Does Allegheny County council need to swallow a tax increase?

GOVERNMENT IS MORE than just elections. It is the hard part — the part that comes between elections. It’s deciding what services people want. It’s prioritizing what they need. It’s finding a way to promote growth while preserving character. It is finding a way to pay for it all. And sometimes — often — the decisions won’t be popular. There will always be a crack someone falls through, and taxes will always be higher than people want to pay. But chasing votes instead of doing the job makes it harder. Allegheny County is dealing with financial challenges. County Executive Sara Innamorato has proposed a 46.5% tax increase for a $3.1 billion 2025 budget. It’s a lot. The bill on a median-assessed home in Allegheny County would increase by about $180 a year, and that very well might be too much to ask of people for a $160 million increase in revenue. But the county budget will have a $100 million shortfall without it, and officials will face more hard decisions about cutting services or jobs. “The truth is that if we stray even moderately far from a 2.2-mills increase, the cuts required to keep the budget balanced become very uncomfortable very quickly,” county Manager John Fournier wrote in a memo to council last week. Council President Pat Catena, D-Carnegie, called the memo insulting and a worst-case scenario. But it is the job of government to plan for the best and prepare for the worst. The county has not raised taxes since 2011. From municipalities to school districts to counties and higher, every elected official wants to avoid tax increases. They will put them off for years, trimming expense estimates and relying on fund balances and borrowing to make up the difference. But that is how Westmoreland County was backed into a 32.5% tax increase this year, five years after a smaller tax increase in 2019. Before that, the last increase had been 2005. Commissioners blamed previous officials’ neglect. Catena said there is not enough support for Innamorato’s proposal but has not detailed a counteroffer. That needs to happen, and it needs to happen soon. Not raising taxes is easy to sell to the people. It’s like getting a kid to eat cupcakes for dinner. It is harder to sell the less popular choices — like spinach. Delaying the hard choices doesn’t make them easier. It’s on council to find a way to make Innamorato’s vegetables palatable. Maybe that means making them a side dish instead of an entree, but the math, the manager and the executive all say they need to be on the plate.