The following is a transcript of a report by Jim Parsons that first aired Feb. 14, 2008, on WTAE Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

---

Have you flown out of Pittsburgh International Airport in the last few months? If you have, you couldn't have missed all the empty gates.

The number of daily flights is a third of what it used to be, and business has never been worse.

But a Team 4 investigation found bonuses being handed out to government workers at the airport and a payroll that's just as high today as when business was booming.

Back in the airport's heyday, just a decade ago, 20-million passengers traveled through Pittsburgh each year, and there were 600 flights a day. Now, there are 200 flights a day and just 9 million passengers a year.

But some argue you wouldn't know times are tough by looking at the payroll of the county agency that operates the airport.

Brad Penrod, airport authority executive director, makes $185,000 a year. James Gill, chief financial officer, makes $155,000.

Both are government employees and make more in a year than Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, District Attorney Steven Zappala, County Manager Jim Flynn, Police Superintendent Charles Moffat and Sheriff William Mullen.

And on top of the salary, they get a bonus.

In 2007, the Airport Authority gave its CEO a $20,000 bonus. The chief operating officer got $10,000 and $9,000 went to the director of development.

In fact, every single employee of the Allegheny County Airport Authority got a bonus. Over the past two years, the authority has paid out more than $280,000 in employee bonuses. All were paid with public funds.

Chuck McCullough is the new at-large member of County Council.

"I appreciate you bringing this to my attention," he said. "If I were a stockholder in a company like that, I'd be at the stockholders meeting and would be holding director and management's feet to the fire in that situation."

But the Airport Authority is not a company. It's an agency of county government, like the Port Authority, with its own board of directors. And that board continues to add jobs while business plummets.

The Airport Authority said 446 employees worked there in 2006. In 2007, staffing levels increased to 452, and the current payroll is at 465. That's the same number of employees that worked there in 1996 when it was the Allegheny County Department of Aviation.

In that same year, 20-million passengers traveled through Pittsburgh International. But by 2007, passenger volume had dropped to 9 million. It's half the business, but the same number of employees.

Joanne Jenny is the Airport Authority's communications director.

"We have 50 some gates that we have to maintain and keep them operational for the airlines and also keep the airport a world class facility," she said. "We started adding staff only when we decided to take on the baggage system."

She said the Airport Authority cut its payroll to 350 employees in 2003, but then added jobs when it took over maintenance of the automated baggage system and JetWays from US Airways. But the added work only accounts for 76 new jobs, not the 115 that have been added since 2003.

"If a private company, which you know a little bit about, were to experience a loss of half of its customers, would the payroll stay the same? Of course not," said former Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey. "I don't know that you would cut half of your payroll, but you would cut a significant amount of your payroll. You can't continue to operate when you lose customer base. You can't continue to operate with the same size operation that you had."

The average salary at the Airport Authority is $47,306. That's 37 percent higher than the average salary throughout the rest of Allegheny County government.

But what about the benefits?

"One of the reasons we can be competitive in recruiting personnel here has to do with our benefit package. We have good health care," said Jenny.

Employees get top-of-the-line health insurance from HighMark and only have to kick in $3 a paycheck. The cost to the authority is $960 a month for each employee. That's an annual expense of over $5 million.

McCullough said it's time to figure out whether Pittsburgh International should be brought back under the direct control of county government.

"An awful lot of capital, an awful lot of taxpayer dollars went into building the facility," he said. "There were high hopes it was going to be a spur for economic development. It was a going to be a boom to business. I understand that 9-11 happened, but 9-11 is now six years old. The progress just hasn't been there. It just hasn't panned out. It's time to look at that and see if the taxpayers are getting the benefit of their bargain."

Penrod said his $185,000 salary and $20,000 bonus make one of the lower-paid executives at major U.S. airports.

Burt McCullough said Penrod is missing the point. He said Pittsburgh International is no longer a major U.S. airport. McCullough has submitted a resolution to Council, asking for independent study of the Airport Authority, Port Authority and Alcosan to determine if they should be privatized or turned back over to the county government for direct oversight.

---

Related Links:
More County News

Get RSS | E-Mail Alerts

---