The Pittsburgh City Controller’s Office is questioning a $608 city credit card charge last month that paid for food to be sent to a funeral reception for the father of Councilman Khari Mosley.
City Council President R. Daniel Lavelle authorized the expenditure of taxpayer money.
“Our office is empathetic to the tremendous grief all City employees experience when they lose loved ones,” Pittsburgh Deputy Controller Peter McDevitt wrote to Lavelle on April 10 in an email obtained by TribLive. “However, this charge falls outside the Controller’s generally accepted reimbursable expenses.”
Mosley on Friday told TribLive he was unaware Lavelle was purchasing the food.
“The council president, unbeknownst to me, made the decision to make a heartfelt gesture to send some food over to the event,” Mosley said. “I don’t think it’s much of an issue at all. It’s not something I was involved in.”
Mosley’s wife, Allegheny County Common Pleas Court Judge Chelsa Wagner, said she had organized the event and paid for catering from a separate business for the event.
Wagner said people “on their own volition” bring food to such events.
Mosley said his office did not request council to send the food.
“I don’t necessarily think there’s a story here. Clearly, this was something I had nothing to do with,” Mosley said. “I appreciate the grand gesture from the council president. There’s been enormous support I’ve had from my council colleagues.”
Council approval
A receipt from Giant Eagle Market District at Waterworks mall in Pittsburgh near Aspinwall shows a purchase of $576.89 worth of food for the occasion.
Wraps, 100 chicken tenders, fruit and vegetable trays, deviled eggs, a deluxe cheese and pepperoni spread, an olive and antipasti platter, cookies and soda were sent March 22 to his home in Point Breeze.
The spread was for a public funeral reception for Mosley’s father, famed sculptor Thaddeus Mosley, who died March 6.
Mosley said hundreds of people attended the event.
On a social media page tied to his campaign, Mosley invited people to a public funeral reception at the address and date listed on the catering order.
City Council on Wednesday approved a slate of credit card charges, including the one linked to the expense. It listed the total as $608. It was not immediately clear why there was a discrepancy in the amounts.
Lavelle could not explain Friday why the amounts differed.
In an April 13 email responding to McDevitt’s concerns, Lavelle said he had approved the expense.
He defended the charge, explaining that council often sends plaques, flowers or food to recognize the deaths of council’s family members or community figures.
“It was undertaken as a condolence acknowledgment following the passing of a close family of a Council member, who was also a widely recognized Pittsburgh figure,” Lavelle wrote. “This action is consistent with longstanding Council practice.”
McDevitt, writing back that day, countered that this expense was different.
“Our concern is that this was catering for a private audience for a function that is fully outside of the City’s purview,” he wrote.
Lavelle told TribLive he felt the expenditure was “grounded in the established precedent” of council sending flowers or other mementos to colleagues whose loved ones had died. Lavelle said he received flowers and a plaque from his colleagues after his grandfather had died.
Lavelle said he could not think of another time council ordered a large amount of food for a colleague in such a situation.
“I believe it’s certainly following standard procedure for us to use the p-card in this way,” he said, referring to the city credit card.
Lavelle said he was open to discussing “tighter controls” with the controller’s office.
Ethics question
McDevitt recommended reaching out to the city’s Ethics Hearing Board for an opinion.
Leanne Davis, the board’s executive director, on Friday said confidentiality requirements prevented her from disclosing whether her office had opened a formal probe of the incident.
She said public officials can receive payment only for expenses that are “reasonable, necessary, actual, and it has to be related to performing your official duties.
“Any time any public servant has access to the public coffers, we have to use that with transparency and prudence because our job is to protect this collective resource that is our public government,” Davis told TribLive.
Records show that council previously spent $130 in taxpayer money to purchase flowers for Mosley after his father’s death.
They spent the same amount on flowers for Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, after her mother died.
Warwick confirmed she had also received a sympathy gift from her council colleagues. She acknowledged the controller’s office was doing its job in “scrutinizing every dollar” the city spends.
“That said, sending condolence packages to co-workers when a loved one has passed is fairly standard across all industries,” Warwick said. “It’s not something that makes me uncomfortable.”
Asked whether it would be more appropriate for council members to use their own money, rather than taxpayer funds, she was it was a “good question.”
“Perhaps we need a policy around that,” she said.
Past abuse
City credit cards became a topic of scrutiny after former Parks and Recreation Director Kathryn Vargas authorized about $23,000 in payments to a city contractor on a municipal credit card in violation of city policies in 2024.
In light of that incident, Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, said charges to city credit cards can be “concerning.”
Officials have little recourse once a charge is made to a credit card, since council members only approve the charges once the money has been spent.
“I don’t think there was any misappropriate intentions,” Coghill said of the money spent on catering for the Mosley funeral reception. “Does it raise concerns? Possibly.”
Councilwoman Erika Strassburger, D-Squirrel Hill, said she does not know if there is precedent for sending food after a council member has a death in the family, though she knows flowers are often sent.
The situation, she said, could indicate the need for “some clearer boundaries around protocol for council.”
“My thought is this was done with the utmost of positive intent and certainly should be a conversation for the future,” Strassburger said.