Billboard tax pushed by city councilman
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A 10 percent tax on billboard advertising could provide enough revenue to help cash-starved Pittsburgh replace police cars and other vehicles on a regular basis, city council budget director Bill Urbanic said Tuesday, as lawyers for the area's biggest billboard company called the proposal part of a vendetta against their client.
Councilman Doug Shields hopes to push through legislation authorizing the tax before he leaves office at year's end, but it's too early to say whether he'll succeed. Council next meets Dec. 30.
At a public hearing on the proposal Tuesday, Mr. Urbanic said the tax on about 1,000 billboards citywide could generate $1.5 million to $4 million annually. That differs from the $2 million to $3 million estimate given when Mr. Shields introduced the bill Dec. 6.
Mr. Shields said billboard companies pay low real estate taxes on small plots that billboards sit on. They pay no property taxes on the valuable signs themselves, he said, because state courts have ruled them to be personal property, not real estate.
City officials are "pulling the sled as far and as fast as we can. But the sled gets weighed down by those that are not paying their fair share," Mr. Shields said.
The hearing came a day after council gave final approval to new rules for LED billboards, which lawyers for Lamar described as "littered with constitutional violations" and a setback for nonprofit groups that rely on free billboard space to promote their causes.
Lamar attorney Jonathan Kamin said the tax also would be illegal and an example of "animus" against his client, which sparked a wide-ranging debate about billboards about three years ago, when it began putting an LED sign on the Grant Street Transportation Center, Downtown.
Council members questioned the process by which Lamar received city approval for the sign. After a legal battle involving the civic group Scenic Pittsburgh, Lamar removed the never-finished sign in August.
Mr. Kamin estimated that Lamar already pays close to $100,000 in annual property taxes. He said the company also pays an annual $52 permit fee for each of the several hundred billboards it owns in the city.
The hearing drew only two speakers, including Mr. Kamin. Mr. Shields said the lack of participation was a sign that the public doesn't care whether the city taxes billboards.
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's office didn't say Tuesday whether the mayor would sign or veto the bill, which Mr. Shields is trying to push through before leftover legislation dies at the end of council's two-year session Dec. 31. Council President Darlene Harris expressed support for the proposal. "The city does need help," she said.
The tax would be based on the rent advertisers pay and would be paid by the advertisers, not billboard companies, Mr. Urbanic said. Billboard companies would have to collect the money and remit it to the city.
Mr. Urbanic said the city, which has been under state financial oversight since 2004, is supposed to be looking for new revenues as part of the recovery process. He said the billboard tax could provide an answer to a thorny problem: how to replace police cars and other vehicles on a consistent basis.
With finances especially tight this year, the city purchased only 14 police cars, an unacceptably low number, public-safety officials have said.
For 2012, Mr. Ravenstahl has proposed spending $7.5 million on vehicles, including nearly $3 million for 83 police vehicles. He has proposed floating an $80 million bond issue to finance vehicle purchases and other projects over the next two years, but Mr. Urbanic noted that bond repayment falls on the shoulders of city taxpayers.
First Published December 21, 2011 12:00 am
