The UPMC Tax Exemption Will Cost Pittsburgh $5.7 Billion. The Steelers Practice in It.
UPMC's tax exemption costs Pittsburgh-area governments and school districts $58.3 million in revenue every year. The Steelers train at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex through 2030.
Pittsburgh homeowners just accepted a $28 million annual property tax hike. In perpetuity.
UPMC made a one-time $10 million gift for ambulances.
The mayor called it generous.
The actual charity here is the city.
IN TODAY’S ARTICLE:
Pittsburgh residents just received an annual $28 million property tax hike,
UPMC’s $10 million one-time ambulance gift, and why Davis stressed “the charitable nature.”
The PILOT history, Pittsburgh keeps losing.
Why is the residents of Pittsburgh are the actual charity in this arrangement
Glossary at the bottom of today’s article.
UPMC IS NOT A HOSPITAL
The Pittsburgh Steelers practice at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex. Their lease runs through 2030. UPMC is the team’s official sports medicine provider, a contractual title the organization holds with the franchise.
UPMC reported $29.9 billion in operating revenue in 2024.
UPMC Health Plan covers 4.2 million members and ranks as the second-largest health insurer in western Pennsylvania. The hospital arm runs 40-plus facilities and 8,500 licensed beds. The insurance arm and the hospital arm sit inside the same balance sheet.
This is not a hospital that owns an insurance company.
This is an integrated insurance enterprise that owns hospitals.
The hospitals supply patients to the insurance plan.
The insurance plan steers patients into the hospitals.
The same executive suite owns both ends of the trade.
And the whole thing is tax-exempt.
THE SUBSIDY PITTSBURGH PAYS
In May 2022, the City of Pittsburgh Controller and the Allegheny County Controller jointly published the receipts. UPMC owns $2.07 billion of tax-exempt assessed property in Allegheny County. That is 19.5 percent of all non-government tax-exempt property in the county.
The exemption reduces UPMC’s tax liability by $9.8 million to Allegheny County, $13.9 million to the City of Pittsburgh, and $58.3 million across all local governments and school districts combined.
Every year.
Between 1973 and 2006, Pittsburgh recouped 8 percent of the taxes lost to UPMC through Payments in Lieu of Taxes. Eight cents on the dollar. There has been no standing PILOT agreement with UPMC for at least a decade.
Erie collects $13.39 per resident in PILOT revenue. Altoona collects $5.37. Pittsburgh collects $1.07. That is the deal Pittsburgh got from the nonprofit that runs the city’s largest health system.
The Pittsburgh playbook isn’t a Pittsburgh story.
UPMC isn’t an outlier. It’s the template.
Your city has its version. So does your hospital. So does your tax bill.A free reader finds out when the press release goes out.
A paid subscriber finds out before.Subscribe to The Rojas Report.
Way less than the property tax hike you didn’t vote for.
