County Executive Innamorato calls on council to find cuts to make in response to proposed tax hike

ALLEGHENY COUNTY, Pa. — Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato is calling on council to find places to make cuts if they don’t like her proposed tax hike.

Innamorato’s 2025 budget proposal calls for a 46% property tax increase as the county faces an $81 million deficit.

“What I heard from council is a lot of rhetoric and not a lot of proposed solutions,” Innamorato said.

Allegheny County property tax is currently 4.73 mills. Innamorato’s plan would be to raise it to 6.93.

The proposed increase brings an extra $182 in property taxes per year for someone with a $110,000 home.

“If they are interested in not moving forward with the 2.2 mill, it means they’re going to have to tell us specifically what they want to cut, what programs they want to cut and what programs they want to end,” Innamorato said.

Council President Pat Catena says there’s no way of getting around an increase.

“There’s going to be a tax increase, unfortunately. I’d like to say there wasn’t going to be, that there didn’t need to be. We haven’t had one in a long long time. But is it going to be 2.2? Not on my watch,” Catena said. “We need to see what we can cut. We aren’t going to cut the 911 center. We aren’t going to cut road repairs and bridges and stuff like that. We need to see what programs we can get by with that we don’t need.”

So far, one public hearing has been held on the budget.

There are two more before the end of the month.

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