The Allegheny County acting controller (controller) presented the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) on June 1, summarizing results from 2025. A 36 percent property tax increase from 4.73 mills to 6.43 mills went into effect, the first since 2012. The controller’s news release stated the increase offers “only a brief respite from considerable fiscal concerns.”
A year ago, Allegheny Institute Policy Brief Vol. 25, No. 22, noted the decline in passengers at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) from May 2024 to May 2025. It also suggested that the passenger count in the following months of 2025 would likely reflect a slowing for the same period of 2024 because of the heavy subsidy to Frontier Airlines during those 2024 months. That Brief also noted that extreme weakness in private-sector job gains in the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) was, and would likely continue to be, a contributing factor to the very slow growth in passengers at PIT.
Indeed, monthly passenger counts in 2026 have struggled to match 2025 levels. For example, April’s 799,967 total fell behind the April 2025 tally of 818,558. And the May 2026 preliminary reading of 874,000 trailed the May 2025 posting of 887,304.
Allegheny County’s comprehensive financial report for 2025, as prepared by the county controller, is a sobering document that should provide local policy makers with plenty to think about, says a researcher at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.
A Pennsylvania legislative proposal to tax digital advertising to fund additional school property tax relief for seniors is not only fraught with legal peril but would harm businesses and stands to raise prices for consumers, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.
