Apr 6, 2016 2 min read

HARRISBURG – The lone worker at an authority created more than a decade ago to oversee Pittsburgh’s then-failing finances should be removed, according to two Pennsylvania lawmakers.

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, and state Sen. Wayne Fontana, D-Brookline, said Tuesday during a news conference that “a lack of scrutiny and accountability” has raised questions about the activities of Henry Sciortino, the executive director of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported the agency didn’t have financial records for most of its expenditures since 2010, and that the group’s executive director couldn’t locate a record of checks written between 2004 and 2009.

The state Legislature created the authority in 2004 to help Pittsburgh avoid bankruptcy when the city was nearly $1 billion in debt. It is exempt from the state’s open records law, said state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, and didn’t turn over many of the records requested during a November audit.

Sciortino declined to comment. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Mayor Bill Peduto has called for a forensic audit.

Fontana said there should be an investigation into the existence of “financial improprieties.”

“The ICA was accountable to no one; rudderless, led by an individual who had little incentive to help Pittsburgh – other than personal gain,” he said. “… Enough is enough.”

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. is investigating, the Tribune-Review reported.

The city has been sparring with the ICA’s decision to withhold revenues that Peduto said the city is owed from its share of taxes on the Rivers Casino in the city.

The ICA turned over $2.9 million in January, but the city was supposed to be getting about $10 million a year, city officials have said. The figure set to rise to $20 million in the next few months, city and ICA officials have told the Tribune-Review.