t be putting a 2.2 mill tax increase out there. We’re going to tax people out of their homes.”
Innamorato said if council opposes her budget, the burden is on its members to propose any alternatives.
“I look forward to seeing what they propose,” Innamorato said. “Right now there’s been a lot of critique and not a lot of offering of solutions or proposals that could actually work in the real world.”
Short on ‘fluff’
Innamorato said the county government “doesn’t have a lot of fluff to begin with” and the administration worked this year to find positions and contracts that could be eliminated.
Catena said he is not sure if council will propose amendments or offer its own budget, and that the administration did not reach out to him between the plan’s introduction and council’s first budget hearing, on Oct. 17.
He conceded that some millage increase is likely. “We have too many financial headwinds to avoid making any tax increase,” he said, adding that he hoped the administration would work with council.
The first of council’s three budget hearings revealed how difficult it could be to find places to trim costs. When Councilor Bethany Hallam asked Sheriff Kevin Kraus what could be cut from his budget, Kraus replied, “I don’t know where I would cut it. Those numbers are reflective of the core functions of our office.”
Later, an official from the district attorney’s office told council the proposed budget was short on funding for law enforcement, far from offering up cuts.
“There is a clear bias in the public safety portion of the budget against law enforcement,” said Rebecca Spangler, chief of staff to District Attorney Stephen Zappala. She said the budget excluded additional personnel that the DA’s office asked for and cut its funding for necessary software licenses.
Innamorato called accusations of anti-law enforcement bias “disingenuous.” She pointed to a lack of complaints from the sheriff at Thursday’s budget hearing, as well as investments in alternative response pilot programs that will “free up officers at a municipal level so that they can solve violent crimes.”
What’s in the proposed budget?
Innamorato proposed an operating budget of $1.2 billion for 2025. That would be a 14% increase over 2024, though a large chunk of the increase is not in operating costs but in replenishing the county’s rainy day fund, which it has drawn down to cover deficits. County officials said the replenishment is necessary to prepare for future emergencies and to protect the county’s bond rating.
The proposal also includes more money for human services, children’s initiatives, the county jail, emergency services and information technology, among other priorities.
Innamorato said her proposed tax increase is needed to fund county services residents interact with often, such as road and bridge maintenance, emergency services and 911 calls, election administration and social services that help to transition unhoused people into secure housing.
The largest area of county government in the 2025 budget is health and welfare, accounting for 39% of the $1.2 billion.
The Department of Human Services, with a proposed $287 million budget, serves more than 200,000 individuals through childcare, child protective services, homelessness prevention and support and services for older adults, according to its budget. Almost 80% of its operating costs are covered by state and federal funding.
Another large piece of the health and welfare budget is the Kane nursing homes, which have nearly 1,200 beds in four facilities and offer dialysis and memory care. The Kane system covers more than 90% of its costs with patient fees and state and federal funding.
The second largest budget area is public safety, which accounts for 28% of the overall budget. The county jail has a proposed budget of $115 million for 2025, a 10% increase over this year. The Department of Emergency Services, which manages the county’s 911 call center, would receive a 13% budget increase, for a total of about $14 million. The Court of Common Pleas is set to receive $97 million, a 4% hike.
Few options to raise revenue
The real estate tax is by far the largest single revenue source for the county, and no other tax stream is even a fifth of its size.
It accounts for 77% of the county’s tax revenue in 2024 and 38% of revenue overall. The rest of the revenue is pieced together from smaller taxes, state and federal funding and user fees for county facilities like the Kane Centers.
Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.
This story was fact-checked by Rich Lord.
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.