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An ordinance of the County of Allegheny, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, directing that a referendum question regarding the repeal of Article V, §2(i) of the Home Rule Charter of Allegheny County, which affords the Chief Executive sole authority over all County contracts not involving property transactions, be placed on the November 3, 2026 General Election ballot; and further amending Article V, §2(i), contingent upon the passage of the referendum question.
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Whereas, Article V, §2(i) of the Home Rule Charter of Allegheny County, in its entirety, specifies that the Chief Executive is granted the power to “[n]egotiate, award and sign, or cause to be negotiated, awarded and signed on behalf of the County, all contracts, agreements and other instruments, except as provided in Article IV, Section 2(j) and (k).”; and
Whereas, the exceptions contained within Article IV, Sections 2(j) and (k) are extremely limited, and pertain solely to the acceptance of gifts of personal or real property to the County and leasing, conveying, vacating, abandoning, or permitting the use of County owned property; and
Whereas, the aforementioned Charter provisions combine to create a structure in which the vast majority of County contracts - regardless of the duration or value of those contracts - are entirely subject to the discretion of a single individual; and
Whereas, this structure creates inevitable tension with the provisions of Article IV, §2(c) and Article VII of the Charter, which vests Council with authority over the County’s annual budgets, because the County’s contractual commitments generally entail budgetary impacts in current and, when multi-year contracts are involved, future budget years; and
Whereas, the drafters of the County’s Administrative Code sought to mitigate this tension by the inclusion of a provision requiring that “[a]ll capital, operating, maintenance, and professional service contracts and change orders let by Allegheny County and its De...
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