Gainey addresses council as budget talks near
Mayor Ed Gainey gave his first budget address to Pittsburgh’s City Council on Monday, a formality that comes ahead of weeks of budget hearings and discussions involving numerous new investments, like
$ 4 million in public works projects and $3 million in efforts to combat food insecurity in the city.
Mr. Gainey said the budget process had massive amounts of engagement through online surveys and a series of 10 public forums over a fivemonth period in which residents could voice opinions on where money should go.
“This is the feedback we received: the No. 1 priority was infrastructure,” Mr. Gainey said.
Much of the mayor’s address to council mirrored his remarks when he first presented the city’s preliminary budget in late September: $4 million for public works projects in public spaces and vacant lots, the creation of a bridge maintenance unit, and a section of the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure dedicated to landslides.
In the Sept. 30 preliminary
report, the largest portion of the 2023 capital budget will go to engineering and construction, with about $54.4 million going toward those projects and a little over $43 million to facility improvement, all of which could fall under the infrastructure label.
Engineering and construction projects include things like street resurfacing, budgeted at $18 million; traffic calming on Liberty Avenue at a budgeted cost of $5.4 million; and $5.2 million set aside for general bridge upgrades, among other projects.
DOMI, which oversees bridge maintenance as one of its key roles, will see an increase of 24% to its budget, according to the preliminary budget.
The preliminary budget includes moving $3 million of American Rescue Plan money originally set to go toward the city’s land bank to combating food insecurity in the city.
Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak said food security initiatives were top of mind when the initial plan for spending rescue plan money was established, but such initiatives weren’t adopted at the time.
“Our administration has spent this year looking to identify ways in which we can modify our allocation to best meet the needs of Pittsburghers,” Mr. Pawlak said.
Those conversations resulted in the decision to free up $3 million “to seed a fund to invest in foodjustice initiatives.”
There remains a commitment to the land bank, he said, but ultimately officials decided that “it would be both reasonable and prudent” to trim some funding.
The administration’s proposed budget increases the city police budget to roughly $121 million, an increase of about $483,000 from the 2022 budgeted amount of about $120.5 million.
But Mr. Gainey’s budget team expects that the city will only be able to spend about $117.5 million of that.
The mayor’s office is projecting spending on the police budget to continue to increase somewhere between 1.2% and 2.4% through 2027, it said when it unveiled the preliminary budget in September.
When Mr. Gainey was running for mayor, part of his campaign included stopping “over-policing” in neighborhoods of color and pushing for a more “community-oriented policing” — two things he continued in his Plan for Peace.
He also promised to “redirect” the money to programs that would help improve police and community relations.
Within the Public Safety Department, new funding was added for hiring six new paramedics and additional departmental staffing, Mr. Pawlak said in September. The Fire Bureau will get additional funding for swift water rescue equipment, and the money also will continue to fund social work and community health programs, Mr. Gainey said at the September news conference.
The city received $335 million in American Rescue Plan funds, all of which must be allocated by the end of 2024 and ultimately spent by 2026.
The city had spent about $87.1 million as of Sept. 30, data shows.
The $803.5 million budget — roughly $657.3 million in operating expenses and $147.2 million in capital projects — does not include a tax hike.
Council budget hearingsbegin Wednesday.