Last Sunday in the Trib, Jim Roddey discussed the failed policies of the past. Today, I'll highlight our new approaches and how they're paying off.
For too long, Allegheny County government ran on autopilot. No one made tough decisions when it came to spending. If costs went up, property taxes were raised. During the Roddey administration, back-to-back reassessments triggered a $29.7 million property tax increase.
I campaigned to change the governmental status quo and bring sanity back to our assessment system -- and I've been doing just that for nearly five years.
Since 2004, I've fought to keep property taxes in check and prevent backdoor increases. In fact, with the help of County Council, Allegheny County hasn't raised property taxes in seven years. During the same period, our neighboring counties have increased property taxes from 19 percent to 35 percent.
Two of the hallmarks of my administration are cutting costs and increasing efficiency. I made the tough decision to reduce the county's operating payroll by 626 employees. And I worked with the Port Authority to reduce its work force by 377 employees. That's more than 1,000 positions removed from taxpayer-funded payrolls since 2004.
My administration has also merged government functions and eliminated duplicated services to stretch tax dollars. We consolidated five 911 centers into one, saving municipalities $3.5 million annually. The county also consolidated the municipal court system, police fingerprinting and bulk purchasing.
The county and city signed a joint telecommunications contract that will save $6 million during its three-year term. We also formed an energy purchasing consortium that's open to hospitals, schools, municipalities, authorities and other organizations and we're already reducing our energy costs.
I even led the fight for row office reform, despite opposition from some in my own party. As of January 2008, we successfully reduced the number of elected row offices in Allegheny County from 10 to four, which is saving taxpayers in excess of $1 million annually.
Perhaps the biggest break with the past came with my decision to fix the Port Authority. For decades, county administrations chose to ignore mounting fiscal problems at the agency. But rather than avoiding them, I am facing them head-on.
I outlined five steps to get the authority on stable financial ground -- reducing management expenses, rightsizing bus and train service, increasing rider fares, implementing dedicated funding and addressing labor costs.
We reined in management expenditures by eliminating positions, freezing salaries, increasing employee insurance contributions and addressing post-retirement health-care costs. The Port Authority cut service by 15 percent, which allowed for a further reduction of 321 positions. Earlier this year, the transit agency also raised fares.
That brings us to dedicated funding. Each year, Allegheny County is required by federal and state law to provide local operating and capital funds to the mass transit agency. For more than 40 years, the county simply gave property taxes to the agency for its local match, which put pressure on county operations.
This is an area where Jim Roddey and I differ greatly. He believes in the old practice of raising property taxes to fund transit and I don't. In fact, no other region in the United States uses property taxes to support its mass transit system. Again, change was clearly the way to go.
Harrisburg approved two funding options for Port Authority -- the drink and rental car taxes. Finally, we had a choice of using new revenue sources or raising property taxes to fund transit. With a mortgage crisis, soaring gas prices and rising costs on nearly everything, why in the world would we take a page from the past and hike property taxes? The decision was easy and I'd make the same choice today.
By shifting transit funding to the new dedicated revenues, we're meeting our federal and state obligations to the Port Authority while holding the line on property taxes. But once again, the status quo won't do, so the new revenues are being held in a restricted account until the Port Authority gets a competitive labor agreement.
One thing that Jim Roddey and I do agree on is that our new dedicated revenues should be used to address broader operating and capital needs for our transportation system.
Over the past four-and-a-half years, we've replaced government as usual with government for the 21st century and it's paying off.
The strongest proof of this came this past May when Standard & Poor's raised Allegheny County's debt rating from A to A-plus and Moody's changed our outlook from stable to positive. The rating agencies cited our cost cutting, debt reduction, growing fund balance and dedicated transit revenues as reasons for their confidence. Again, all of this was accomplished without raising property taxes.
I don't want to return to the failed policies of the past and I am confident the residents of Allegheny County don't want to either.
Dan Onorato is Allegheny County chief executive.
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