Allegheny County Council has reversed itself on a high-stakes money question, voting Tuesday to scrap a November ballot measure that would have asked voters to repeal the home-rule charter limit that caps Council’s operating budget at 0.4% of locally levied tax revenue. That proposal is now off the ballot, while a separate referendum on whether councilmembers should receive county-funded staff, district offices and fringe benefits will still go before voters. The about-face came after residents and several council members warned the timing and optics were off.
Why council reversed course
The rescission ordinance was introduced by Councilmember Suzanne Filiaggi, who said members were “inundated with emails, phone calls, text messages and social media comments” after the June vote and argued that wiping out the limit on the Council’s budget “risks sending the wrong message to taxpayers.” Backers of the original change had emphasized that voters would ultimately decide and that the amendment itself would not automatically hike spending. The decision to pull the question passed in an 11-3 vote, according to TribLIVE.
How the ballot questions started
On June 23, Council first voted to put two proposed charter amendments on the November ballot in a 9-6 decision that sent both the budget-cap repeal and the staffing-and-benefits question to voters, as reported by WESA. The legislation text on the county’s Legistar site shows that the budget cap is embedded in Article III, §7(f) of the charter and that any change would depend on voter approval. A separate filing on Legistar lays out the staffing-and-benefits question that is still headed for the ballot.
Who voted and what they said
The move to rescind passed 11-3, with Alex Rose, DeWitt Walton, and Paul Klein voting against pulling the question, according to TribLIVE. The original budget-cap referendum had been sponsored by Dan Grzybek, Robert Palmosina, Jordan Botta, Kathleen Madonna-Emmerling, Patrick Catena, Bethany Hallam, and Alex Rose. Hallam told reporters that the county pension fund is roughly $1.5 billion in the red because of years of underfunding, a figure critics pointed to as a reason the timing for lifting a cap on the Council’s own budget could look particularly tone-deaf.
What comes next
With the cap question withdrawn, the Allegheny County Board of Elections will not print that proposed amendment on November ballots, and only the staffing-and-benefits measure will go to voters. The reversal comes as county leaders face mounting long-term pension and budget pressures. An outside consultant has warned that the pension shortfall could require significant additional funding to keep the system solvent, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Any eventual charter changes will still hinge on how voters mark their ballots in November.
