Colin McNickle Columns category
Colin McNickle: Pittsburgh’s Downtown office malaise continues
Pittsburgh’s central business district (CBD) office vacancy rate in 2025’s first quarter held its own when compared with eight other U.S. cities, a new analysis shows. But that’s not necessarily much cause for cheer, says a scholar at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. Indeed, in the first quarter of...
Colin McNickle: A misguided proposal to redirect liquor tax revenue
The stated intent of Pennsylvania House Bill 985 is to divert liquor tax revenue to provide grants to municipalities with tax- exempt property comprising 15% or more of total assessed value and with household median income of less than 115% of the state level. But, “While the intent appears to be...
Colin McNickle: Again, PRT, first help thyself
As state budget negotiations come down to the June 30 wire and transit agencies across the commonwealth continue to lobby for the most taxpayer bailout money they can secure, we’ve repeatedly heard, and read, that Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) can’t cut its way out of its latest fiscal “crisis.” But...
Colin McNickle: How Pa. can best support the AI revolution
It certainly is on its way to become the “it” phrase of 2025: data centers. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has fueled the rush to build data centers to crunch all the algorithmic permutations that are part and parcel to AI. And all that crunching takes a lot...
Colin McNickle: Calculating those NFL Draft economic benefits
“All that glitters is not gold,” goes the aphorism made most famous by William Shakespeare in his “The Merchant of Venice.” And a researcher at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy says we should keep that phrase in mind when it comes to the claimed economic impact Pittsburgh can expect...
Colin McNickle: Five things Pittsburgh’s next mayor must do
It was four years ago that the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy recommended five actions for the incoming Pittsburgh mayor and City Council. It’s a practice that dates back 20 years. But, unfortunately, many of the 2021 recommendations never saw the light of day. And just as unfortunately, other, worse,...
Colin McNickle: PRT must help save itself
Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT), facing a $100 million budget deficit in fiscal 2025-26, is threatening massive service cuts. And it’s squarely blaming the commonwealth’s transit funding policies for its woes. State funding is “no longer able to meet the needs of Pennsylvania’s second-largest transit agency,” PRT complains. But researchers at...
Colin McNickle: The problem with Pittsburgh’s ‘Esplanade’ project
Local and state governments have joined forces to weave an incredibly tangled financing web to help a private company build a much-touted $740 million entertainment/retail and “affordable housing” complex on the north shore of the Ohio River near the West End Bridge. But researchers at the Allegheny Institute for Public...
Colin McNickle: A better way to bolster the property tax rolls
Much has been made of the City of Pittsburgh’s efforts to discern if certain properties owned by institutions of purely public charity deserve their tax-exempt status. After a review by the city’s departments of Finance and Law, the Allegheny County Office of Property Assessments ordered some of them back on...
Colin McNickle: The problem with subsidizing airlines
After struggling to reach the pre-pandemic passenger counts of 2019 in 2024, the Allegheny County Airport Authority agreed to a $600,000 subsidy for low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines to fly out of Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT). Separately, the state announced a $2 million grant to the county for air transportation improvement....
Colin McNickle: PPS’ continuing chronic absenteeism crisis
Chronic absenteeism in Pittsburgh Public Schools remains abysmal, concludes the latest data from watchdog A+ Schools. And the district’s chronic tardiness in addressing the matter has become inexcusable, says a scholar at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “The duty of PPS administrators is to put an end to the...
Colin McNickle: How to pare Allegheny County’s next budget
Allegheny County’s bitter budget battle ended not only with a compromise property tax hike by the Democrat chief executive and majority-Democrat council — a 36% hike instead of a 46.5% increase — but also “a commitment from both the Administration and Council to work together through 2025 to continue to...
Colin McNickle: Questioning Downtown Pittsburgh’s redevelopment plan
What should be done when an expansive and expensive public policy full of economic nonsense and moral hazard is proposed? It should be questioned. “There are many questions that need to be answered before any taxpayer money is doled out,” says Frank Gamrat, executive director of the Allegheny Institute for...
Colin McNickle: Right-sizing Pittsburgh Public Schools
Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS), long plagued by extraordinarily high spending per pupil but exceptionally weak academic results, also has been bedeviled by a plunging student census that has led to a gross building overcapacity. Allegheny Institute research assistant Alex Sodini says taking action on the latter could go a long...
Colin McNickle: Allegheny County can, and must, pare its budget
With Allegheny County Chief Executive Sara Innamorato’s proposed 46.5% property tax increase to fund her 2025 budget an apparent dead letter, some County Council members say it’s time to look for cost savings. And with “austerity” appearing to be the council’s new buzzword — whether that’s for political expediency or...
Colin McNickle: Challenges abound converting offices to residential
Converting vacant office space into residential units supposedly has become all the rage in the post-pandemic era, in Pittsburgh and nationwide. But is it, really? And do such conversions make economic sense? That depends, says the president-emeritus of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “There are several potentially serious obstacles...
Colin McNickle: An unflattering portrait of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh compares poorly to a composite of four cities that serve as a performance benchmark, concludes an updated analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “Pittsburgh’s lethargic emergence from the covid-19 pandemic … stood in stark contrast to the impressive recovery and improvement of the benchmark city,” say Eric...
Colin McNickle: PIT’s rising passenger count still trails national gains
While passenger levels at Pittsburgh International Airport recovered to May 2019 numbers this past May, they continued to lag the national upturn, says a researcher at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “There is no escaping the fact that the strength of local economies is an important driver of air...
Colin McNickle: Throwing good money after bad at PRT
Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) could receive millions of dollars more in state funding for its fiscal 2024-25 budget. But scholars at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy say that would be imprudent. “PRT has been remarkably inefficient in the use of public dollars in comparison to transit agencies in other...
Colin McNickle: Return money to Pa. taxpayers; don’t spend more
While the administration of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is proposing attempting to grow the commonwealth’s economy by giving away taxpayer money, a researcher at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy says a better plan would be to return money to taxpayers. “Putting money back in the hands of Pennsylvania’s taxpayers...
Colin McNickle: Higher office vacancy rates not confined to City of Pittsburgh
The City of Pittsburgh is not alone in its struggles with chronically high office vacancy rates. So, too, are Pittsburgh’s suburbs. And the same deleterious domino effect of the pandemic-fueled changed work habits, coupled with a lack of regular property assessments, could lead to the same serious challenges for suburban...
Colin McNickle: Voters should decide new ‘local option’ taxes
A bill introduced in the Pennsylvania General Assembly would allow all counties except Allegheny and Philadelphia to enact a 1% “local option” sales and use tax. But while the measure has just begun to wend its way through the law-making process, a scholar at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy...
Colin McNickle: The vicious cycle of Greater Pittsburgh’s population loss
Pittsburgh cannot thrive without a growing population, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “As population falls, so does the number of people available for the labor force,” says Frank Gamrat, executive director the Pittsburgh think tank. “Without a growing and strong labor force, the economy is...
Colin McNickle: Settle the assessments lawsuit, Allegheny County
The long-threatened lawsuit by Pittsburgh Public Schools to force Allegheny County to conduct a comprehensive property reassessment came to pass on April 8. And a scholar at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy says the county should settle the matter without a court order. “The best course is for Allegheny...
Colin McNickle: Cassotis’ ‘facts’ and PIT’s realities
“Facts are stubborn things,” Founding Father John Adams reminded. “And whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” Allegheny County Airport Authority CEO Christina Cassotis would be wise to recall that astute axiom the next time...
