Allegheny County executive, controller each want to monitor meters
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Allegheny County's new controller and new executive appear headed for a showdown over the question of who should make sure store scales and gas pumps are accurate.
The task of monitoring a variety of measuring devices, including UPC scanners and parking meters, has been the responsibility of the controller since 2008.
County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, however, says that job is an administrative task and once again should be directed from his office.
Controller Chelsa Wagner says the annual inspection of more than 10,000 gas pumps is clearly an auditing function that should stay with her.
The staff that handles weights and measures operations is composed of three field employees and a shared administrative assistant. Salaries for the positions total about $150,000.
Mr. Fitzgerald and Ms. Wagner are Democrats who began their first terms in their new offices less than a month ago.
"County residents deserve to know that a gallon of gas is a gallon of gas, that a pound of lunch meat is a pound of lunch meat," Ms. Wagner said. "And that is precisely why, by law, this function is performed by the controller's office -- to ensure that independent validation."
County residents have grown accustomed to seeing the controller's name in large type on the inspection stickers affixed to gas pumps and scales, she said. "This promotes transparency and makes clear somebody is accountable, so residents know whom they should be calling with problems."
Mr. Fitzgerald described himself as surprised and shocked when Ms. Wagner's office issued a release on Tuesday making public her objections to any transfer of responsibility for monitoring weights and measures.
"When I talked with Chelsa a year ago, she agreed that it is an administrative function and not a controller function -- nowhere in the state is this job done by a county controller," he said. "This change would be about good government, checks and balances and saving money."
The controller's job is to audit other county agencies and functions. Checking up on the work weights and measures -- done by the controller's staff -- would require hiring an outside auditor, he said.
Making sure that scales, scanners and gas pumps are accurate is itself an auditing function, Ms. Wagner said. She also rejected as "patently false" his version of their conversations about monitoring responsibility.
The 2008 ordinance to transfer supervision of the bureau of weights and measures from the executive branch to the controller passed county council with bipartisan support. Mr. Fitzgerald, then president of council, voted for the change, Ms. Wagner said.
Council has not yet seen any legislation that would transfer the bureau back to the executive branch, council President Charles Martoni said Tuesday.
"I really know nothing about the proposal, and I haven't thought about the merits," Mr. Martoni said.
First Published February 1, 2012 12:00 am
