VisitPittsburgh Tourism Agency Slammed In Allegheny Co. Audit

PITTSBURGH, PA — VisitPittsburgh, Western Pennsylvania's tourism agency, was harshly criticized in an audit released Thursday by Allegheny County Controller Corey O'Connor. The audit was critical of the organizations financial practices and lack of transparency, particularly when it comes to staff salaries.

VisitPittsburgh disputed many of the audit's findings.

The audit stated that VisitPittsburgh has commingled public and private money in the same bank account; held $5 million in reserves at the end of 2022, a much higher amount than that of comparable tourism agencies; and lost more than $1 million on investments last year because two-thirds of them were in stocks rather than more conservative bond funds.

O'Connor noted that auditors were denied detailed salary information of all VisitPittsburgh staff and had to rely on limited public information from federal tax documents to get any individual level salary information. The audit found that the agency's largest expense in 2022 was $4.4 million in wages and benefits, which was more than 40 percent of its total expenditures.

“When an agency receives over 90 percent of its funding from tax dollars, it needs to be held to a higher standard than other nonprofits,” O’Connor said. “Our auditors have issued findings and
recommendations that would improve transparency and reporting standards to the public.”

VisitPittsburgh president Jerad Bachar fired back at O'Connor's office in a statement released Thursday.

“VisitPittsburgh is responsible for driving business, sports and leisure tourism into the county, and we have a proven, documented track record of transparency and success,” he said.

“This audit contains factual errors, misinformation and language that is misleading, most notably regarding VisitPittsburgh's accounting processes, which have been in place for more than 20 years and audited – and validated – by multiple external CPA firms as well as the county."