Parking lot operators left their rates unchanged following a Jan. 1 reduction in Pittsburgh's parking tax rate, effectively pocketing millions of dollars that would have otherwise gone into government coffers, according to an audit released by acting Controller Tony Pokora yesterday.

"Not one single lot reduced its rates," Mr. Pokora said. Meanwhile the cut "is a huge gash in the city's budget," depriving its coffers of an estimated $5.2 million in revenue this year, he said.

The controller's office looked at rates at 60 public and private parking facilities Downtown, on the North Side, in Oakland and at Station Square in December, and again in April, after the city's parking levy dropped from 50 percent to 45 percent.

That cut was mandated by the state law that created new taxes on people who work in the city and on the payrolls of for-profit employers.

No rates went up or down, while the city's tax take is expected to drop from $50.5 million last year to $47 million this year, according to financial reports and budgets. The tax cut is partly offset by an increase in the number of parked cars.

The tax cut kept parking rates from going up, said Merrill Stabile, president of Alco Parking Corp., which owns or operates 22 of the parking facilities the audit covered. "If the rate were at 50 percent, [parking] rates would be higher right now," he said, contending that labor, insurance, maintenance and utilities costs have risen.

The Pittsburgh Parking Authority, which owns 11 of the facilities reviewed, did not lower rates, but did promise free Downtown parking on Valentine's Day evening and five days during the Christmas shopping season.

"They have the lowest rates in the city," Mr. Pokora said of the authority. "They are not price gouging."

The tax rate must, under state law, drop to 35 percent by 2010.

Mr. Stabile said those tax cuts would "reduce the necessity of raising rates" in coming years, but might not result in decreases.

Mr. Pokora's audit suggests that any rate cuts "should be deferred until a mechanism insuring a corresponding parking fee reduction is implemented."

Councilman Jim Motznik, who asked for the audit, said he would use it to justify a vote in the fall against any further reduction in parking tax rates, regardless of what state law demands.

"I'm not going to vote to reduce it," he said. "Because the money's going back into the parking lot owners' pockets, not where it was intended to go, which is back into consumers' pockets."