Of late there has been a renewed interest in merging Pittsburgh and Allegheny County governments. Proponents argue that a merger could produce a more streamlined government, lower costs and reduced taxes. We share the belief that streamlining government to lower costs and taxes is needed, but a city-county merger is not the way to achieve the desired outcomes.

		Jake Haulk is president and Frank Gamrat is senior research associate at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy).

The oft-cited Louisville-Jefferson County, Ky., merger offers no indication that such a merger will produce cost savings and lower taxes. In fact, the Kentucky law that allowed the merger referendum retained county row officers and left all taxing districts, fire protection districts, and sanitation and water districts in place. Louisville retained its city boundaries and is called an "urban services district" that has maintained its own tax and service levels. Then too, all existing municipalities were left intact.

But even more pertinent, Louisville and Jefferson County had already consolidated many services over the years including: the school districts, planning departments, parks, the library and several others. The only Pittsburgh/Allegheny County service to be merged is the 911 call center. Why would we believe that combining governments would be easier than consolidating duplicative functions? Sounds like unfounded optimism.

Mergers rarely result in a lowering of costs. The largest obstacle would be merging city and county departments that carry out the same function, but are represented by different unions with differing pay scales and benefit packages. Often the result is an equalization of pay rates, raising the rates of lower paid workers, causing costs to increase. After two years, Metro Louisville has reduced its work force by only 10 percent, mostly by eliminating vacant positions. Two years into the merger, Metro Louisville is facing a budget shortfall that may require a tax increase.

As far as the long-term impact of a city-county merger, one needs to look no further than Philadelphia. The Philadelphia merger is complete with government powers vested in the mayor and City Council. Moreover, there are no other "pesky" municipalities to create fragmentation, which we have been told for years is a primary deterrent to progress in Allegheny County. Despite having been merged for decades, Philadelphia still has serious economic problems and has been under a state-appointed oversight board since the early 1990s.

Why is it that Philadelphia is never touted as the poster child for city-county mergers? The answer is quite simple. Philadelphia may be streamlined in a very limited sense but it certainly provides no indication that a city-county government produces lower costs and taxes. Indeed, the opposite is true.

Combined city-county expenditures in Philadelphia for 2004 were $3.28 billion or $2,230 per resident. In Allegheny County, the combined cost of providing municipal and county services is just under $1,400 per resident. Thus, Philadelphia's per capita governmental costs are 60 percent higher than expenditures in Allegheny County and its municipalities. Obviously, the City of Brotherly Love has not done a very good job of using its merged status to control spending and reduce taxes. Indeed, there is no inherent structural advantage in a combined government that leads to more efficient or effective delivery of services.

Sharing service delivery, which can lead to reduced government spending, ought to be the immediate goal for the city and county. It can result in substantial savings for taxpayers, if done correctly. Why not take the very simple step of having the city contract with the county to provide a number of services such as parks maintenance, purchasing, fleet management, tax collection, payroll, etc? The city and county should be working together to reach agreements that will save the city money without adding costs to county taxpayers. Merging governments is not required to do that.

The Pittsburgh-Allegheny County government merger faces one insurmountable problem: Voters will never go for it. The evidence from other city-county mergers is simply insufficient to convince them that a merger here is an answer to the area's problems.

The area will begin to reverse the decades-long trend of economic decline and population loss only after our leaders take the necessary steps to cut the size of government, decrease taxes and create a more welcoming environment for business.