After several weeks of debate and deadlock, Allegheny County Council and County Executive Sara Innamorato struck a compromise on a new county budget that will include the first property tax hike for homeowners in more than a decade.
The 2025 county budget, which includes $1.7 billion in operating funds, passed with the minimum number of votes required by a vote of 10-5.
The property tax increase of 1.7 mills will add $135 a year to a home with a $100,000 assessment. In Innamorato’s original proposal, property taxes would have increased by 2.2 mills, a nearly 50% increase. Once the budget goes into effect, the county’s mill rate will hit 6.43 mills. According to Investopedia, “1 mill is equal to $1 in property tax levied per $1,000 of a property’s assessed value.”
Proponents of the budget touted the fact that it prevents any county employees from being laid off, nor does it cut funding to any of Allegheny County’s public safety departments or public works.
Innamorato said the 2025 budget will “chip away at the fiscal challenges” she inherited from the previous County Executive Rich Fitzgerald. Councilman Nick Futules, who voted for the budget, celebrated the budget’s passage and its funding of “the county’s human services.” Futules said “How can you say ‘no’ to senior citizens that need us? How can you say ‘no’ to children that need childcare?”
While satisfied that a budget was passed, Innamorato was warned the hike property taxes does not mean the county government’s coffers will be flush with cash, and that Allegheny County “will have to manage its finances carefully.”
Council members critical of the budget blasted the tax hike. Councilman Sam DeMarco, one of only two Republicans on the Council, said advocates of funding for the Department of Human Services were “cynically played” by the Innamorato administration, which preyed on fears of job losses and program cuts to support a 2.2 mill tax increase. Similarly, Councilman David Bonaroti voted against the budget, saying the compromise 1.7 mill increase showed that Innamorato’s larger increase wasn’t necessary.
DeMarco also criticized Innamorato for not addressing the county’s finances with Council until October.
In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s vote, Innamorato warned that not agreeing to her larger tax increase would lead to “mass layoffs, including layoffs of police, complete decimation of our parks department.”
Allegheny County is not the only county in Western Pennsylvania proposing property tax increases. Armstrong County officials are proposing a 33% increase while Westmoreland County commissioners approved a 32.5% hike last year.
