Allegheny County has $16 million extra in drink tax account (Pittsburgh: car rental, 2015)

[tyovan4]

Is Allegheny County’s $16 million balance in an account to help Port Authority a rainy-day fund for unexpected emergencies or an opportunity to provide major transportation improvements?

Officials will be debating that question soon.

Allegheny County established a 10 percent drink tax and $2-a-day car rental tax in 2007 to provide its required share of funding for the Port Authority, generally about $29 million a year. When the taxes generated more than expected, Allegheny County Council reduced the drink tax to 7 percent in 2010.

Still, the fund collects substantially more than the required Port Authority subsidy. As a result, the fund ended 2015 with a balance of $16 million, according to Controller Chelsa Wagner’s annual comprehensive financial report released this week.

In Ms. Wagner’s opinion, the fund is “a big savings account with no clear plans for the future.” By law, the money is limited to Port Authority activities, but she said Thursday the county could be using it to plan for major improvements such as extending light rail service to Oakland or North Side neighborhoods instead of just saving it.

Allegheny County has $16 million extra in drink tax account | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Interesting topic for discussion. I think it may be better to invest this money into restoring some of the services/routes that were cut.

Last year, the county used $1 million from the Port Authority tax funds to pay for a study of the proposed Bus Rapid Transit system from Downtown to Oakland via the Uptown neighborhood.

This is utter insanity and typical of the waste of local government in this region.

[Moby Hick]

$16 million extra? I thought I'd cut back.