Pittsburgh controller describes the city's financial situation as "precarious"
Pittsburgh City Controller Rachael Heisler's annual fiscal report found the city is spending more money than it's taking in.
Heisler describes the city's financial situation as "precarious." The city is spending more money than it's taking in while failing to maintain its deteriorating fleet, adequately staff its public safety forces or even turn on most of the water fountains in the summer months.
"We need to make sure that the city is handling its basic functions: keeping people safe and keeping things clean," Heisler said.
Releasing her annual fiscal report on Wednesday, the controller says the city is not yet in a crisis, but will be unless steps are taken to rein in non-essential spending and raise new revenue.
She says the city has spent $24 million more this year than last, and at mid-year has depleted 77 percent of its overtime budget, projecting it will outspend that budget by $20 million.
"This is a significant increase and unsustainable," Heisler said.
The city denies it is close to crisis but concedes overtime is a "long-term challenge." Still, in a statement, Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak said union negotiations and unexpected increases in wage and real estate revenues may offset those increases.
"While we believe that reforms to overtime usage will ultimately play a role in solving this problem, it's clear that process is taking longer than we projected to show the anticipated results," Pawlak said. "That being said, the scale of this issue is manageable, offset by savings elsewhere in the budget and does not give us cause for alarm."
Heisler said the city must move aggressively to encourage job growth and negotiate a deal with the non-profit hospitals and universities for payments in lieu of taxes — something, she says, the Gainey administration has not achieved, which has filed challenges against tax-exempt properties.
"When you're in active litigation against them, you're not going to hit a point where you're engaging in conversation about voluntary payments toward city operations," Heisler said.
Union says city not funding life-saving protective equipment
As you'd expect, the city police respond to all calls involving shootings and stabbings, but so do paramedics and EMTs.
For putting themselves in harm's way, each is given a ballistic vest for protection. But even though most of those vests are near or beyond their useful life, paramedic union head Jon Atkinson said the city has denied funding for new ones.
"We were informed that the city denied the budget request to replace those," he said.
"Does that put your men and women in danger?" KDKA's Andy Sheehan asked.
"I believe it does," Atkinson said.
The union says it has been requesting replacement of the vests, as well as canisters used in gas masks to filter contaminants, which are also out-of-date or close to it.
Reached on Wednesday afternoon, Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt confirmed the city denied a line item request for new vests and canisters in the 2025 budget, but it is now looking for funds to purchase new ones.
The city has quotes from suppliers for 225 new vests at a cost of $260,000 and new canisters at $31,000. But citing budget challenges, Schmidt concedes there have been delays.
The union says budgetary challenges and choices have made serving the public more difficult, including responding to calls in an aging fleet of ambulances.
"The fleet's in bad shape right now," Atkinson said. "Many of our frontline units are out of service for repairs, which means that we have to use older, less reliable units in their place."
The union says it will be meeting on Thursday with public safety officials to discuss the denial of this request, which it calls unacceptable.
