Allegheny County Council 2024 Budget Hearing – Day 2 on October 19, 2023
Allegheny County Council 2024 Budget Hearing – Day 2 (October 19, 2023)
This was the second night of the Allegheny County Council's public hearings on the proposed 2024 budget, required by the Administrative Code and Home Rule Charter. The council heard from the Treasurer’s Office, Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney’s Office, Controller’s Office, the Fifth Judicial District (President Judge), and Pittsburgh Regional Transit, following public testimony.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Lisa Pennington, a family law attorney of 25 years, testified that the family division is failing constituents due to underfunding. She reported: support hearings take four months for 3,000 new filings per year; divorces require 30–45 days because only one employee grants them; custody hearings face six-month waits; and the PFA court has five staff handling 5,200 filings with a vacant attorney supervisor position. She also stated she was contacted by court administration and told to "stand down" after mentioning her intention to testify.
Discussion Items
- Treasurer John Weinstein presented his last budget (retiring after 32 years, along with his top deputies). The Treasurer’s Office requested $9.2 million (8.6% increase) and $1.689 million in capital for IT upgrades. Real estate tax collection remains at 99%. Investment earnings are up 82% from 2022. He expressed a goal to unify tax collection with the City of Pittsburgh and school districts.
- Sheriff’s Office: Sheriff Krause and Deputy Chief Kearney presented. The office has 206 employees and requested eight new positions (sergeant, six deputies for the Community Intensive Supervision Program, and one special counsel). Accomplishments included transporting 15,000 incarcerated individuals, serving over 20,000 legal papers, clearing 3,500 warrants, and conducting 100+ Megan’s Law checks. Body cameras were implemented for accountability. A facility dog joined the canine unit. Project Dump for safe medication disposal served 5,000 people at 10 events this year.
- District Attorney’s Office: Rebecca Spangler presented a brief written submission. They requested five attorney IIIs, six attorney IVs, six staff, and two paralegals (19 new positions). They acquired a digital evidence software and a new case management system using grant funding (total ~$700,000). Spangler noted difficulty filling existing positions.
- Controller’s Office: Corey O’Connor presented. Budget request $8.6 million. New positions include a construction manager, asset manager, and process improvement specialist. The office processed over 136,000 payments and $330 million in wages. Hotel audits recovered $432,824 owed to the county. They are exploring paying poll workers and jurors via debit cards.
- Fifth Judicial District (President Judge Clark): He reported that the family division is struggling to fill existing positions, not from lack of budget. He detailed the juvenile detention crisis: 152 juveniles on electronic monitoring (78.3% with violent felony/firearms charges), 392 bracelet-tampering incidents since 2022, 102 outstanding juvenile warrants (72.5% violent), and 23 juveniles charged as adults for new crimes including seven homicides. Since the Shuman Center closed, over 300 juveniles who met detention criteria were released home, resulting in at least five deaths (four shot, one overdose). He urged council to address the lack of detention capacity.
- Pittsburgh Regional Transit (CEO Katharine Eagan Kelleman): Operating budget $535 million, with a 4% increase request from the county. Ridership is at 62–64% of pre-COVID weekdays (weekends at 82%). Fares have not increased since 2010–11. The agency faces manpower issues (96% of transit agencies have hiring problems); they are working on a Bus Line Redesign. They have implemented affordable fare programs and a zero-emission fleet transition. COVID-19 claimed seven employees; a vaccine mandate was implemented and later lifted.
Key Outcomes
- The hearing was informational; no votes were taken. Council members asked questions and received commitments for follow-up data: a breakdown of DA’s prosecutions, sliding scale for electronic monitoring fees, updates on the Carnegie station project, and analysis of the 15 Charles Street route in Northview Heights.
- President Judge Clark will retire on December 23, 2023.
- The budget process continues with council deliberation.
Meeting Transcript
I want to be able to do that. I can't work in the distance. Okay, so we've got to wait to go to the first time. Oh no, John's John. Oh yeah, I was gonna make that assumption that you were still reactive in the L. Is that correct? Well, yeah. Welcome, Member Bennett. Hi. We can start now, the boss is here. I would like to call nice public hearing to order. Sarah, can you please recognize the council members in attendance? And Mr. Benjamin. Thank you very much. On door. Thank you. Uh there was one public commenter tonight, uh, Lisa Bangton. Thank you. Um right here probably. Sure. Do you need anything? Good evening. Thank you, Council members. I'm sorry. Uh my name's Lisa Pennington, and I practice family law for close to twenty-five years. I'm here to testify because my clients are coming into family division in a time of crisis, and our court system is failing them, which is something you will not hear today from court administration. Your constituents need timely child support payments. They need to get divorced, and they need custody relief, and none of that is happening timely in family commission. Month after month, 60 lawyers in our bar association ask why is it taking so long? And we are told every month there's no money in the budget to hire more staff. Another thing we hear is it's the union's fault. I don't even know what that means. Later, you'll hear from court administration, and they will tell you filing statistics and allocating county. But what I will tell you is the impact an underfunded court system is having with the volume of cases on your constituents. In support court, we have 3,000 new filings a year. And if you file today, you will not get a support hearing for four months. Four months with no money because the court can't process the claims. Westmoreland County, if I send a client, she'll get a support hearing in 30 days. We have one employee granting all of the divorces in Allegheny County. It takes her 30 to 45 days to get the final decree. Other counties, 24 hours. Your constituents' final divorce hearings, which are highly contentious, occur in the seven and a half floor, the seven and a half floor of the city county building, where clients have to walk up 15 stairs with boxes of exhibits, sit in minus school rooms that have no heating or cooling, and this takes a traumatic situation and makes it that much more traumatic. Can you even imagine a criminal trial occurring in that kind of situation? It's shameful for your constituents. PFA court, we have 5,200 PFAs and ICCs processed by a staff of five with a vacant attorney supervisor position. They are overwhelmed. Finally, custody court. We used to have three custody conciliators. Now we have none.
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