Depending on who’s talking, Pittsburgh’s 2026 spending plan is either absolutely fine — or a complete disaster.
City Council members, their budget director and the Pittsburgh controller seem to be living in a totally different reality than Mayor Ed Gainey’s top officials.
Detractors have blasted the Gainey’s final budget as untethered from reality.
Peter McDevitt, council’s budget director, is sounding a red alert.
“There’s very little wiggle room,” McDevitt told council Wednesday during a budget hearing at which he and Jake Pawlak, the mayor’s top adviser, were grilled. “So if something goes awry — as the best-laid plans of mice and men often do — we are up a creek without a paddle.”
But Pawlak, who heads the Office of Management and Budget, doubled down on his stance that the mayor’s spending plan is balanced and feasible.
Amid a clash over which side’s accounting methods were most valid, Pawlak portrayed the budget as honest.
“I’m not denying a thin margin for error,” Pawlak said. But he argued that council members’ concerns are overblown.
Council disagrees. They believe expenses next year could outstrip revenue by $20 million under Gainey’s plan. And they said they won’t rubber-stamp a budget they think is unrealistic.
“We’re lying on paper,” Councilman Bob Charland, D-South Side, said. “We’re lying to the public.”
In dispute
Some of the biggest variables in the city budget involve overtime, salaries and utility expenses.
There’s a vast gap in how the mayor and council view these costs.
Pawlak insists the city will be able to pay its overtime costs next year — even as it blew past its budget for such expenses this year — because it likely won’t spend its full budget for salaries.
But McDevitt has estimated the city next year will likely spend at least $10 million more on overtime for public safety alone than budgeted.
Plus, McDevitt pointed out, some departments — like the fire bureau — are fully staffed but still spending more on overtime than next year’s budget would allow.
As for salaries, McDevitt argues the mayor’s proposal lowballs areas like pay increases that are expected to be negotiated in new contracts with various unions, including the one representing police.
Pawlak countered that the city has tried to save money within departments facing increasing salaries.
He also claimed there is more money hidden in the budget than one might think that can be used to offset raises, but he would not reveal how much or where it was tucked away.
As for utility payments, Pawlak argued they aren’t underfunded because the city could raid a trust fund to find extra cash for those bills.
McDevitt and others have said the Gainey spending plan accounts for a smaller utility expense than seems realistic.
Both men agreed on one thing: The city isn’t spending enough to keep up its fleet of ambulances, fire trucks, police cars and snowplows.
Pawlak agreed the mayor’s proposal includes less than half of what officials want for the vehicle fleet and provides no space for extra expenses.
Ridiculing the budget
Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, said he’s “in between” the positions presented by Pawlak and McDevitt.
He said he wants to believe Gainey’s budget could work, but not without major revisions. Coghill said the city needs to severely cut spending to stay afloat.
Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, has proposed a 30% property tax hike. She maintained the city needs more revenue to pay for everything it needs.
Even Pawlak admitted the budget he proposed could not be stretched to fund $20 million to upgrade the vehicle fleet, $9 million to tear down abandoned buildings, and money to improve litter clean-up or additional youth programming — all things council members have said they want.
Charland ridiculed the budget, pointing out in its current form it would pull money from the city’s dwindling reserves.
He particularly criticized Pawlak’s arguments about how the budget could be balanced by making assumptions, such as leaving enough budgeted job positions unfilled to make up for the city inevitably overspending on overtime.