Wilkinsburg Borough Council has proposed doubling the earned income tax rate for residents and instating a smaller tax on nonresidents who work in the borough. A vote could come on Nov. 4.
Under the proposal, the EIT for residents would increase from 1% to 2%, while nonresidents working in the borough would begin paying a 1% tax. The typical working resident would pay around $760 annually, based on median salary data from 2024.
Currently, the 1% tax is split evenly between the borough and the Wilkinsburg Borough school District. The new proposal would keep the school district’s share at 0.5%, while the borough’s share would triple to 1.5%.
“We’ve been watching our expenses continue to climb, but our revenues have remained at a steady pace, and we’re finding it more and more difficult to continue at the level of service that we are without increasing our revenue,” said Councilor Renee Haynes-Johnson in an interview with Pittsburgh’s Public Source.
Without the increase, borough officials warned in a public statement, residents could experience cuts to services including public safety, road and infrastructure maintenance, snow removal, park improvements, recreational and cultural programming, stormwater compliance and environmental protection.
Budget shortfalls
The proposed tax increase comes as Wilkinsburg faces a $2.9 million deficit in 2027, per the borough’s draft budget, in which total projected revenues come in at $12.8 million.
Finance Director Carole Salisbury said the income tax increase is projected to rake in $5 million for the borough in 2027, when the new tax would become effective by the second quarter, and $6.8 million in 2028.
Steady deficits in recent years have cut the borough’s general fund balance from $5.5 million in 2023 to a projected $1.5 million in 2026.
Wilkinsburg officials first discussed raising the earned income tax in 2023, as the borough grappled with a failed attempt to annex into Pittsburgh, a shrinking population and eroding revenue base.
“The direction that we began to look at a couple of years ago was, ‘How could the earned income tax benefit us?’” Haynes-Johnson said.
Municipalities can raise revenue through earned income taxes, real estate taxes and local service levies.
Under state law, the combined resident EIT cannot exceed 1%. A home rule charter adopted in 2024, however, frees Wilkinsburg from that limit.
Wilkinsburg property owners pay some of the highest real estate taxes in Allegheny County, with a combined borough, school and county millage rate of 49.331 mills. Borough officials say raising the income tax is “the only alternative” to the deficit.
“To increase real estate [taxes] would be unfair to the small percentage of homeowners that we have in Wilkinsburg,” Haynes-Johnson said. “Most of those are senior citizens on fixed income or unearned income.”
Wilkinsburg by the numbers
- Population: 14,027
- Median household income: $46,416
- Percentage of housing units that are renter-occupied: 70%
- Percentage of residents below the poverty line: 20.4%
The median income for Wilkinsburg residents of working age sat at $37,575, according to 2024 census data, with homeowners representing only 30% of the borough’s housing base.
For Dianne Watson, who has lived in Wilkinsburg for nearly 10 years, the proposed increase raises doubts about whether higher taxes can address the borough’s longstanding challenges.
“None of the decisions they have been making — including the income tax increase — are helping the community,” Watson said. “Most of the people who live in the community are lower income, and you know, it’s going to be a regressive tax.”
The borough hosted two public hearings, published the ordinance in the New Pittsburgh Courier, and posted about the proposal to Facebook. But when Public Source talked with 12 residents in late October, 11 said they were not aware of the proposed increase.
“It’s just another expense,” said renter Courtney Nassar. “They should have done a better job educating on it.”
Others said the increase reflects an inward-focused council.
“I never know when anything is going on,” said renter Terry Paske. “You need to put the legwork in to be a quote unquote community member. I wish there was more of an effort to disseminate information.”
Salisbury said that if the proposal is not passed, the borough will have to reduce services across the board.
“That would mean less police officers, less public works, and with the winter coming, it could have a huge effect,” Salisbury said. “Looking at laying off salaried people and talking with the unions about further layoffs — it would be difficult to run the borough. We are such a small staff to start laying off people.”
According to the 2027 budget draft, the mayor will see a $7,500 increase in his salary – from $17,500 in 2026 to $25,000 in 2027.
Council members will also see a 33% increase in their salary, from $6,000 in 2026 to $8,000 in 2027.
According to Mayor Dontae Comans, both salary increases can be attributed to expanding responsibilities under the home rule charter.
“Any other mayor, they’re just above the police. I’m above the police and the borough management,” Comans said. “It’s more of a CEO role.”
The mayor’s salary will be incrementally increased by $7,500 per year until reaching the full salary of $40,000. Likewise, council members’ compensation will continue to increase by $2,000 per year until reaching a full salary of $10,000, per the charter.
Pennsylvania’s constitution caps compensation for borough mayors and councilors at $5,000 and $3,300 a year, respectively. Wilkinsburg’s home rule charter allows them to exceed the state limits. In surrounding home rule municipalities such as Bethel Park, Mt. Lebanon and Penn Hills, compensation for part-time electeds sits within the $3,000 to $5,000 range.
Non-resident tax may rake in little to no revenue for the Borough
The proposed 1% earned income tax on non-residents is projected to bring in a “very small” amount of revenue for the borough, Salisbury said.
Under Pennsylvania’s Act 32, employers must withhold the higher of an employee’s total resident earned income tax and the nonresident rate where the employee works. If both are the same, then the worker’s home borough takes precedence.
In Wilkinsburg, the proposed non-resident rate sits at 1%. Many municipalities surrounding Wilkinsburg have a higher resident income tax rate, meaning that workers living in those places would not owe the borough anything.
“With a 1% [non-resident tax], we had a better chance of encountering an opportunity to receive the benefit of the earned income tax compared to other municipalities,” Salisbury said. “Most of the time, it’s going to balance out that there’s nothing that we would gain, but there are those instances where we will. At this point in time, I don’t think we’re going to turn anything down that would benefit the borough.”
The borough projects the non-resident tax to bring in roughly $50,000 in revenue in 2027.
EIT rates climb across Pittsburgh area
Wilkinsburg is not the only municipality looking to raise income taxes in response to mounting pressures.
Earlier last week, Mt. Lebanon — a home rule municipality — proposed raising its earned income tax by 0.2% to account for a $2.3 million gap in stormwater funding.
Likewise, Bethel Park raised its earned income tax by 0.25% at the start of 2026 in response to rising maintenance and infrastructure costs.
“There is talk, if you keep your ear to the grindstone, you’re going to find that other places are going to be raising theirs as well,” Haynes-Johnson said.
Across the state, municipalities are looking to adopt home rule charters in an effort to gain greater tax flexibility.
“The big picture is we need a state solution,” said Tracey Evans, executive director of the Wilkinsburg Community Development Corporation. “All these municipalities — and yes, there’s some out there that are wealthy and they’re doing pretty well — but most of the boroughs and school districts across the board are having to make the same kind of hard choices.”
Some residents suggest that raising the earned income tax is a surface-level fix to a far more complex issue.
Wilkinsburg had more than 1,000 abandoned properties not contributing tax revenue as of 2023. Every month, the Allegheny County Sheriff’s office holds an auction to sell tax delinquent properties.
At the end of 2025, the borough collected $82,584 in delinquent proceeds from sheriff sales, according to the 2027 proposed borough budget. A year later, that fell to $19,199, — a 77% decrease.
“It’s not that it’s magic,” said Wilkinsburg resident Kate Luxemburg, a data analyst. “But the idea was ‘Let’s shift to reliance on earned income tax,’ so we aren’t looking to sheriff sales to get new owners for the abandoned properties, and that’s what I’m against.”
The result, Luxemburg said, is that investors may “get increasingly sour” on Wilkinsburg.
Salisbury said that while the tax sales can be “sporadic,” the borough does not have control over the Wilkinsburg Land Bank, charged with getting vacant property into new ownership.
“It goes up and down,” Salisbury said. “And so earlier this year, they were down, and now they’re working, sending more to the sheriff sales, and so they should catch up, and we’ll at least have as much money as last year.”
The borough has budgeted $100,000 in delinquent tax revenue for 2027.
Borough Council is scheduled to call a vote on the proposed tax increase on Nov. 4.
Octavia Liku is an editorial intern at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at octavia@publicsource.org.
This story was fact-checked by Jamie Wiggan.
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