A proposal by Pittsburgh’s mayor to take money earmarked for new ambulances and spend it on other expenses became a point of contention Wednesday as City Council haggled over amendments to this year’s budget.
UPMC recently donated $10 million to buy the city new ambulances this year and next. Mayor Corey O’Connor’s administration felt that freed up $2 million initially meant for those vehicles so the cash-strapped city could use the funds for other needs.
“We felt that, due to UPMC’s donation, EMS was going to be fine,” Rea Price, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget said. “And we have such critical needs in so many of our departments that we felt we should reallocate those funds to those needs.”
But Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, bristled at the notion of removing any vehicle funding as proposed in O’Connor’s slate of budget amendments, which are meant to close what he says is a woefully underfunded 2026 spending plan that he inherited from the previous administration.
Warwick argued the vehicle fleet is in such dire straits that it shouldn’t have any funding stripped away.
“The City of Pittsburgh is in the midst of a dire vehicle shortage,” Warwick said. “Every city department relies on vehicles to serve our residents effectively.”
Fleet funds
O’Connor’s administration has sought to reopen the city’s 2026 budget, making dozens of changes to a spending plan the new mayor has said failed to fully fund various key expenses, from fuel to health care costs, bridge maintenance to roof repairs.
One of the mayor’s proposed changes would remove just under $2 million from the EMS operating budget.
That money was to be set aside for ambulances.
Thanks to donations from UPMC and the PNC Foundation, a state grant and a tax hike that allowed the city to increase its budget for fleet improvements, Pittsburgh has about $27 million on hand for vehicle purchases.
That’s “far higher than it has been in previous years,” budget analyst Eric Schultz told the Equipment Leasing Authority board in February.
The authority — which buys the city’s vehicles — last year had about $6 million for Pittsburgh’s fleet.
Warwick pointed out the city spends about $400,000 per month — nearly $5 million a year — on vehicle repairs.
“We are repairing vehicles that should have long been retired,” Warwick said.
Officials for years have raised increasingly urgent alarms about the state of the city’s aging vehicles. Many agree the city ought to spend at least $20 million per year on vehicles.
Older vehicles also are prone to breakdowns. As examples, Warwick cited the more than three dozen snowplows that broke down during a January snowstorm.
She also said two of the city’s dozen aerial ladder trucks have been pulled from service recently, and 11 of about 40 garbage trucks were down for repairs.
Given such issues, she questioned whether it made sense to take money away from the fleet.
“If we have a little extra in EMS, that means those fleet funds should go to other departments” to be used for their vehicles, she said. “Fleet has been de-prioritized and is being de-prioritized again here.”
Lone vote
Warwick proposed a dueling budget amendment that would have moved the roughly $2 million for ambulances to pay for fire and refuse vehicles, rather than covering expenses that are not vehicle-related.
She suggested reducing extra funding for bridge maintenance, roof replacement, retiree health care and other areas instead.
Ultimately, Warwick cast the lone vote in favor of her amendment.
Council will instead move ahead with plans to move the ambulance money to fill other holes in the spending plan.
Councilwomen Deb Gross, D-Highland Park, and Erika Strassburger, D-Squirrel Hill, abstained from the vote on that amendment in a preliminary vote Wednesday.
Councilman Bobby Wilson, D-North Side, said he felt that if UPMC was providing more funding for ambulances than the amendments would impact, officials weren’t really taking money away from the fleet.
“It sounds like these amendments from the administration are doing the right thing,” he said.
Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, said he is “always alarmed when we touch the vehicle funds” — but he felt it was necessary given other concerns about the budget this year.
“It’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he said.
What happens next
Council overwhelmingly supported the amendments O’Connor proposed in a nonbinding preliminary vote Wednesday.
The measures add about $28 million in overall spending this year, aiming to ensure the budget accurately reflects all the city’s expenses.
To cover costs, the administration has proposed using money from the city’s reserve fund, spending all of the surplus officials had anticipated to have at the end of the year and trimming some vacant job positions.
A public hearing on the budget changes is scheduled for Tuesday. Council will take another preliminary vote on the measures next Wednesday, with a final vote scheduled for the following week.