Hello and welcome to the Pittsburgh City Council budget hearing for the line item vote.

I'm Councilperson Erica Strasberger and I chair the committee on finance and law.

And for this hearing, we will be going over all of the amendments that have been sent over by the mayor and council amendments to determine what amendments will be voted on during this Sunday special standing committees meeting.

Councilperson.

So each of you has a packet that has um amendments from I that's Councilperson Strasberger said the administration and from council members.

Um the first uh the first page of the packet lists out the operating amendments sent over from the administration first, and then the capital amendments from the administration, and then the next page has the city council operating amendments, and uh the amendments proposed by council members for the capital budget will follow.

So with that in in your packet, there's a number of of documents tabled together that kind of group those.

Uh the first one is for the administration amendments.

The first page is just kind of an overview of everything.

Um, and then uh the details of the operating amendments and then the details of the capital amendments.

And the next packet is the same exact thing, but for for the council sponsored amendments, uh, the first page is just an overview of each of them, and then the details for each individual one are in the the following pages of it.

And then the last page you have is just the details for the capital budget amendments.

And if you are ready.

And so can it says on your summary to decrease the lifeguard allowance?

Um to what is accurate?

Yeah.

Can you give us any details there?

Because we have lived now the last five years, it's been quite the roller coaster with lifeguards and pools being able to open and close.

So we want to make sure that we're not cutting that too closely, honestly, right?

We don't want to make sure that we're not under budgeting for lifeguards because summer without your pool is a terrible thing.

So I d the I mean the details may have been sent to me, but I am not um well-versed enough because this came from the administration, so unfortunately do not.

We don't know why, or how do we have some?

We do have Chief Cornell here to speak to any of the administration amendments.

Just reassure us.

I'm hoping.

I'm hoping we are reassured.

Patrick Cornell, Chief Financial Officer.

I'm here to reassure you.

Um so this was actually flagged to us by Director Vargas in the actual budget system in the Questica, the number was miskeyed.

Uh what we typed in was 410974, and it is intended to be 241974.

Uh and if you look at the outer years beyond that, it is that 240, 250,000 amount.

Um, so it really is a correction uh from OMB.

That is fantastic.

I am reassured.

That is thank you very much.

That's exactly what I wanted to hear.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Any further discussion on amendment one?

All those in favor of administration operating amendment number one, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Amendment number two.

Number two, to update various vacancy allowances and shift those funds into various premium pay allocation.

This is a budget neutral move in 2026 and over the five-year forecast.

So this particular amendment, um uh council members, um, some some council members uh such as council president Lavelle and I would be happy to speak with you one-on-one about this, but at this time, this particular amendment is not recommended and could be taken up again on Sunday if we choose, but for now, it is not recommended, and I'm gonna instruct our budget uh director to move on to capital amendments.

I'm sorry, so there was no motion on the there was no motion.

We do not need to take a vote um necessarily if uh uh if um uh if we choose number two summary, which so does it or does it not have rows on the spreadsheets?

It does, and the in the that's so that we flip over that page that has the yellow bar, it's all of those rows make up uh increased variances, uh uh vacancy allowances.

Okay, and for our I'm sorry, I know I'm just kind of confused here, but for following along with the summary page, which is super helpful.

Is every number on the summary page a different sheet in the packet?

Or sometimes there are multiple sheets.

Because I didn't know to flip the page for number two.

Yeah, um trying to save paper.

Okay, no, that's fine.

So for the administration amendments, they only have two, but they are on the same page.

That first one is just uh at the top there, and then the second one makes up the uh the majority of the page.

I'm I'm in the right place now.

Thank you.

Got it.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

So again, yes.

So clarification on this one.

This could be brought up again on Sunday if we choose.

We certainly could consider it on Sunday at Council's request.

Uh it's council's prerogative to to introduce these amendments on Sunday if necessary.

All right, thanks.

Basically, we're introducing all of these.

The mayor can't.

Just I apologize, I missed the beginning of what you said there.

Who is not recommending this?

Um, I am not recommending it, nor is our budget director.

Perfect.

Okay.

Based on uh account this is the budgeting and accounting expertise.

Perfect, thank you.

Uh Councilwoman Warbeck.

Yeah, it was just to sort of clarify, just even looking at this, like to do this would be talking about filling positions.

I mean, in like animal care and control.

You know what I mean?

Departments that are just so understaffed as it is, you know, that I mean animal care and control, environmental services, but any number of positions.

All the list.

Anyway, thanks.

So we will move on to administration capital amendments.

Number one.

So that is the uh last page in your packet.

All of the capital amendments are listed.

The first two are actually related, but we'll go one by one.

The first one is to reduce fire station 20 and medic 12 construction in the facilities improvement and public uh public safety facilities project line by one million two hundred thousand dollars in bond.

Is there a motion?

Is there a second?

Second discussion, Councilmember Warbeck.

So yeah, I guess I would like to ask uh Patrick to come to the table just because I just so this project has already begun.

Fire station Medic 20, like they're doing the mine grouting now.

They vote, you know, they've gone we have a contract.

So does this mean that we will have to find another 1.2 million for this project down the road?

Patrick Panel, Chief Financial Officer.

Uh no.

Um our understanding from public works is that this was uh funding above and beyond what had already been worked into the proposed budget um beyond what has been bid and awarded and what even what beyond has been uh added in for contingency.

Okay.

No, no, mayor.

Councilmember Gross.

Okay, so this one is administration of capital amendments number one, reduce fire station medic by 1.2 million, and it increases Shenley Heights pavilion by 1.2.

Technically, that's a the a separate amendment on the list that they sent over, but that's exactly what this will do.

Yeah.

Reducing one and increasing the other.

They just did that as separate amendments.

But it's the same bonds.

Yeah.

It's the kit new capital bonds.

Yeah.

And it's the same dollar amount.

Yeah.

Okay.

Where is Shenley Heights Pavilion?

Is that in Shenley Heights neighborhood or it's at the upper hill district Sheny Heights neighborhood is right is by the reservoir.

Oh, it's a park.

Is it City Park?

Is it not transferred to PWSA that property?

No.

So the park is actually part which historically missed the I know there are the resolution property and not on PWI.

City owned portion of the property.

The reason for this transfer is this has been designed, it went it went out for bid for construction.

The amount for construction came back about five million, actually well, seven million dollars higher than what we had already budgeted for.

For a park pavilion.

Yes.

For an open park pavilion.

No, no, no.

This this what the name is this is what the community chose to name it.

They change it's a physical structure.

It's a facility.

Yes, one of our sorts, it's not a rec center, but it's one of our facilities at a park.

That sounds well.

That's the same.

That was either gonna have to be shuttered and closed or have to be rebuilt because it was unsafe because of how old it was.

Okay, great.

All right, I appreciate the details.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Further discussion on amendment one.

Seeing none, all those in favor of a capital amendment one, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Amendment two.

Amendment two, increase Shenley Heights Pavilion Construction in the Facilities Improvement, Recreation, and Senior Center projects line uh by one point two million dollars in bond.

Motion to approve second.

Discussion.

Seeing none.

All those in favor of amendment two.

Was he out of the room?

Please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Amendment three.

Amendment number three, increasing the congestion mitigation and air quality or CMAC uh amounts for the preliminary engineering, final design, and construction of the Brownsville Road Safety Improvement Project in 2026, 2027, and 2028.

To approve second.

Discussion.

I wanted to clarify for the purposes of transparency.

It's my understanding that this will be covered by I'm guessing by the name, a grant.

The BCMAC grant.

Correct.

These are federal dollars that come through the TIP through the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission.

And we received this award, you know, in between the November budget and no.

Terrific.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment three, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Capital amendment four.

Number four is to increase the Federal Highway Administration amounts for the right-of-way acquisition and final design of the Heron Avenue Bridge Project in 2027 for an increase of $27,500 total.

Approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment four, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

That moves us on to that moves us on to City Council operating amendments.

And um we will take amendment one.

Amendment number one sponsored by Councilperson Warwick is to increase the paygo transfer in 2026 to add fundings for vehicle and equipment and then uh by an additional ten million dollars.

Motion to approve.

Second.

And discussion.

Councilwoman Warwick.

Yeah, so um this is uh this increase could be done even without a tax increase, but it would be not great to do that to take the money out of the outer years.

That would not be but um the reason that I've put this in is because I think as we have seen just in the past few days with the the snow situation, uh the fleet is uh investing in the fleet is urgent.

Um our directors, public safety directors, uh DPW director, and also um equipment leasing authority um board members have made it abundantly clear that we need to be putting 20 million dollars a year at least into our fleet every year.

Um that you know, and and even even doing that this year, so there's currently about 10 million in, and then this would add an additional 10.

Um we still would be playing catch up, but it is you know a first step uh toward doing that.

So um uh you know, tax increase or no, I think that this is a critical something critical that we need to do.

So thank you.

Further discussion on this?

Councilperson Sharlin.

Yes, so just so I'm I'm clear and I apologize, you know.

We I'm I'm gonna have a lot of questions today, just that we didn't get this very far in advance.

This $10 million transfer out of paygo, we are budgeted for $10 million for paygo next year.

So we will have no other pay go if we do not raise taxes and we approve this amendment.

I'll demo anything else that we'll be doing with pay-go.

This adds to the it would increase it to $20 million to pay go.

So this increase this so we're pulling money from the general fund.

The general fund and and making the transfer to pay go $20 million.

Yeah.

And then that goes out.

What I don't understand is how does that get to the ELA?

Or how does that get to the same as it always does?

It's a it's written into the capital budget as a pay-go deliverable for vehicles to the ELA.

So this is really two moves.

We're moving money from the Yeah, you'll see a capital budget amendment that goes along with this.

Okay.

That's I see.

There is a capital budget.

Which one is that?

But it still comes out of the general fund.

Capital budget number one.

Number one number one.

Yeah.

Capital amendment one is the pay-go transfer, and then so there's another amendment that I haven't seen here that is operating amendment one is to increase the pay-go transfer.

Capital amendment number one is to allocate that additional ten.

I see capital.

Yeah, apologies.

My apologies.

Okay.

So I haven't no, that's yeah, been able to.

We do this once a year.

So it's also just this we all you know.

Uh we only got this uh like an hour ago.

Very sorry on that one.

No, I understand.

Okay.

Again, I'm apologizing in advance because I'm gonna have a lot of questions as I believe we all should.

No, I didn't give you a lot of time to read this, but we're chairs prerogative.

I also just want to say we are like that.

We're all gonna be discussing a lot of these amendments.

It's quite all right.

It's expected, and the public's expecting that.

So please ask your questions.

Let's debate it.

That's I should have said this at the outset.

Let's ensure that you know, for this very consequential budget, we are you know it's important to ask these questions and to be crystal clear, so we're making it clear to the public as well.

Thank you.

So but with this transfer, this the first step here is only increasing pay-go.

Correct.

So if we don't approve capital amendment one, in theory, that money could then all we could then put 10 million in paygo demo.

Yes, a different capital amendment.

So if you if capital if operating amendment number one, which is what we're discussing, if we don't increase the pay-go contribution, then you can't increase you can't do capital number one.

Correct.

Yeah.

But you could do different paygo transfer.

I mean, it there were so currently there's a ten million dollar pay-go transfer.

If you don't do this, then that doesn't change.

Yep.

This would just increase that transfer.

Okay.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Gross.

Thank you.

So flipping through the packet.

Mm many other proposed amendments are paired as an increase and a decrease.

Right.

And so I think Councilwoman Warwick maybe prefaced this in her comments, but so this one is just literally de take coming out of the general funds.

And there's nothing to put more money into the general funds.

Correct.

Right.

So where we've been th using various amounts in all of our budget hearings and discussions of like, well, the budget's maybe 20 million dollars really out of whack.

This makes it more out of whack.

Just just want to be clear.

It is increases the gap between like revenue and you know, we instead of expenses being like level, we're like, actually the expenses are a little higher than revenue.

And so this adding 10 million more dollars in order to buy 10 million dollars of vehicles makes the revenue the expenditure is even higher, and there's no revenue.

So we're just to be clear, right?

So while it's a great idea, where's the revenue coming from is something that we don't get to in this meeting, but we do get to Sunday.

Just when they did just lay it out even more simply.

Okay, appreciate it.

Thank you.

This is we have Councilman Coghill and then I saw Councilwoman Warwick for second round.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh you know, first of all, I want to say I do appreciate more focusing.

Sorry about that.

Being on the LA board, I know firsthand uh yeah, the the position we're in there.

Um at the same time, you know, I am struggling and grappling with a potential tax hike as to what it what that might look like, what percentage would look like, and I do feel in voting for this that it kind of puts us in a box where we're almost forced to raise taxes at that point, and I haven't come to terms with that yet.

So I don't want to sound hypocritical, so that's just wanted to explain that's why I will be abstaining from that until further notice.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Kel Smith.

Thank you.

I just want you to know that I was listening uh via Zoom.

But I do want to register an abstention on the previous bills, all the previous bills, and um for this one I feel the same way.

I just I think we need to absorb some of this a little bit and have some conversations with our budget office.

So it and so thank you.

Thank you.

Second round, Councilman Warwick.

Oh, yeah, so I was just wanted to underscore underscore what Councilwoman Gross um said, just again to clarify that I I do understand that this is adding to right, if we do not do an a tax increase, this adds to the complications of the budget.

However, um I firmly believe, and we have been told over and over and over again by our directors that uh and and then we saw firsthand over this past snowstorm that the fleet situation has sort of reached a peak.

And um and I I just think that it is in the best interest of the city to do something about that now.

And I'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Further discussion for amendment number one.

Councilman Wilson.

Yeah, so if we vote for this now, we could and we don't vote for the tax increase, then we can just take this away.

This is not a final vote.

This is a preliminary vote before another preliminary vote before a final vote.

Right.

I'll just say that out loud.

And um also, you know, I am interested to see what else obviously I understand the dire um situation with the fleet, and uh you know this council makes it so that we have a annual report to let us know the situation.

Uh but um you know I am interested to to see what else happen uh with the snowstorm there more than the fleet, I think probab possibly maybe the case.

So um I mean we had vehicles, you know, and we had salt, so there's other factors there.

So but there's a lot of other stories we could talk about with the fleet.

So definitely appreciate the attention to this.

Um not sure if I'll be voting for this uh when it comes around time for the budget, uh, because I'm not comfortable uh with uh the amount of time that we spent uh or the had the amount of time to spent on uh what we could cut in our own house before we tax homes.

So uh I will be probably voting for this just in the spirit of it, but you know, if there's not other strategies to increase tax increase revenue other than taxes, then I might be voting this down then.

Or we might have to vote it down.

Who knows?

All right, thanks.

Further discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor of city council operating amendment number one, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye, aye.

I abstain.

Abstain.

Three abstentions.

Affirmative recommendation.

Um amendment number two.

Number two uh is to increase the paygo transfer in 2026 to add funding to small business development um through the URA by one million dollars.

Um sponsored by Council President Lavelle.

Is there a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Sure, just for our com my conversation at the end of yesterday's meeting, this reflects the decrease in the transfer of the not the entirety of the 10 million to the South Advanced Fund, but instead the five million while also then reallocating one million to the URA to support the small business line item that we had had people come talk to us about that was only funded at 100,000 for a citywide initiative.

Thank you, Councilwoman Gross.

I wish I wish this were on such a lean budget and that we could do more.

I think this is one of the most important things that we can do to revitalize our city's economy, our main street employers employ neighborhood residents for the most part, right?

I was so I really learned that lesson, and I think a lot of us did when um businesses or neighborhood businesses were shut down because otherwise we wouldn't necessarily have good numbers on where city you know neighborhood residents are employed.

Um it was our city residents who had no wages, right?

Our neighborhood residents because they were working at the neighborhood retail and storefronts and small businesses.

Um and so we that we saw that really firsthand.

So the more we do this, the more we build resilience, I think, in our economy.

So I'm I'm supportive today, but I will also note this one also just increases city expenditures.

But it's but it doesn't I think that councilman, did you say it's probably uh your re it's not doesn't say it's reallocating the transfers to the stop the violence fund, or does it like in the middle of the sorry effectively we have there would be next year 10 million dollars that we would generally pull out of our general fund and put into the trust fund.

This year we're only going to do five million of it, and then what's left of that a million, four million will simply stay in the fund, and we can decide collectively how to best utilize those dollars, whether it's filling the joct debt, whether it's for demo, whether it's for paving, whether it's for our fleet.

Like we can figure that part out, but a million of that remaining five will go to the URA.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Just for clarity's sake, so number two and number three correlate to one another here.

Yes.

Thank you.

I could have ordered these better.

I'll give you that.

No, I think they're perfectly ordered.

It's just uh it there's a lot, and we are just literally reading it for the first time.

I mean, I screened it.

I literally, you know, we got it so just for the public again, just not that many minutes ago.

So I was like, you know, screening it on my tiny tiny screen, or like you know, scrolling through a tiny screen with lots of of uh uh spreadsheets.

So thank you.

And we all as um sponsors will work to try to make those connections clear as we walk through this.

Thank you.

Um councilwoman Cale Smith.

I just want to say I am a co-sponsor with Council President Lavell on the stuff that violence stuff, but I because he's adding this extra piece in here, I do want to wait.

So I'll abstain today.

But um I just really want to look at all this together and what the total impact will be on the budget um before I make any votes.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

All those in favor of amendment number two, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye, aye.

Abstain.

One abstention abstention, affirmative recommendation.

Amendment number three.

Number three is to decrease the 2026 for uh transfer to the stop of the violence trust fund by decreasing it by five million dollars in 2026 only.

Okay.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment number three, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Affirmative one abstention for affirmative recommendation.

Amendment number four.

Number four is to increase premium pay budgets for the Bureau's of emergency medical services and fire uh by eight million dollars in 2026 and a five-year increase of 40 million dollars.

Is there a motion?

I'll explain this in a second.

Motion to approve.

Most to approve.

Is there a second?

Second, second.

So you see two increases before you add number four and number five.

You see several others that are aside from some swap outs and moving of funding.

Um decreases.

It's like scattered throughout the next several items that will help to offset the cost of amendment number four and amendment number five.

So we have we are proposing here decreases to some aspects of the budget.

Um you were all sent a chart that um outlined a lot of these proposals uh earlier this week or last week by council president's office that allowed you to see some of these proposed cuts to the budget as a response to the memos um that were sent back from a department directors.

And these subsequent decreases and reductions reflect what was in that email.

Um so we can discuss them as they come, but I wanted to lay out where the money was coming from for these two next increases, proposed increases.

This one we're discussing is for accounting for uh an accurate reflection of premium pay for the bureaus of EMS and fire.

This councilman council.

Does any part of this include um increases for directors or chiefs or anything of the are you certain?

Okay, because we saw that people have been sending us that people are getting increases even as we're talking about.

This will this is purely to make whole the overtime allotment for EMS and fire.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Councilperson Charlotte.

Yes.

So I again I have the question in P maybe it would be better to do it in a different order, but if we don't approve, if we don't approve the following amendments, where does this money come from?

So just that is a very good question.

Um thing that is not being discussed today because we haven't had the hearing yet, is the the millage bills that are on the table.

So if depending on which millage bill goes through, you will be able to add these into the budget.

If not, you won't be able to account for all of the premium pay and utilities that should be in the budget.

So you so even no I'm not saying one way or another on those bills, but as a even as a hypothetical exercise, where does that money like we approve that we don't backfill it?

Where does it come from?

Does it is that mean that we then have to make a further transfer out of the fund balance?

If I didn't in an additional piece of legislation or it it does get a little complicated, and this is kind of a new situation for everybody.

Um it uh it's it's all gonna depend on how things shake out on Sunday.

That uh if there's not additional funding, additional revenue into the budget before by Sunday, then um the proposed cuts that we will go through um in the following amendments will not cover these additional costs that we know that we're gonna have to pay in 2026 in the outer years.

So it if we don't increase the premium pay allocations, then we're just gonna go over budget on them.

And if we don't increase utilities, we just won't pay our bills.

If I could also just try to a different way of answering it, which is the same thing, but just said another way.

This is a this is somewhat of an uh an indication type of vote today to indicate what we will do as a more true vote on Sunday.

And if we were to either in either case not approve and we get the indication from council members they are not willing to make some of these cuts, or in a future time on Sunday, uh we do not pass a millage increase.

We would have to then amend, say these increases in number four and number five to reflect that.

But we have the time to do that between now and Sunday uh once we get an indication from council as to what they might be thinking about all of these and how they hang together.

Thank you.

Uh so we had Councilman Wilson.

Yes.

Uh how are these calculated?

So we looked at the actuals that we've paid out over the past few years and kind of based off that, like what we've actually paid out.

You want back three years or five years, what'd you do there?

All of those.

And just kind of, I mean, for the utility specifically, we've looked at the most recent years.

Um just because we know the rates are going up.

No, I'm talking about just the we're on four.

Premium pay, yeah.

We just kind of looked at the average and over the last five years and average over the last five years.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment number four, please Nicate by saying aye.

So aye.

Abstain.

Two abstentions, affirmative recommendation.

Affirmative recommendation.

Amendment number five.

Amendment number five is to increase funding for utilities, including electric, natural gas, and water in the Department of Public Works, Bureau of Administration.

It's a six point five million dollar increase in 2026 and has a five-year impact of $32 million, five hundred dollars.

Discussion.

Number five.

Okay.

Councilman Wilson.

All right.

Okay.

Once again, how did you cogulate this?

We looked at the uh historical payments that uh what we've uh paid for are used to be.

Although water isn't historical.

Uh so water, we know we we received a bill in August for the first seven months of the year that was 5.3 million dollars.

Since then um it has increased in uh we're projected to owe Pittsburgh water uh thirteen million dollars.

Yeah, right.

They gave us an updated bill.

Yeah.

And we haven't paid any of that yet.

So we'll have to pay next year's bill and this year's bill next year.

Okay.

Do you know why electrical go up after installing street lights everywhere?

No.

Okay.

That's just what we paid.

Yeah, I was trying to understand why we would continue to spend more on electric whenever we make support.

Okay.

Is that because the rates?

Yeah.

Yeah.

How'd you come up with that number?

Just what was the state historically?

So last we paid eight million?

Yeah.

We are over million or we're over budget by two million dollars so far in electric this year.

Okay.

All right, because we ought to replace more lights.

Oh no, it's not that.

It's I'm just joking.

Uh further discussion on amendment number five.

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment number five, please indicate by saying aye.

Abstain.

Aye.

Aye.

Two abstentions, affirmative recommendation.

Amendment number six.

Amendment number six is to create a vacancy allowance in the Bureau of Police to reflect staffing estimations for 2026 and increase premium pay funding accordingly.

It's budget neutral for 2026 and the entire five-year forecast.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Councilmember Warwick.

Um I'll just say for this one, this seems like the clearest of all of them, right?

So just to so well, this is my understanding is that we know there are positions in the budget that we know we are not going to be able to fill based on increasing numbers.

And and by the way, we are doing new classes, and that takes that into account, right?

So it's the positions that we know are not going to get filled.

And simply I mean, I don't know if it's two separate accounts or what, but just saying that money can be used for premium pay.

It almost sounds like an accounting, like a simplification of the accounting for the bureau.

So yeah, you're exactly right.

Okay.

Um I also want to make sure that everybody understands if like some miracle happens and like there's no way that we can actually get to 800 officers that were budgeted for.

But if we were, this would not preclude us from actually doing that because it's not taking that money away from police for doing that.

This is just a more accurate reflection of how it's probably going to be paid out next year.

And if that changes at all, this doesn't actually need to change because it's not moving out of police's budget.

It's not moving out of their salaries line in their budget.

It's just aligning it better more accurately.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment six, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Abstain.

One abstention.

Affirmative recommendation.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I apologize.

We'll take comment in between if you still had a comment, Councilman Wilson.

I'll allow for comment.

I do have a comment, but uh it was part of what was answered.

And the other one on uh it relates to something else.

I'll I'll save that for later.

Thanks.

Amendment number seven.

Number seven is to swap out one city council solicitor position in the office of the city clerk and increases the legal fees funding uh by that same amount.

It's budget neutral.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment seven, please indicate by saying aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

One abstention.

Amendment eight.

Number eight is to move funding from the Department of Innovation and Performance to the Office of the City Controller to align funding for the spreadsheet software.

Uh it is budget neutral.

We should approve.

Second.

Discussion.

So it used to come out of IMP's budget, but they didn't want to pay for it next year, so we're moving the money into the controller's office budget so they can pay for it.

Fair enough.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Warbeck.

Sorry, apologize.

Can I just briefly speak to number seven?

I know we already Is that all right?

So just for this one.

So this would solidify that we are not going to have a solicitor on the floor, but instead are going to use a law firm.

It would remove the funding for that position and put money in there to give you the option to hire an outside firm.

But we could still hire a solicit.

If you wanted to do that, I don't want to get onto all of that right now.

Yeah, it would require additional amendments to the budget if you wanted to move it.

If you if this is approved and then you wouldn't be able to do that without amending the budget.

I wonder if we could not listen for that.

I know this is not like a professional services person.

Just to be just for members, and I we don't know, is it I like the idea of someone who I can just call.

I get that needing to go to council president and say, hey, is it okay if I you know use it for such and such a bill?

But this I but the idea of like emailing a law firm and like waiting for them to get back to me and setting up a call, like you know, not being able to have just a discussion, ask a quick question, like that kind of thing.

I'll just okay.

I I'll leave it at that.

I that that's my concern around around that setup.

Councilwoman Cal Smith.

So I'm just curious, is it still allow for the position that was the assistant member Dan Friesen hired I I keep talking about this position because they'll see the person.

They're they're in the public engagement office at this point.

Public engagement.

Okay.

But she's I think is going for her bars, right?

So that maybe she could still have that position.

Oh.

So there, yeah, no.

Um this has no effect on that.

That's a different position.

Sorry.

Uh Dan Friedson, yeah.

Um is that still in the budget, though?

That position?

Yeah, that position is still on the budget.

This is the only one that's um being removed with this is the uh solicitor position itself.

So I'm just wondering if that person passes for bars, then could she be the solicitor for counsel?

That's what I'm trying to understand.

That's all.

And I do want to say that you I mean, even though this says now that you have to ask for the council present, you never had to.

You could just use your professional development money to hire legal advice.

So to be clear, what we've heard is that likely we would either need to amend this before Sunday if we wish as a body or within the first two weeks of the um new fiscal of the new fiscal year.

So yeah, you have to do that.

If we wanted to reverse number seven.

Yeah, you have five weeks to do that.

Five weeks, excuse me.

Yeah.

Okay.

So those are our options here.

If if uh it's at the will of the body.

Okay.

We have already oh sorry, council.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So what is the total amount?

We didn't have to do that.

It's 93,000.

Uh sorry, a total because it's the the salary and all the benefits that go with it, 112,200 in 2025.

Minus benefits, obviously, if we're taking out for legal counsel, um or does that so the amount is what was allocated for the salary and benefits of that position.

Was how much again?

112,276.

Okay.

Um isn't it?

I agree with the councilman work.

I do like to pick up the phone and talk to somebody.

I guess we have the attorneys that work for the administration to always do that.

But um and we agreed that if somebody on council needs legal assistance and once that's in a way of form of a contract and we come back to council, and council has to approve.

Is that correct?

Is that maybe that's not an answer for question for you, Peter?

Yeah, no, it's not.

Sorry, what was the question?

If some member needs legal assistance and say just use for sake of a figure, $10,000 in legal assistance.

Um that is to come back to the table we are to vote on.

Meaning for me to enter in a contract for outside legal advice and tap into this pot.

Interrogatory?

Interrogatory I'm sorry, restate your question.

Okay.

Well let me the intent would be for us to go out and actually have a firm on board that at any given time.

Yes, yeah retained we'd have a we'd have a firm on retainers so that at any time the council needed to engage them they actually could.

Okay, that's helpful.

And then if I made a motion to you know use that law firm on retainer, would that have to require council approval if to pick up a phone and have a conversation no.

What the code says is that when you want to get a formal legal opinion on behalf of the body then it requires you have to do it on behalf of the body.

Okay an example I'll I'll make this up say you want to get a legal opinion on our budget and you didn't want to have to share it with any other member you would then have to meet with whomever the president was and say hey and they would yes go that's for you and for your eyes only.

Otherwise anything our current solicitor or our former solicitor produce as a formal legal opinion has to go to the whole body.

Okay understood so we could pick up a phone and ask for advice and they will bill us accordingly and that doesn't require council approval but if they have to go to court for me and do legwork and research then that would require us to approve.

Okay.

Thank you.

I I think I've got similar questions um the other one is I have no idea what attorneys bill per hour these days right and so when you think about it's a there the firms who do municipal law are bigger firms and I mean don't they bill it like $300 an hour or something crazy more and so a hundred and twelve dollars or a hundred and twelve thousand two hundred and seventy six dollars is like fifty dollars an hour.

So we could be getting instead of two thousand eighty hours which is a full time position per year we could be getting two hundred hours per year.

I it could run out really quickly.

That's like four weeks of work five weeks work.

So um you know full time work.

So that's another consideration so and and really it is you know a lot of times we just want to run an attorney to run their eyes over something they might not be writing it from scratch.

But like before we put it on the table a lot of times it's nice to have an attorney take a second look.

Because we're like writing legal language when we're writing amendment resolutions or ordinance amendments and stuff like that.

And so a lot of times we do ask either the mayor's law department or but it's nice to this is why we're allowed to have it in house.

But even to do that you know I think we need to figure out like where is the line that you cross like does it have to go to all members you know maybe me and my staff have been working on this language for two years and no other members have been done any work on it now you know because I have an attorney spend an hour on it it has to go to all members unless I get permission from the president.

Which really depends on who the president is frankly you know maybe they'll be fair maybe they won't so there's there's a lot to chew on here about like what are our internal policies and and also whether this is actually a bargain I'm not sure it is.

Now it's hard to hire people this is not a big wage so you know what about maybe the five hundred dollar an hour attorney can do it in five minutes but the $50 an hour attorney needs a week.

I don't know how these things work out but anyway is there just those are just again thoughts we we we right now have nothing.

So maybe maybe we give it a try.

So I'm I'm open but there are definitely some things to consider.

Thank you Madam Chair I think I saw her first round sorry no second round council member Warwick and second round council member Wilson.

I didn't speak first round okay Councilmember Wilson.

Um and then the the issue that was raised about you know having approval from the president.

Um that had happened during when we had someone in house.

And so that um I know that you know some members felt some way about it, and some others, you know.

So there was you know, it's I don't know.

I don't have a good analogy for this, but this was an attempt to this is an attempt to um you know explore this path, you know, obviously.

I mean this is new territory, so I was thinking might this might be a good good option to go down since uh as a as a body, we don't do uh I'll just say um, you know, we uh you know where each individual elected members nine and to have a council-wide uh you know, someone who is gonna receive private information and receive private thoughts and everything about this.

I know for me personally, maybe that person shouldn't be on the floor, but uh that's just me.

So appreciate it.

Thanks.

Councilmember Warwick.

Yeah, I mean, I understand the the history of it and the complicated.

It's just mm-hmm, to be honest, my preference, and this is would be that we had someone in the solicitor's office, like in the city solicitor's office whose entire job was to help us, right?

Who is like the person that goes that we can go to, but the what would I and this is not a knock on the solicitor of it's just that they have so much work to do, they get very busy that you know, reaching out for assistance can take time, and um you know, I would rather just have that assistance in the moment, you know, writing legislation.

And I also very much like I mean, even just through this budget process or through whatever you know, city planning, you know, the the amount of time that I spend just calling Sean Carter or calling our budget director just at any, you know, if the clock were ticking, if those if those minutes were being billed, I feel like it would add up to a lot of hours very, very quickly.

Yeah.

Just a quick call here, a quick call there.

Um can you take a look at this?

Can you shoot me over this information?

Um anyway.

Uh I guess this is sort of a uh to be continued discussion.

But Councilman Wilson.

Uh yeah, the the one thing I am interested in is who would uh apply to the RFP because unlike uh you know hiring a solicitor here, we would have to figure out someone who would take the the salary and you know, and would they be experienced in different parts of municipal government and I and with a firm I would expect that we'll be able to tap into different people who have expertise in employment law.

You know, different different you know, there's just not one specific attorney here that has like this one, you know.

I mean, I think attorneys are like surgeons, like they don't you're not gonna send the knee surgeon into the you know the brain surgeon room.

So I think there's you know there's big firms that handle different, you know, obviously large you know that this you know this the mayor's office contracts with a lot of different firms and there's uh you know tons of lawyers there that have their specialties and everything.

So I'm not that well of our version of the subject, but I mean I I generally know uh you know that hiring one individual may cause some problems, but I definitely understand a concern.

Look, this was just an attempt to get on the path that we haven't gone down before to see what uh what we could get out of it.

So thanks.

Thanks.

So we have already taken a vote on this, unless there's a strong will by council members to reconsider this.

Um I think we should all I would recommend we all discuss amongst ourselves leading up to Sunday and truly consider whether this is the the right move for us uh prior to Sunday, and um we can we can handle that there.

Okay.

So we will move on then to amendment number eight.

Uh the bill has been read, but let's read it again.

Yeah, we can recap uh it is moving funding from the Department of Innovation Performance to the Office of the City Controller to align funding for the spreadsheet software.

It is six thousand dollars total, um, but it is budget neutral move.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment.

Oh, Councilman Wilson.

Yeah, so just so I'm clear.

So this is like why would we take this uh funding this postage out of our yet?

This is the uh oh, we're not gonna all turn around here.

Yeah, what number are we on?

Number eight.

This is moving from money from IMP to the controller's office.

Uh well, we weren't talking about.

Yeah.

We already motioned for this.

Okay.

All right, sorry.

Further discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment eight, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

One abstention.

Affirmative recommendation.

Amendment nine.

Number nine would be to move funding from the city council districts to the Department of Finance to align funding for postage.

It is budget neutral.

Motion to approve.

Second?

Is there a second?

Uh can we get a second?

No second.

Oh no.

Okay, then if there's no second, then we cannot consider this, and we will move on to amendment 10.

Number 10.

Um remove one public engagement specialist position from the office of the city clerk.

Uh in uh which is a 77,342 dollar decrease in 2026 and a five-year impact of $396,64 decrease.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Discussion?

Will there still be two positions?

There will still be two.

That is exactly what it is.

Okay, thank you.

Council President Laval.

Also, just to reiterate numbers 10 through 17 are the result of the memo that went out to every department asking them to propose what a five percent decrease would look like, as you all are well aware.

Once we actually got those memels, we discovered how bare bones our departments are already, and so the vast majority of them we did not touch at all.

Um because it would affect core service delivery to our residents.

So and we didn't feel that was appropriate.

But 10 through 17 do reflect what we did feel was appropriate based on what was recommended by the directors.

Thank you.

Further discussion.

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment 10, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Amendment 11.

Number 11 is to uh remove non-personnel funding for the mounted patrol unit in the Bureau of Police.

It is a 140,000 two hundred dollar decrease in 2026.

It was not funded in the outer years.

Motion to approve.

Second discussion.

Council, I think I saw um I'll go second.

Well, I'll give I'll give this to Councilmember Warwick first, and this is her uh bill, and then councilman uh Cockhill.

So this one came.

I don't know how my name got on this.

I do like horses.

Everyone, I do like horses.

Uh but um, you know, this came in as sort of the list of possible cuts.

Yeah.

Um and just to clarify too, that we already defunded the mounted police unit last year.

Um, but somehow they found a way.

They found a way to keep funding it.

So um again.

This one was not actually brought in specifically by me.

I think my name was just on it because I'm somewhat infamous for this for this.

It was sent out from your office is included.

Well, I mean, I'll say it's fine.

I'll have my name on it.

I got it from multiple people, but you it sent it in first.

Well, you can't put it on the table.

No, no.

Ma yeah, I I didn't send I was sent to the sure.

It's fine.

None of it.

It's fine.

I just requested by a council member.

Yeah.

Yeah, at any rate, but I just wanted to say that that is so this was something that we did, the council did last year.

And um we um and again, I'm not sure how the police found funding for the the horses, but they did.

And it's still there and it's in the budget again.

Which I will say, as a matter of course, is a little frustrating.

As a council member, you're like we vote on things and we make decisions about what gets funded and what doesn't get funded.

And we made a decision last year.

Maybe not all people voted for it.

Right?

Like not everyone voted for it to find, but it didn't happen.

And that is somewhat frustrating for any, you know, this decisions get made at the table, and those really should be the decisions that are implemented by the administration.

So I'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we have Councilman Coggill, Councilman Cale Smith, and I see Councilperson Charlotte.

Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair.

Uh I will take partial responsibility for that.

I did kind of fight to keep them here.

Uh myself and director uh Schmidt talked about it.

It's he's just been supplementing it through their budget, the public safety budget for the remaining year.

While we were deciding you can't really just eliminate the horses like we can, a position, you know, I mean we needed to sell them off or find the new home for them.

As much as I feel like any major police department should have a mounted unit.

So reluctantly I will be supporting the cut.

But um yeah, so and yeah.

You want to co-sponsor?

Thank you.

Councilwoman Cale Smith.

So I just want to say that um I would like to know how this got to the table, especially if the councilwoman's saying she didn't no no, I did.

I sent it in.

It's a good idea.

Yeah.

There is not a single amendment that was not a good thing.

Okay, I just want to make sure because I don't know.

No, I mean that's one thing for me.

And the other thing is, you know, we talk a lot about police and community relations, and there has not been a better police community relations tool than Commander Ripple's motorcycle and these horses, because they are known throughout the entire city.

And you see kids in Sheridan, it is the only time you'll see kids running up to police officers.

And so when I hear everybody talking, a good talk about police community relations, when you don't fund those things, your your voice is heard.

I mean, it your priorities are are sane.

So for me, this is I I'm not I'm not crazy about the whole idea of it, but I think that when you see our kids, you know, it's amazing.

They just love them.

And even so do the adults.

So that said, I think that we it's short-sighted and not really looking at the benefit of it.

We should have tried to find some way to fund this, whether it was even a sponsorship or something.

We just like we do for races and other things that we care about.

I think we should do something for this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilperson Charlotte.

Yeah, so um I I speak about this because I'm probably the one that uses or has the most opportunity to use the horses out of all of us.

Um and I I it's hard for me to vote on this amendment because the way that I feel is that if the police if the police horses are going to be useful and come to my district and help out when we ask them to, I'm all in favor of supporting them and uh keeping that program.

That has not been the case.

So the horses uh you know the officers that that uh work with the horses seem to have the ability to say that they don't want to come to East Carson Street and help with cow crowd control.

Um they see themselves really as only doing um you know community relations, which is great, but we could for this amount of money we could rent a petting zoo when we need to.

Um so I I would rather have, you know, I I I don't know how we even vote today, but uh like i if they are going to commit to being helpful and being you know useful is as a uh uh crowd control tool and being able to patrol the streets, um then that's that's worth considering.

But as we heard from you know, in the budget season from both public works and from the police, there's a disconnect between how they feel the you know who manages the police.

We heard from the police that they were looking at having um laborers from public works work on um farm, what w what are what are horses on uh the stable?

Uh working on the stable and you know, right now there are police officers that their full-time job is working on the stable.

Um we don't have the right equipment to transfer the horses.

It it's just to me it seems like this is not a well thought out program right now.

Um, but it's really hard for me because I do believe in the the few weekends that they have come down to East Carson Street, they have been really helpful.

They've also left big messes behind that no one knows you know whose job it is to clean up, those kind of things.

I I really think that we just need better better operations in place.

Um but it's really hard to decide how to vote today.

The uh that's kind of all of my feelings on this issue.

Um but you know, I uh I I uh also just don't like the idea that we defunded them last year and they continue to stay here without council's approval.

So I'm not sure how I feel on this.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Coun any further first round, second round?

Councilwoman Warwick.

Um I also do want to uh point out so you know, last year uh when we defunded this, and just to be clear, so last year we defunded six months, right, which would have allowed them six months to kind of wind it down.

You know, we didn't want to just pull the rug out from underneath.

So we we only funded it for six months of last year.

And um at the time, uh the um humane animal rescue, right?

They got in touch with the office, they got in touch with um uh director Schmidt and were more than willing to find homes for the horses, right, to make sure that the horses that you know so we wouldn't have to sort of deal with what to actually do with the horses themselves.

Um and they were also ple you know very supportive, just as a you know, animal rights organization, they were very supportive.

Um and I do want to say, without throwing anybody under the bus, right?

But when I very, very, very first came to council, um, it was one of my first meetings with law enforcement, right?

With leader with folks in law enforcement, and the idea for this, and I came into council very much like uh, you know, uh with no experience working with law enforcement, you know, uh leaning toward being anti-law enforcement, right?

Just coming in, and um it was a really great first meeting, and in that meeting, the horses came because I asked, I said, hey, listen, what could we you know, like I'm side, you know, like you know, all of this budget goes towards police.

What's something that you what's something that you feel we could you know downsize on?

And they said the horses.

And I said, but they but they're like we wouldn't touch it because nobody you know, because everybody loves the horses, and I said, well, hey, I'll do it, you know.

If that's like uh, you know, everyone sort of thinks I'm a lefty anyway, I'll just you know, I'll do it.

And that is where that came from.

So I didn't do it just kind of out of the blue, like just you know, some personal ideological thing.

So it was really a recommendation, and of course there was funding.

I can't remember what it went to, bust shelters or something like that.

Yeah, something dome related.

So anyway, just to give a little context from the the original bill last year.

Thank you.

We have second round councilwoman Cale Smith, followed by Councilman Cockhill.

I just was unfortunately the kids in Sheridan didn't get a vote on that.

So I'm just gonna say I'm gonna speak up for my kids in Sheridan because they love them so much.

And um, yeah, yeah, they love them.

And um, and it's good to see the kids and and running a petting zoo, I you know, I respect you a lot, but we that's great, but they're not with police officers, and and I just think it's the idea.

But m mostly I think it's short-sighted because we have the draft coming up and crowd control, and they're used in almost every other city that I've I've seen for crowd control.

So I I think we should have just tried to figure that out, and maybe even had the Steelers or somebody pay for it because it's on the north side too.

So I'm just saying it I just think it's short-sighted.

Thank you.

Councilman Cockhelm.

Thank you.

Um, yeah, I want to echo Councilwoman Killsmith's remarks.

They are extremely helpful and useful in a way of PR, they really are, with kids and you know, just that.

And I also want to, you know, reflect Councilman Charlotte's idea as to, you know, I had mentioned when I wanted to try to fight to keep them.

I wanted them coming more useful.

I wanted them out every day somewhere.

I coming down Brookline Boulevard, you name it, just as not only just PR, just as uh, you know, safety.

So problem I will tell you is more so with the people who are eligible and uh you know experienced to come out, and usually it's a premium pay situation, whether it's uh East Carson Street on the weekend or you know, um situation like that.

So it did end up running up a lot of costs, but more so for my request to get them out on a regular basis, it was having the officers who are trained and you know um, you know, to to do so.

So seeing that that really hasn't changed, that kind of influences my decision as well today.

So that's it.

I just wanted to thank you.

Councilwoman oh no, that's it.

Any further comment?

Seeing none.

All in favor of amendment number 11, please indicate by saying aye.

I abstain.

One abstention.

Affirmative recommendation.

Thank you.

Bill uh or amendment 12.

12 is to decrease non-union cost of living increase by one percent in 2026 from 3% to 2%.

It is a $458,748 decrease in 2006.

And a five-year decrease of $3,244,533 over the five-year plan.

Is there a motion?

This is number 12.

Is there a second?

Uh huh.

Second.

Second discussion.

Councilwoman Warwick.

I just um, you know, our city employees, they work really, really hard.

And they make a lot less money, many of them, right, make a lot less money than they would make in the private sector.

They do have good benefits, right?

The benefits are good and there's pension, but you know these days it is a lot less common than it used to be.

It used to be like it was really common to stay in a job for 20 to 30 years, right?

Like that was a sort of commonplace, but that's just not really how the job market works anymore.

The way to move up, the way to to sort of increase your salary is not to stay put and get promoted, it is to move on.

Oops.

And that's a problem for the city because people who stay here kind of stag, you know, wages stagnate, and this little bump every year is like all they get.

And um, I don't know.

That's I'll just leave it at that.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Gross.

Yeah, I'll echo that.

We have incredibly high turnover in some departments.

Um because again, they are they can get a lot more money in the private sector as councilwoman war said, and so they do, right?

And so we have really high turnover, especially in professional positions, and they're incredibly hard to fill.

Um, and then those positions are empty for a very long time.

Um so this one is really difficult just to eke out you know, three million dollars.

Plus even a three percent, right?

So decreasing from three percent to two percent.

Well, inflation is not two percent.

And inflation wasn't two percent last year when we gave a three percent raise, right?

And so inflation's been very high for several years in a row, and so this is uh, you know we're falling behind increasingly each year.

Um the prices of some things have doubled in just four or five years.

Um so this one, I you know, we don't want to cut off our nose to sputter face, I think what that was said in the news.

And and this feels like maybe we're going there.

But that means we have to find the three million dollars somewhere.

Um so again, I just want to kind of put that out there.

Is it worth decreasing expenditures by three million here?

I mean, the the the price might actually be too high.

So um, you know, I think we would actually be losing employees, is my prediction.

Um not just asking them to wait a year or two, because you know, never the year is never gonna come where we're gonna be able to be like, oh my gosh, inflation has been 10 to 15 percent for the last three years.

So here we're giving you a 20 percent salary increase.

That is not gonna happen.

So, you know, take it's only one percent, but it's we're it's already 3%'s already too low.

I'll leave it there.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Cale Smith.

So I I um well, I can say Councilman Coghill and I just yesterday alone saved us eight million dollars.

So there's eight million right there from the when they tabled when they table when they tabled the um the uh salt dome.

Thank you.

And council you know was was at you know very vocal about that.

And then yesterday with the two million for the comp plan.

So it's eight million right there.

So maybe we can help take care of our employees because I agree they get so many of them are so underpaid, and um and it's difficult when you try to make sure that we're paying people right because it is public dollars, and people do get upset, and that's why council for decades didn't take a pay increase.

And when and so I'm gonna talk briefly about the pay increase that we did take.

Um when and I'm gonna say this right now.

It was somebody who's not at this table any longer, but they were the ones who put forward the pay increase, and I was the one who took the blame for that.

But I will say this we made sure that we did with you know the help of Dan Fries and talked to a judge and talk to some of the courts, and we um have a court order on how council has to now take their pay increases, and so you you can't turn them down.

So um, so if we can't turn them down, it seems hard that we're doing this to employees that are struggling every day.

There's their bills are going up.

And I'm just curious, what is their the effect of their um their benefits?

Are there benefits going up at all?

I mean, we're taking money away and then are there benefits going up.

I want to make sure that because last time we gave them a pay increase, but it was more their benefits were more than the pay increase.

It was last year.

Or year before, I think.

So I'm just wondering what that what the effect would be.

Because I I mean I'm gonna abstain anyway, but I just want us to think about, you know.

I know we have to cut somewhere.

I know that, or we have to increase somewhere.

I know that.

But I just really want us to think it through a little bit and you know, what's what our priorities really are.

And to me, the employees do so much.

So a lot of them do so much, and some of those people are not represented by unions and don't always get the benefits.

I think we try to pay our floor well.

But we never did.

When I first got here, one of our clerks were making $30,000.

So that's it for me.

I'll shut up.

Thank you.

Councilman Cockhelm.

Uh you know, most of my questions were addressed between my colleagues here, so I'll pass them.

You'll get the answers I was okay.

Thank you.

Council President Lavelle.

Thank you.

Be very brief.

I'm not trying to change any members' perspective on this.

Um for years, I was I would introduce amendments to actually increase our our own salaries for our staff, right?

Because that of the same reason you all just mentioned the logic here was if in a year where we may have to increase the millage rate and increase taxes, how do we not also take a cut ourselves?

That was simply the logic.

But I fully understand and appreciate everyone's perspective of wanting to pay our employees to the greatest that we can.

So I'm not sure.

Can I just clarify?

Is this for us or for all employees?

Because if it's for us, I'm willing to take cut wherever.

All non-union.

So this would be us, is all non-union positions.

So there's 700 employees.

It's not just I'm sorry.

Your your comments made it sound like it was just the council employees.

No, sorry.

I didn't mean to imply that.

I was simply saying if the city as a whole is going to look potentially to increase taxes, then how does the city as a whole also not look at every chance to cut?

And this was one way to potentially cut and demonstrate that we were ourselves trying to tighten our belt.

I'm not trying to convince you to necessarily vote for it.

I'm just telling you the logic behind it.

Thank you.

Councilman Wilson.

Thank you, Chair.

I'm not I'm not there yet with this one.

I'll be voting no.

Um I do uh I do understand the perspective of this, but I'll be um in favor of voting for uh removing other vacancies.

Um other amendments here.

And I think that we could do that before cutting um the increase, especially since taxes are going up everywhere.

We're gonna need somebody that pays taxes.

Thanks.

I'll just say I'll reiterate what Council President Lavelle said.

Although I'm a co-sponsor on this one, um, this is admittedly a really hard one.

The logic is there.

The logic is, you know, looking at it just like unfortunately, like not emotionally, very coldly, like we need to make cuts, and we need to make cuts from everywhere if we're going to even consider having um, you know, make everyone sort of um there's gonna be a lot of a lot of pain that's felt by a lot of people, and uh uh the idea being that you have to sort of um apply that equally.

Um in the case of unfortunately then employees, I know that that is then uh a double whammy, but um it's a way to sort of justify that tax increase that we are considering on in in future days.

That said, I don't take this lightly.

Like it is a difficult position um to take, and um it is it's a difficult assessment to make out of all the other cuts that we have proposed here and discussed.

Um, this is a really hard one as well.

So I'll be voting yes today, but I again am not looking to convince anyone on this particular one.

Um all those in favor of amendment number twelve, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

No.

Okay, we will take a roll call vote.

Thank you.

Can we?

We'll have we'll have the clerk do a book of it.

Mr.

Sharlin.

No.

Mr.

Coghill?

No.

Ms.

Gross.

No.

Mr.

Laval.

Mr.

Mosley.

Stay.

Ms.

Cal Smith.

Abstain.

Ms.

Warwick.

No.

Mr.

Wilson?

No.

Ms.

Strasberger Chair.

Aye.

Ayes two, no five.

Two abstentions.

Motion fails.

Uh amendment number 13.

Number 13 is to eliminate the seasonal laborer allowance in the Department of Public Works, Bureau of Operations.

It is a decrease of 425,316 in 2026 and a five-year decrease of 2,261,239.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Councilmember Warwick.

I will say that.

For those that were at the um budget hearing for DPW.

Um the number of clean and liens was, I believe, doubled this year, if not maybe even more.

So there was a significant increase in the number of cleaning liens that we were able to do in 2025.

Clean and liens are a um a critical part also of our sort of at least according to the Clean Pittsburgh Commission, right?

We had a post agenda on litter, our ability to do clean and liens, which is just for the public is to if there is a private property that is overgrowth and whatever illegal dumping and all kinds of, you know, if the the property needs to be cleaned up, that is what this clean and lien is, right?

Like we go in, a city crew goes in, cleans it up and then and then charge us the cost back to to the property, puts a lien on the property.

Um I will say it's not necessarily I don't I don't know the numbers of clean and liens in my own district, so I can't really speak to that, and I know that members have had different experiences.

But I will say that um our ability to keep our neighborhoods and our city clean.

You know, I mean vacant and abandoned properties are a big problem.

Just sort of dirt, you know, overgrowth and broken windows and raccoons and and trash on vacant and abandoned properties is a is a big problem in many communities in Pittsburgh.

So uh given that the improvement, at least in the numbers, and I know some other members will have, you know, the the improvement in the clean and lean numbers, the number the you know, the numbers that we have been able to complete in the past year using this workforce.

Um I, you know, again, we talk a lot about you know we've got to make cuts.

We got but cuts cuts to our workforce means cuts in the services that we can provide.

So if in your neighborhood you are experiencing you know, you have a property that's that you know just uh a blight on your community, um, you know, in the past year we were able to, I believe more than double our number.

I'm wish I had the exact number, um, but um our you know the number of clean and liens that we've been able to do.

So yeah.

So in in uh Director Hornstein's letter, whenever he sent over his potential cuts, he referenced um these expenses are associated with clean and lien programs.

Such reductions will have a net result of 50 percent reduction in um from 2025 services.

Uh they documented that there were uh serviced over 520 clean-in liens.

So he said this would cut us down to 260 next year.

So to go from like 200, you know, 520 clean-in liens down to 260.

That is a very that is a very real tangible impact on service provided to to residents in Pittsburgh and residents in you know our our most neglected communities, right?

Where you have all these vacant and abandoned properties, right?

Um so anyway, I am I am uh I'm gonna I'm a no on this one.

So thank you.

That's all for me.

Thank you.

We have Councilwoman Kale Smith and then Councilman Wilson, Councilman Conkill, Councilwoman Gross.

Thank you.

I actually this program is near and dear to my heart because I started it.

It was part of my legislation.

And it was not intended, it's not exactly intended being done in the way I intended.

Um because I it I envisioned it to be something similar to the Red Up, and then they ended up moving them into the divisions instead, so that it would be more dispersed, but they're not dispersed.

I looked at the list, they're not dispersed.

They're they're you know different places.

They are throughout the city, but they're large numbers in you know specific districts.

Um I do think there's a lot of value to it, but I really wish with the new incoming administration that he would think about doing something similar to the Red Up, because that was really the the best thing.

That was the the time I sold the city the cleanest the most with the Red Up crew.

They did they did an amazing job.

I don't think they'll ever be able to replicate those people because they worked so hard.

And um there was also a green up program.

So we had green up efforts, you know, we have they were planting things and cleaning up things, so the city just looked better.

Um I wish they would hopefully he'll revisit some of that or some type of those programs when he comes back in or when he gets in here.

But um for me, I I do care very much about this program, but I'm gonna need to abstain again today.

Just my abstentions are not anything negative to any of the bills.

I want to vote yes on some of them, but or some of the amendments, but I want to wait until I see the and have a conversation with you about the overall effect of the budget.

Thank you.

Councilman Wilson.

I missed that.

Thank you, Chair.

All right.

Uh so this council did the a very a very um a very uh what I call this.

I mean I've been in here almost six years and I haven't seen any department grow uh with the amount of workers that TBW has.

Right.

A hundred new workers.

Uh I think that was the first or second year whenever the mayor got in office and we honor that, and I think that that you know is is showing its its face now.

And I mean other departments didn't get uh any employees.

Or maybe like one or two.

And so um, you know, I understand that uh you know, there's we have a budget director's um showing the numbers that advocate on behalf of clean lean.

Uh I have a somewhat different experience with clean lean.

Uh I actually had um good experience prior to the 100 workers as well.

Um I think they are on case by case basis.

I'm not sure you know the ins and outs of these numbers, um, how they're getting there, but uh we'll say that we hired a hundred new workers and you know uh in in the times like this, I think that we look at areas like this and you know, there could be other strategies for those properties.

We just sold tons of properties here, the people made money on it through the through the finance uh department.

We are making very great progress, very um very good progress with uh the land bank as well.

Uh those are all empty lots, or sorry, not all, those are some empty lots, uh just like the finance department.

And if we continue to do that, we will see less clean liens, more people responsible for their own property.

Uh so I will be voting uh this one.

I'll be voting yes on this one to uh decrease to eliminate the uh seasonal labor allowance.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Calk Hill.

Yep, thank you.

Um in many ways, I I feel like I'm defunding my own district.

I've got many calls from seasonal workers from my district and saying, hey, we're gonna be doing the seasonal work.

And I said, I don't think so this year.

And you know, it's unfortunate, but uh, you know, and and I'll tell you my own experiences with the clean and lien.

Um I've had certain portion done, not a whole lot, and and a lot of the ones I was waiting on, it took a long time where it was overgrown wheat.

Next thing you know it's winter and they never really got around to them.

Uh yeah, it it's a tough one, but I I agree with Councilman Wilson.

Uh there were a lot of new hires and public works, and I think it's more just redirecting their focus, and if we focus on and make it an initiative to clean up these lots, um I think that we have the workforce to do so without seasonal workers, so I'll be voting yes to eliminate.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Gross.

Thank you.

Um a couple different points.

Um I I think some of us who've been on council longer absolutely have seen departments grow by a hundred people.

I certainly remember when we did not have a permits licenses and inspections, and I don't even know how many employees it has.

Anybody know?

100, 200.

Um that was started with, you know, one.

And similarly, the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure Domain didn't exist.

And we just had DPW.

So it was literally an entire new invention.

I absolutely remember when it had one employee and when it had two employees, and I think there it's probably up to a hundred employees there as well.

We literally only had one traffic engineer.

Um and they've got definitely lots of engineers.

PLI has 120 employees.

Right.

It's a little like it didn't didn't used to exist.

So do we need these seasonal labors, which is this operating amendment is number 13 that we're on, right?

And so it is decreasing it by a dollar amount, but I'm not sure if I recall.

I hear other members talking about 100.

This is not cutting a hundred employees.

That's not a hundred full-time hours.

No, this is so it's um a part-time allowance.

So it's set at an hourly rate, and it's not necessarily a number of employees.

It's kind of a number of hours that could be.

Um second.

They're not in front of us.

So while we're finding those numbers, I am curious how that hours are allocated, because it is relatively new, right?

That we added a bunch of part-time hours into wouldn't we have seasonal hours in other departments like parks and rack and TPW.

Well, this is TPW.

But um I'm curious about the clean and rain program, and I really appreciate even though we're kind of the bulk of these properties by far are not in District 7.

There's probably very few left.

But there was a there was a time when it was a uh with the beginning of the program where it was very frequently used in our community organizations were like, you know, we had we had blighted parts of the district.

And so there were quite a few of these kinds of things.

What I'm curious about is that hypothetically, this is a net rev um a revenue neutral program.

The lean part is us charging a property for the amount of work that was done on that property.

If I'm unless I'm misunderstanding it entirely.

A lien is us charging a property owner.

Just like a tax bill.

You've got to pay it.

So do we have a revenue line from Cleveland Lean?

I mean, so that would be built into the the revenue forecast.

Um I would have to dig into that to tell you what that number is.

I would be curious about that because if we're just kind of giving away work for free, I really want to know a heck of a lot more about these 500 properties because if they're all absentee landlord LLCs, they'd own like 50 properties each.

Well, that is not okay with me if we're not leaning and collecting on those properties.

Because this is not 30 years ago again, right?

We're not talking about people so poor that um they've literally abandoned a property and are struggling.

Um, which is which a whole other thing.

There may still be that, but that's why I think maybe we need to know more about like what is what are we actually doing.

Having said that, like we don't want we don't want out-of-town plunderer, house plun housing plunderers to um have nuisance properties that people have to live next door to.

So maybe we need to do some a little bit of kind of more research into the administration and the operations here on of this program.

And then, yeah.

So did you find the number of uh hours?

Did um it is uh the hourly rate is 24 and 96 hours or 96 cents.

Um and there's uh 15,829 man hours for that.

15,028 is roughly a seven and a half full-time equivalent employees.

Uh there are two thousand eighty hours in a work week in a work year.

Right?

There's 52 weeks a year, 40 hours a week, that's 2,080 hours.

So you divide 15,000 hours by 2,000.

So you get about seven and a half full-time employees.

So this is funding for about seven and a half full-time employees.

So um are they doing are they fully employed?

And will we not be able to do that program without them?

And then if we're doing this program and we are cleaning up big speculative investors or private equity companies properties for them and not collecting the lien, I also kind of want to know that.

So I mean, I don't know that we can figure that out by Sunday, unfortunately.

Yeah, I would have to work with finance to find out.

Right.

So again, do we really need how is this adding up?

Oh, it's that's the five years 1.8.

But it's like for this operating year, it's 425,000.

I mean, it sounds like there should be at least 425,000 worth of liens, frankly, honestly.

So again, are we cutting meat and bones, right?

And not cutting fat to pursue the kind of gross metaphor that is.

Um it doesn't look like that.

Um, I'm open to like being corrected or something, but if if we continue to do 500 properties a year, you know, we'll be doing you know, we've already did 500 last year, and we do another 500 this year, you know, a thousand properties sounds much better than just doing like 200 properties a year, and over the next couple years, only having, you know, taking five years to get to another thousand properties.

So it's this is a tough one too.

I think that's all my thoughts.

Thank you, man.

Thank you.

We have Councilman Mosley, Councilperson Charlotte, Councilmember Warwick.

Uh thank you.

And I will say in my experience in my nearly now two years on council has been overwhelmingly positive uh with the clean and lead program and uh division two over on Hamilton Avenue does a phenomenal job, particularly in my district, um, which is you know disproportionately impacted by vacant blight uh blighted and abandoned properties.

Um so um, you know, understanding again, you know, we have been um you know uh facing uh you know no uh favorable options um, you know, looking at you know uh to either tax increase or cutting services or cutting jobs, uh, you know, it's uh you know one undesirable choice um after another, so I understand that.

you know disproportionately you know impacted by vacant blind uh blighted and abandoned properties um so um you know understanding again you know we have been um you know uh facing uh uh you know no uh favorable options um you know looking at you know uh either tax increase or cutting services or cutting jobs uh you know it's uh you know one undesirable choice um after another so I understand that um but I'll be voting uh no just because of just the sheer uh impact that the work that uh the second division has done in my district um which is not only eliminated you know vacancy blight and abandonment but is also you know really been inspirational to the residents uh of neighborhoods that have often felt overwhelmingly neglected and really feeling like there's you know people on Grant Street as well as you know folks throughout the city who are city employees that you know for the first time in a long time is giving them the feeling that folks are working on their behalf um and understanding that you know there are some tough choices that we have to make um you know I'll I'll be voting no but looking over taking the next you know 72 hours uh before we really get down to the nitty-gritty to think about you know the you know the you know what tough decisions I'll make along with um you know the body you know as well so um yeah just I just wanted to share that and you know really big up uh the incredible work that the second division has done out in District 9.

Yeah Council President Charlotte Yeah so this is a program again that I'm very familiar with and maybe it's you know the blessing of being a staffer before I was in office um and having to you know beg the the foreman to get out there and do a clean in lane um so if you do look under revenue in our uh uh budget book on page 50 you can see how much we've made in liens here which isn't is not very much and we've always said that the program really needs renamed the problem with putting a lien on a vacant property is that now you make the barrier of purchasing that property higher so we have to we we can put a lien on a property but then we have to clear that when we if we ever move it through a property sale or ever move it through the the land bank it it just creates more of a barrier there.

So so many the the right correct they're not owned by Sam they're owned by in my largely in my district by folks that have walked away and that is you know that's why we desperately need the program that that does clean properties.

However that being said we don't have we we don't do them in a equal level throughout the city here and I can again tell you that I just came off of the the single worst year I've ever had with calls for overgrown grass again mostly on privately owned property that would eventually be a um a clean in lien you know unfortunately what happens when we don't go after clean and liens early in the year because that's not a priority of these seasonal workers we end up having to cut down trees we have a lot more work.

It's not just cutting the grass anymore.

The program is is wildly inefficient and it's not a resource problem.

It's not a personnel problem it's a prioritization.

So I'm happy to support us getting um moving on and looking at new ways that we can go after uh maintaining vacant property that's privately owned within the city you know this is this is not working and this is an easy expense to cut here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Second round council member Warbeck.

I also just wanted to mention you know in addition to the clean and leans these these seasonal workers do all kinds of other work right when we have big summer storms right they're there to help you know help with that that kind of cleanup and I think it is important to note too that you know when you see when you sort of look at your DPW workforce there's a lot of a lot of gray hair on the DPW workforce and those are jobs that we need to fill and this and seasonal workers are a really good way for someone who is new who doesn't really have any you know what I mean doesn't have any particular expertise or whatnot to kind of get in get on a DPW crew and sort of find out a little bit about what DPW is all about.

And by the way city, you know people who live in the city of Pittsburgh and um long term working for DPW is a good job, right?

Good benefits.

So you know cutting that off I think too is is I just I I wouldn't recommend it.

I I our DPW crews are um I mean they're the definition of core services right DPW public safety right those are the core must-haves services uh if there are issues and I don't want to you know if if you know if some council members are having a great experience with their division and other council members are having a not so great experience with their division I would argue that perhaps that is a um you know a a a training issue right that um that uh should be addressed right with with management and and you know how can I mean that's not I I don't know what the answers are there but that feels like perhaps uh a better approach than just axing the whole thing all together.

That um that uh should be addressed right with with management and and you know how can I mean that's not I I don't know what the answers are there, but that feels like perhaps uh a better approach than just axing the whole thing all together.

Anyway, that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Cockel.

Thank you.

So um just two things.

I want to say the seasonal workers for me should not reflect on the leaning cleans.

Again, it's about putting your efforts with the workers that we have, the workforce, like Councilman Wilson pointed out, that you know, extra 40 or so employees that we hired.

And you know, if you if if we and I'm a contractor, so I understand you know, refocusing your workforce.

I'm a big fan of lean and clean, so much so that you know I started my own leaning cleans, and I've done over 30 in my district, I will tell you.

Nothing goes further with the the the neighbors and the people who are affected by this in the neighborhood, then when you come in and you cut the grass and the weeds and everything else just to make it nice and neat and there's not you know critters crawling around and people could see a nice fresh cut grass.

Simple thing to do, very inexpensive.

I think we just need to refocus our efforts with the employees that we have.

I think the part the uh part-time uh positions are great.

Um but I think the situation we're in now, we have to vacate it.

I also agree with Councilwoman Gross.

Uh I and and Charlotte.

You know, I think if you look at the liens, again, if it works so well where if there was a lien and a clean and we were collecting on the lien, I'm willing to bet that we're way behind as to the lien money that we got compared to the labor that we spent.

I don't know that for sure, but I'll I'll bet anything anybody wants to bet that we're way behind on that figure.

I also think the lien um for condemned buildings, privately owned condemned buildings that are um deemed unsafe.

Um I'd like to know that figure too, as to, you know, I know we put a lien on that, and that makes perfect sense, and I think that's money very well spent on our end just to uh eradicate you know unsafe structures.

So I would love to get a figure on what those liens brought in.

I think.

Did you say you had a figure on that, Councilman Sharon?

This too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um that's on the liens that are lean and cleans.

But I would also like to get a figure on the liens of money we collected on structures that we have torn down over the last year or two.

Do you have that, Peter?

No.

No.

Three thousand seven.

Three thousand dollars we saved on unclean.

We probably pay that in a week, right?

I mean, if that we've probably paid it in a day.

So um so it's obviously not fruitful.

Nobody likes to cut whether it's seasonal workers or full-time workers, but this is one where um we're not going to be affecting anybody's pension or anybody's true way of life.

So yeah, uh I will be voting yes.

Again, thank you.

Thank you.

Council President Lavelle.

Thank you.

Very briefly.

Um I would I completely understand my colleagues' concerns about this.

I use clean and lean frequently.

Um my suggestion would be pass it today, and then maybe through the vacancy allowance that we didn't take up, or maybe other ways we could make up this and then put some of those workers back in the budget and allow us a few days to figure that out would be my recommendation.

Just to clarify by that, do you are are you meaning um just for clarity's sake for the council members' uh administration amendment number two that we declined to take up?

Essentially, as a way to address this particular one.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any further discussion?

I do think we need a roll call vote on this one, Madam Clerk.

Mr.

Charland.

Yes.

Mr.

Coggle.

Yes.

Ms.

Gross, no.

Mr.

Lavelle.

Mr.

Mosley.

My bad, guys.

Ms.

Kell Smith.

Abstain.

You're allowed.

Ms.

Warwick.

No.

You know, from the beginning.

I hate it.

Mr.

Wilson.

Aye.

Ms.

Strasberger chair.

Aye.

No two one abstention.

I said yes.

Affirmative recommendation.

Amendment number 14.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Amendment number 14 is to remove funding in the Bureau of Police for the Rockwell lease in 2026 only.

It's a decrease of 425,390.

Motion approved.

Second.

Discussion?

So I can speak to this one.

Yeah, I can speak to this.

I'm sorry, madam.

So there, well, Councilman Cocklewell knows as well, and Councilwoman Warwick.

So there has been a like a very preliminary very preliminary proposal to potentially combine zones four and five to a new location for the police.

And it's so preliminary that I'm actually uncomfortable talking about it publicly a little bit because this was in the budget and no community work has been done to discuss this with anyone.

So this is would just be can for either considering this to remove you know zone five out of the floodplain and have potentially uh uh a more efficient um and cost effective option here, but um to do so um next year would be premature.

So removing this is for as someone who represents portion of zone four would be um would be an easy removal from the budget for the 2026 with possible consideration in future years.

Councilman Cockhill.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So you know, as uh our uh Madam Chair knows we we toured this site.

Um I thought it was ideal for combining these two police departments and and and the reason being really, and at the time it was Chief Scorado was here, Director Schmidt.

The reason being really was because it's gonna save us a lot of money in the end.

We have two the we're their house now is in need of major, major renovations to the tune of millions and millions and millions of probably fifty plus million dollars.

So I am all for moving those two stations.

I will defer to my colleagues whose districts that that are in there, but I I guess my question is this in no way eliminates the potential there from Rockwell.

I guess.

Yeah, so the it's a reduced in 2026 only, and the funding that is in the outer years is still left there untouched.

So if you if you want to just push it to 2027, the money would be.

I guess my thought is like, you know, how long is are they gonna wait to at least a space, you know?

I I don't know if it's um I guess that's their prerogative, not ours.

So, you know, I I I feel that they want it there really bad because it's in the middle of her business development uh area.

So I think the wait, um, I hope it doesn't jeopardize it.

I just want to be on record as saying it's a really good move, I feel investing in the Rockwell property, mostly because of the condition of the buildings that are housing four and five now.

But um so I'll vote an affirmative today because um yeah, I agree we you know it doesn't seem like it's gone anywhere or got any legs, so no sense in designating that money for next year.

Further discussion.

All in favor of amendment number 14, please indicate by saying aye.

One abstention, affirmative recommendation.

Amendment number 15.

Number 15 is to decrease funding in the Department of Innovation and Performance for Computer Devices.

It is a decrease of $500,000 in 2026 and a five-year impact of $2.5 million.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion?

Councilmember Warwick.

Do we know what the I because they didn't see this letter did what are the impacts of this from IMP.

Um I mean, other than just having less computers to give out.

Uh I would have to look up the letter, which give me a minute.

Yeah.

My computer's not working.

That's why I ask.

Uh in their letter they state this um terrible.

To add this number to the budget, it would not just impact their department but all departments and services across the city of Pittsburgh, as you know, they work very closely with all city employees, departments, and divisions on technology with further their budgetary cuts.

It may become difficult in 2026 for us to purchase all of the necessary desktop computers, laptop computers, cellular telephones, and all other assorted technologies needs so that all city employees can maintain basic functionality.

Well, that doesn't sound like a good idea.

But I uh Yeah, I don't know.

Um I just this feels like this feels like us just cutting.

I mean, like our ability of our workers to have their computer if their computer breaks.

Like to be able to go and get a new computer seems like something that we need, you know.

I mean, we're trying to run a city here.

Or right?

Oh yeah, maybe, uh maybe, maybe.

But in the meantime, you know.

I don't know.

I just these cuts all feel.

Anyway.

I mean, it's not like we have like the best computers now, right?

Like uh, you know, uh it's not like our computers are top of the line, you know, fancy pants computers right now.

There's just sort of okay.

Maybe I'll abstain on this one, but thank you.

Councilman Wilson.

I just want to say uh your reaction to this is uh you know, just brought me uh when I say that this is like everything we see here.

Everything we're going through.

This is what you get when you have people who don't run departments to start making cuts to city government whenever like an honest budget doesn't come over and we're faced with like trying to make it work.

Like it just is what is what happens.

We're talking about whether or not we need computers amongst nine of us today.

Any further comment?

Second round, Councilwoman Warwick.

Yeah, I mean I guess I'm not sure I understand.

I'm happy for like interrogatory, but I think I mean you're saying these cuts should have been made ahead of time.

I just don't I don't know.

I just feel like we have some very lean like these years are lean and we've known that, and now you know, and here we are with our money is run out and and things are just very, very tight, right?

Um so we have you know, we can either slap but what's the point of us if we're like if we're slashing all this, if we're slashing services that we provide to residents and we're we're we're taking away the comp or you know, like potentially slashing the computers that allow our people to do the work that they are supposed to do for the residents of Pittsburgh if if if our goal is just to cut back on what we provide, then I don't know what the point uh what the point of us is.

I mean, I a hundred percent agree with the idea that there can be efficiencies, there can be maybe there are areas where this department or that department can work better, can be, you know, can can deliver their services better, but the way to improvement doesn't the the way to improve is not to cut yourself off at the knees, right?

I mean, uh that's I don't know.

Uh that that's more of just an overall thought as we as we enter into these conversations.

I mean, we are not a business, right?

A business, uh uh a private sector business, um, you know, the purpose of it is to generate revenue for itself, right?

For its shareholders.

That's not what we do.

We provide services, and those services cost money.

And, you know, obviously we're gonna be talking about uh having a difficult conversation about a tax increase coming up, but like I mean, I I I love when someone says, well, why doesn't CMU buy us computers?

A hundred percent.

I said that.

Yeah.

You know, like I would love to see UPMC buy it, you know, but but that's not something that we can control.

You know, we can hope in the next administration that those negotiations will go better than they have in the past, you know, whatever, 12 years.

But we have to deal with the the situation at hand today.

And I don't know, just cuts to the people who you know do clean and liens in our in our underserved neighborhoods as a way to kind of punish them for not being good enough at at their job, or like cuts to computers because we just are asking our directors to just, you know, well, what could we cut?

You know, just cuts for the sake of cuts just doesn't seem wise, right?

We've seen that at the federal level.

We've seen just slash and burn, you know, just come on in and slash and burn just to make people feel better because there's this like notion that government by its nature is wasteful, right?

That the existence of government is a wasteful endeavor.

And that and that there are lots of people who think that government just shouldn't even be, we should all just pay for our own stuff, right?

We should just pay for our own garbage and we should just pay for our own.

We should just put up gated communities and keep, you know, just pay for us, you know, you know, uh uh every man for himself.

I don't know.

That's not my philosophy.

Um I I I you know a hundred percent.

There are many ways that the city of Pittsburgh can operate more efficiently.

There are many ways that um we could train our workers better and figure out how to, you know, be faster and be, you know, but cutting our ability to replace our computers when they break doesn't feel like that's that's that's where it's at for me.

Anyway, thank you.

So this we've reached the part of the um agenda where we're zooming out to the 30,000 foot, and I didn't think it would be computers that would get us there, but somehow it is.

And so I'd like to just say, yes, um, it's we're making a lot of really difficult decisions today, a lot.

And there are just nine of us making these decisions.

That feels really hard.

And we will be making more hard decisions on you know, in the future about a possible millage increase.

That's also really difficult.

Um we're asking, I'll just say it again, when we are asking the people of Pittsburgh to help us dig ourselves out of the budgetary hole that we're in.

I think it's only fair that we take a look at every single department and every single program that we have and rely on the advice of the directors themselves, which they they which we sought and we they gave.

Um computers is a really hard one, absolutely.

That said, um, it's I'm thinking of all of these as essentially a one-year.

I know that there's oftentimes a five-year impact, but a well, one year decision, right?

2026 is going to be the most difficult year for us.

If we are fortunate, we truly reduce uh we fall off a debt cliff, as they say.

We we reduce a tremendous amount of debt that we owe.

It frees up more money that we can spend on everything.

Um 2027 should look a lot better if we um play our cards right.

So I think that there's also the opportunity, like that being said, there's also the opportunity for mid-year swaps, right?

So if we're truly not able to provide the computers and the equipment that people need because they're you know, I there was a computer that that I was using that couldn't update to the most um um Windows 11, right?

So you need to be able to update to Windows 11 to use it.

Certainly, yes, we need money, and I have all the confidence the world that IMP will let us know when we've reached that point when it's an emergency, and people truly aren't able to do their work because of the computers.

So this is like one of many really difficult decisions we're making.

I wish we weren't in this position.

I wish we didn't have to do this, but um, I think it's the you know, the responsible thing to be making these decisions in addition to raising revenue for the city.

It's what I've been saying the entire time.

We need a both and and we need to spread these uh difficult decisions out so they affect sort of everyone.

And we're all we're all you know, we're all in this together until we get out of it.

Any further discussion?

Councilman Wilson.

I just want to say I I don't feel like this is a slash and burn.

Not not for this item, but just in general, like referencing the federal government, you know, to the city of Pittsburgh is like I don't know.

I just want to say well, I just want to be careful on that because that's I mean, I'm not seeing you know, departments just you know being let go here.

I'm just seeing some reasonable cuts here that you know, unfortunately we're you know uh forced to make.

So thanks.

Thank you.

Okay.

All in favor of amendment 15, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

No.

Abstain.

One no, two no's, one abstention, affirmative recommendation.

Um amendment 16.

Amendment 16 is to reduce funding for training and conference sponsorship in the Office of Management and Budget.

It is a 42,750 decrease in 2026 and a five-year impact of 93,750.

Motion approved.

Second.

Seeing none.

Oh, oh, sorry.

You know, this this amendment to fully supportive, right?

This is the kind of thing, absolutely, right?

This feels like belt tightening to me.

You don't need to go to the conference, right?

Um, one thing that we haven't looked at, and um again, not because I want to, but because, and maybe something that I'll look at with my team, are things like you know, all the money that we put towards fireworks and special events and like things like that, right?

Like those are nice to have, like in the really broadest sense, right?

Like nice to have.

And you know, they cost money too.

And I I actually it's uh uh I'm I'm happy to look at those if but you know it's those types of things that, and certainly things like this, right?

Travel for employees going to a conference, that kind of thing.

This feels a hundred percent like something where you know we could do without for a year, and it will not have a major impact on how the how the residents of Pittsburgh experience um their day-to-day life here in the city.

Thank you.

I just want to be fully transparent.

There's there's also going to be this department hosting an event in Pittsburgh, a sort of annual for that for that department or for that branch of the department, and a summit or an event um convention in Pittsburgh.

And I guess they stated in the in the memo that was sent over that they could seek sponsorships for that.

I think that's a great idea.

And like whatever the incoming administration and our council can do to help them seek those sponsorships so that they don't have to actually go without I fully support as well.

So just wanted to be transparent about that knowledge.

Okay.

All in favor of uh Amendment 16, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

One abstention.

Amendment 17.

Amendment 17 is to reduce funding for cleaning, landscaping, and litter can centers in the Department of Public Works, Bureau of Operations is a decrease of 255,000 in 2026 with a five-year decrease of $1,275,000.

Motion approved.

Second.

Discussion?

Councilman Cockill.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm I'm a big yes on this.

First of all, the landscaping, uh, plantscapes.

You know, we have Brooklyn Boulevard.

We have so many several, several areas that they were to maintain, and we never really were satisfied with their services.

Um when we talk about essentials, um rubbish can sensors, absolutely not essential.

Uh so I see this as a very good cut.

Uh something I don't feel this city needs.

And um as a one of our employees walking over and seeing if the garbage can't empty or not.

So I'm a yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Further discussion, Councilman Wilson.

What's the landscaping part of this?

The plantscape contract that they don't use anymore.

Uh we actually do all this now in-house, but they had it in the budget as contracted outside services.

So we're limiting the outside of service contracts.

Thanks.

All in favor of amendment 17, please indicate by saying aye.

Abstain.

One abstention, affirmative recommendation.

Amendment 18.

Amendment 18 is to swap out one associate project manager for one project manager in the Department of Public Works, Bureau of Facilities.

It is a 10,850 increase in 2026 with a five-year increase of $57,064.

It's sponsored by Councilperson Warwick.

Motion to approve.

Discussion.

Councilmember Warwick.

Yeah.

So for the next, so this was a little strange, right?

With this the understanding that this is kind of like the dress rehearsal for a conversation for like the real the real standing committee line item uh vote on Sunday.

Um so 18 through 22, and um we can go through them one by one just to clarify.

These are uh requests from DPW and DOMY that did not make it, these are personnel requests.

And one of them is not is not a request, but is one that I am bringing in uh from the clean from our post agenda with the Clean Pittsburgh Commission around litter.

Uh so uh these are um some of them are um promotions, some of them are new positions, and anyway, I'm happy to go through one by one, but none of these I will say are possible without additional revenue.

Right?

I do I do not have cuts that I can link to these.

So these are these are um you know, these would require additional revenue.

So I guess with that caveat um on anybody's vote at this point.

So anyway, I'm happy to go through them one by one.

Uh feel free to go through them one by one, and then we'll still if you yeah.

Well, it will we'll take a vote on each one if that's okay with you, understanding that they're all uh largely falling into that bucket, that category.

Yeah, so number 18 is uh a um this is a promotion, so a swap out, right?

Uh for um a project manager who works on our playground team, uh someone who has been here for a long time, has really developed in their role and is and is ready for you know, and a well-deserved promotion to um to project man from associate project manager to project manager.

So that's what number 18 is.

That and and the department feels that it is quite urgent.

I will I'll put it that way.

The department feels it's quite urgent that this person uh, you know, as we discussed before about turnover and whatnot, that it is quite urgent that this role um, you know, that this promotion happen.

Councilman Wilson.

Okay.

Um appreciate uh the work that went into this because I believe there's one there's several here that you're a sponsor of uh 10 10,000 more for an employee that department feels that is doing a good job and should be elevated.

Um I really like uh things like that.

You know, I like to take uh good care of employees.

So I'd like to learn more about that, so I'll probably be yes on that, but I don't I'm really hasn't that any positions, so I'll probably be voting no on any new positions like all across the board.

I got it.

Just as a rule.

Um so I want to take care of what we have and uh make sure they're taken care of and not add any more.

Um well I can't say that because I know there's there's a mayor administration coming in, and I think they they at least get to have you know a certain percentage of what the current mayor um has.

So that will be a separate issue.

But uh, you know, just want to state why, because I think you have some added ones here, and so I'll probably be voting no on that.

Thank you.

Further discussion?

Councilman Cockhill.

Thank you.

Um I definitely a yes for that regarding the Domi 86,000 increase, 26.

And um that's for I think it was at the request of John Klinger, one of our Domi employees.

Okay.

So this one is this is sort of an odd situation.

Before Domi and DPW, if I I hope I get this right, right?

Domi and DPW used to be one department, and uh then they were split at a certain point.

And there was someone who works on the paving team.

Paving team is in Domi, but this person works on the paving team but stayed in DPW.

At any rate, that person has retired, and I think that position's been filled.

But now DPW is like taken the position.

I don't, you know.

Um, but our paving team needs somebody in this role within Domi.

And so that is it is a new position for DOMY to fill someone who has left who is in a critical role on that team.

Right.

And and that was really um essential, and you I think you've talked to or heard from uh John Klinger, and that was one of the things that not not this is this is a in a discussion with directory.

Okay, okay, okay.

So you didn't speak directly.

But but me either way, I understand um Klinger to me is one of our most valuable assets.

I mean, he's he's come out evaluated um and came up with solutions to our most difficult problems with roads and dips and pot ponding water and water rushing into people's basements from our roadways, and I believe this position is essential for him.

Okay, so I'm definitely a yes on 20.

The others I'll abstain until I find out a little further as to you know what they are and with departments and how valuable um how essential they are.

But um that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All in favor.

Oh, yeah, Councilmember Warwick.

I mean, do you want me to go through that all the time?

Well let's just let's just vote on 18 and then we can get take them each individually.

Um all in favor of amendment 18, please indicate by saying aye.

Uh one abstention.

Abstain.

Three abstentions.

Uh affirmative recommendation.

Bill uh amendment 19.

Number 19 is to add one transportation demand coordinator with funding beginning in March 2026 to cover costs that were once uh once the grant expires uh in the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure is an increase of 69,475 dollars in 2026 with a five-year increase of 425,829.

Motion to approve is there a second?

Second second discussion, Councilmember Warwick?

Yeah, so again, this is coming from Domi.

Uh this is someone who is currently working at Domi, very highly valued um employee at Domi who is currently working on a grant off of it their salary is paid using a grant, but the grant runs out in March.

And so that is to enable this person to stay stay on.

Thank you.

Further discussion.

Yeah, Councilman Wilson, Councilperson Charlonge.

Yeah, why can't these be budget neutral?

Like what why if we have vacancy in different departments, why can't this be a budget neutral situation?

You mean like with the other cuts that are proposed?

No, I mean there is a lot of vacancy in the city.

I just try to understand, like, was there any effort to look and see how we can make this a budget neutral swap.

I mean, I'm happy to look at that.

I mean, that was sort of my understanding is that no, there couldn't be.

But again, that's something I'm happy to look at between now and um it's not a lot of money.

Like altogether, this is very little money, right?

And I would also be open if there's other cuts that we do to move those cuts, but you know, again, I I knew that this was going to be a a tricky one because this is keeping people maybe potentially adding people, right?

And that the the desire of of some members and certainly folks in the public is you know it feels you know, we want to cut something, want to make sure that we're we're making cuts, right?

Like especially if we're gonna um you know be asking the public to to pitch in more.

So I'm happy to look at that and look at other cuts that we are, you know, that how maybe those monies rather than just a cut and then it goes back into the general fund or into pay or whatever that that those cuts can then fund these.

I'm more than happy to do that.

I just didn't want to presume that coming in, right, with with um leadership proposing cuts with the idea that these would be cuts.

I wanted to clarify that these are right, this is us maintaining people and in uh a couple cases adding new people.

Yeah, I just know that you know adding positions.

Uh this is something we've done in the past, and I've done it, and it seems like it's not that much, but I feel like that's you know, there's other like I said, there's other departments that had more employees added, but it doesn't seem like I much at first, but then the five-year impacts is half a million dollars.

So not that the person that job doesn't, you know, not that that person in the in a job like that doesn't deserve to make the that amount of money, it's just that you know it all adds up to millions of dollars.

Uh so yeah, I just I don't know.

I'm happy to look at options if there is some budget neutral things we could do there, because you know, that is an employee that's there.

I'm not I don't know the whole history of this.

I mean I'm other than yourself.

I'm not seeing any of anyone else.

This isn't a diss at you.

I'm just saying like not seeing anyone else adding one.

So this must have been a conversation you've been having with your department.

Yeah, I mean, I I I definitely made an effort, you know, as the public works chair to sit down because to say, look, what did you get, you know, what made it in, what didn't make it in, what you know, and yeah.

Okay, that's what and what would have what what what are the things that you really had hoped were gonna be in this budget, and then we're not in this budget, and we sat down and talked through those things.

And that's that's sort of what this and then there's one that's well when we get to it, one that I that I'm putting in myself, because I think it's important, but uh we have councilman called no, you already oh councilperson Charlotte, sorry I'm on the wrong.

That was number 18.

Council President Charlin.

Yeah, I guess the the question I have is just uh you know, with these positions, I'm what does this person do?

I I mean it's I think it's hard for you the transportation demand management coordinator.

I I don't want to speak to I just all I know is that it is someone who is valued by the team.

I can't I don't I don't want to go into job description details if I I don't have them specifically.

I mean it's I I imagine that puts us kind of in a tough position here to to try to see if we're gonna add these positions.

I can I can come back.

How about if I I'll I'll give more detail on that?

Yeah, and I probably will be asking that about the a lot of or the all of the positions you're trying to put in here.

Sure.

Just to kind of understand what what it is they do.

Thank you.

Okay.

All in favor of amendment 19, please indicate by saying aye.

I abstain.

No.

Abstain.

Uh let's do a roll call vote, please.

Mr.

Charlin?

No.

Mr.

Coghill.

This is R19.

Yes.

Yes.

Abstain.

Ms.

Gross.

Aye.

Mr.

Lavelle.

Ms.

Kell Smith.

Stay.

Mr.

Mosley.

Miss Warwick.

Aye.

Mr.

Wilson?

No.

Ms.

Strasberger Chair.

Aye.

Ayes for.

No's two.

Two abstentions.

Madam Chair, would you mind me just making brief comment about why I voted yes on that one?

I'll just say affirmative recommendation for the record.

Pardon.

Yeah.

So I um I know it's an industry term, transportation demand management.

You know, I'm not super in the weeds on it.

Um, but so it's like there are federal funds, there are state funds, and even SPC has an entire strategic plan about transportation demand management.

It's basically like a new industry jargon from what I am can glean for um multimodal, maybe, but basically like kind of where are where is traffic and where it isn't, you know, and like how to alleviate it.

Um and how to do trans, you know, instead of just saying transportation to mean everything, um transportation demand management seems a little bit more focused on especially residents, how residents are where they're going and how they get there.

Um so again, I'm not the super expert here, but I think I'm appreciate Councilwoman Warwick bringing back more information for us.

I'm just kind of imagining it being the kind of position that as it was previously grant funded, like we need in order to implement some of the specific grant-funded projects that we have.

So, you know, again, not to cut off your nose to sweat your face, right?

If we need to move grant money into actual build and deploy monies that we're getting, we don't want to cut the position who's basically the project manager for free money.

That's I'm just guessing, but oh thank you.

Okay, we'll move on to amendment 20.

Number 20 is to add uh one inspector three in the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure is an increase of 86,387 in 2026 with a five-year impact of 422 442,741 dollars.

Motion to approve.

Discussion?

Second.

Councilmember Warwick.

So again, this this one is my understanding of this role is that this is like the right hand of our lead paving.

Not director, but you know, manager.

Guru.

Our paving guru.

That is my understanding of this role.

And that the person who is in the role retired, and the the position was actually oddly in another department, but the whole remains in DOMI.

And because paving is in Domey.

Further discussion.

Seeing none, all those in favor of the uh amendment 20, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Abstain.

So same votes as last time I'm hearing.

Did anyone change their vote from amendment 19?

No.

Ayes have it.

Is that registered?

Perfect.

You were in abstention last time, so abstention on 19.

Yeah.

And you're an aye for this one.

Aye for 20.

Ayes have it.

Affirmative recommendation.

Thank you.

Amendment 21.

Number 21 is to add one operations coordinator in the Department of Public Works Bureau of Administration.

There's an increase of 86,387 in 2026 with a five-year increase of 442,741 dollars.

Motion to approve.

Second discussion?

Councilman Warwick?

Yeah.

So this one is this is the one that I have added.

So we've had lots of conversations about litter, right?

We have had press conferences, post agendas.

Um it is a problem in the city of Pittsburgh, right?

Litter is a problem.

It's a problem on our streets, it's a problem uh, you know, with illegal dumping.

Um we have lots of nonprofits that were working hard to mitigate litter, our DPW crews, our environmental services teams, and the request.

So in in the post agenda and sort of the the overall analysis of the Clean Pittsburgh Commission, is that when it comes to litter cleanups, illegal dumping, we need somebody at the city whose role it is to like coordinate all of these efforts so that we don't have you know, so that's so that uh maybe there used to be and there isn't any more, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure.

So but that was the ask.

And I I I do want to say actually for the because this is something I haven't said before, and I haven't, you know, my desire for all of these roles, by the way, uh going into this was to pull them all out of another department that I do not feel is a particular I mean, you know, is a particularly effective department that does not where we're a department where I don't feel that myself as a council member and many residents of Pittsburgh and other departments in the city feel the impact, right?

Defunded, I'll support you.

But my understanding though was, and again, I don't I I I am not alike and only I can only go off of what I have been told, is that for um that that there are civil service protections that make it so that you know to protect because of political because you know this is a inherently political job, right?

And administrations come and administrations go, and and you do want people to have a certain amount of job security and not be totally at the whim of politicians, and that there are some civil service protections in place for um government workers that make it that we can't simply say oh well I don't know, I'm just saying what I've been told.

Yeah.

So my original desire for all of these positions was to just move these positions from another department and you know, into these other roles.

But I was told that I couldn't do that.

So that's why we're having this conversation where these are sort of like unfunded, right?

Not non-budget neutral, these would depend on a revenue increase, all of these positions.

Um but anyway, back to say for the litter coordinator.

You know, I I feel like it makes sense.

I feel like it made a lot of sense at the post agenda when the folks from the Clean Pittsburgh Commission and our partners who do this, uh you know, who clean up illegal dump sites and pick up litter and our DPW director and our environmental services uh team that they felt that this would be a useful role in the battle against litter, which I think is very real.

I think that count, you know, um, you know, Pittsburgh is a dirty city, I believe, is the quote filthy.

Filthy, filthy, right.

Um but at any rate, um I I I too am someone who feels very frustrated about litter um in our streets and and in our neighborhoods, and and in particular in our most underserved neighborhoods, right?

And uh so that was that was the purpose of this role was to create a position for somebody to really be like the the go-to for for getting a handle on the problem.

Thank you.

I'll take councilwoman Cale Smith, Councilperson Charlin.

Thank you.

I so there was a position that did this.

Uh Melissa, I think her name was.

Do you remember Missy?

Yeah.

Missy.

And she lived in your district, Councilman Cogkill.

But is that position gone?

This should be different than that.

How d how different?

Because there was a guy under her that also or worked with her too.

Christopher.

She was the anti-litter inspector, like the only one for a long time, right?

No, she was the anti-litter coordinator.

Coordinator.

Yeah.

And so for the garbage for the environmental services trucks.

So he's the question.

I'm just trying to understand where the positions are and where the money is.

Because if she's Missy, I think she went out because she was not well.

And I don't know if she ever came back.

She didn't, that's what I thought.

Okay.

So I'm just wondering where that money for that position is.

Do you know?

Oh.

Could we find out?

There's a team of other.

There's the team of the inside of the inspectors.

But this later.

She coordinated all the efforts.

Is that I don't know.

She coordinated all the efforts.

That's what I'm trying to figure out where she is, where that position is, where the funding is.

I mean, I could I could try and look into that.

I will not be able to do that.

I mean, I'm going to stay today, but I'm just trying to make sure she gets what she wants.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Councilperson Charlie.

And then I oh, sorry.

No, then I wouldn't.

I'll say that an answer.

But I told her I said if you want to fund some of those other or defund some of those positions, I'm I'm all for moving some, because they're not all civil service.

You can't tell me that they're all civil service.

They're not.

And so I mean, I'll be happy to work with you on that one too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilperson Charlin.

Yeah.

Um so, you know, again, Councilman Work, you and I don't always agree on on everything, but this is something that I think you and I are very much aligned on.

Also in where you would like to take the positions from.

I think you and I are very aligned in.

They're not all civil service protected.

They a lot of them are union protected.

Um, but same same vote there.

Um that said, I the other point that the Clean Pittsburgh Commission made of that this role would have is helping to coordinate the garbage olympics, which largely was run out of my office this year and was a huge undertaking um for you know for our office and first half time here.

Um so I I think this position is um you know could be incredibly valuable and and could really help with some of the there's so many volunteer efforts that work on this, and you know, we still are a city that believes that maintaining trash should be a volunteer activity and not a um you know a public service that the city uh provides itself.

We we want to see volunteers take that on, and this I think would be able to help them, you know, the volunteers do that.

I do wish that we would move out of that and move into something uh much more like what I have had and and uh councilman Mosley has had with the CEO's team that is is doing this as a um you know uh of core function, but that being said, uh you know I'll be happy to support this one.

I'm again not sure how we're gonna pay for it, but um I want to make sure that this is something that ends up uh in a future future budget.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Second round council member Warwick.

I did just want to clarify about the litter inspectors because that is something that is new.

And I I mean I've seen the difference almost immediately by having an inspector that I think I have I think there's one dedicated to the 14th ward and one dedicated to the 31st and 15th.

And just to have that person able to go through and you know, do those citations for whatever litter on the whatever it is, right?

Litter in the business district, litter, you know, cans overflowing and and creating garbage on the street has uh has had an immediate impact.

Um and I'm very grateful to that team.

I think there's maybe eight of them.

I can't remember the exact number, but what?

But I at least in my district, and that is that is not this, right?

That's not this role, but I think that we have seen a major improvement, at least I should say I have seen a major improvement in particular uh in the in the Hazelwood business district.

Um due to having these inspectors coming through and just saying, look, you gotta keep your keep your you know, the space in front of your property clean.

That's all right.

Uh let's take a roll call vote on amendment 21, please.

Mr.

Charlin.

Aye.

Mr.

Coggill.

Abstain.

Miss Gross.

Aye.

Mr.

Excuse me, Mr.

Laval.

Mr.

Mosley, Miss Cal Smith.

Abstain.

Miss Warwick.

Aye.

Mr.

Wilson.

No.

Totally missed it.

Ms.

Strasberger Chair.

Aye.

Ayes five, no's one to abstention.

Thank you.

Motion passes or affirmative recommendation.

Amendment number 22.

Number 22 is to swap out one program specialist for one operational performance analyst in the Department of Public Works Bureau of Administration.

It is an increase of $36,453 in 2026 with a five-year increase of 190,267.

Motion to approve.

Is there a second?

Second.

Discussion?

Councilmember Warwick?

Yeah, so uh this is uh another swap out, right?

So this is someone uh who's uh does like this.

I believe you know, analysis of obviously the performance of operations in DPW has been uh with the city for a number of years, and um the department feels like it is imperative to give this person a promotion that they deserve or else be at risk of potentially right so they're just similar to the project manager one, similar to 18.

Councilman Wilson.

Yeah, I'm just really hesitant to continue to play the role of um operations.

I know I um this typically happens through conversation with people at the department.

Or we can I guess we could I mean I I understand it's just so these so the way these conversations went, right?

Is I sat down with the directors in my committee and said, what did you I mean one thing that is um that we didn't do this year, I think just because there's just been so much going on, is that we didn't have the kind of pre-meetings, the briefings with the directors where they could sort of candidly sit down with all of us.

And you know, either you know, and say, look, you know, this is what we asked for, this is what we got.

You know, these are the things that we really wish we had gotten, and we are disappointed that we did not that we did not get in this budget.

And so that is that is where these you know department specific requests are coming from, just as the as the chair for those departments.

I'm just trying to give an extra, you know, all right.

Further discussion, Councilman McCross.

Um aside from this specific line item, I'll say that council members would have understood.

I think more council members would have understood more of the backstory on each of the line items if we were still doing things the way we did up to about five or six years ago, where literally department directors came to each of our offices separately, right?

So what it's not like we are in quorum or anything like that, right?

And so every single department director would explain their budget requests.

Um and that's the time where we had a much better picture of instead of us kind of hypothesizing or relaying information here about what which positions are core to which city functions.

I think we need to get back to that again.

Um so in addition to the department directors kind of of course submitting their budget requests to the whatever whoever's mayor.

Um they also spoke every budget season individually with each member, and we knew to expect those meetings and made time for each director, you know, if we chose to to get a much deeper understanding of their department functions and so we could better judge um where there might be fat and where we were talking about muscle and shouldn't be, you know, so what was core functions and what are what we thought you know was the best allocation funds representing our constituents.

So yeah, just wanted to throw that in there.

Thanks.

Councilwoman Cale Smith.

I actually want to thank Councilwoman Gross for re your memory's great, but um your institutional knowledge is really beneficial to the body.

And so I want to thank you for that.

But I but part of that was if you recall, that's when OMB was not separate.

Right.

It was it was just a butt of I think it was a finance office or something, right?

Finance in charge of it.

Yeah, and that was it.

And so that then council members chairing a committee actually mattered because bud directors would have to come to you.

And I did request that we do that again that we take away OMB because I think that you should get back to council controlling the budget because that's what it is.

And um that's what your job is supposed to be.

That's what our job is supposed to be.

So I really wish I won't be here for next year, but I hope that you go back to you know, reviewing that office and and then because honestly, it's not fair to the constituents.

We're supposed to be doing their job, not the administration's job, and not working just with them, but working for our people.

So I think that helps us to do the just that and it makes you all more important to maybe help grow your grow your department a little bit, your your office role.

I just want to say I think that that's what it helps us do a better job.

So I wish we would go back to that too, because then you did understand every part of the the committee you were chairing.

It was helpful.

I'll put the legislation in before I leave one more thing.

I think I did.

I think it did I have it?

I have it written up.

I don't know if I put it in yet.

Thank you.

Um council we uh any further first round, second round, councilman Wilson.

Okay.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment 22, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Abstain.

No.

Ayes have it.

Affirmative recommendation.

Um so that moves us to city council capital amendments.

Oh, wait, 23.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I I I will defer to council president.

It was in my mind already crossed out.

Uh Council President Labelle to explain.

Um striking both 23 and then the corresponding number seven under a capital, because I'm gonna just leave the five million sitting in our general fund.

That way members can decide how to best appropriate it when it's when it's when it's time.

Aside from the one million that you're proposing, sorry.

To URB.

Okay.

So we will skip over that and move to city council capital amendments.

Capital amendment number one.

So these are all on one single page, is the last page in your package, just so you all know.

Um but number one is to add 10 million dollars in pay-go funding to the 2026 capital equipment acquisition project for the line vehicle acquisition.

This is sponsored by Councilperson Warwick, and uh you remember it corresponds to council's operating amendment number one.

Thank you.

Is there a motion?

Second discussion.

Councilmember Warwick.

So again, just to reiterate, um I recognize that it is not a best practice to um you know to use the outer year pay-go- Can I clarify real quickly?

So the way that it that we wrote this amendment, it would be contingent on a increase in revenue.

I can write it a different way that would make the budget balance and meet all legal requirements, but as you said, uh it would not be a good budget practice that I would advise you to follow.

But I could do it.

Right.

So I do just want to say I feel like we we owe it to our director.

I mean, we have been told over I mean, since I've been here, right, over and over and over again that we need to fund the fleet.

We just saw this snow event.

Um and tax increase, no tax increase.

We need to fund this fleet.

And I think we need to make a commitment to do that.

Um it's currently has 10 million of funding, right?

In the current budget, this would add an additional 10 million, which is the 20 million a year that we have been told we need to start start doing to get out of the hole, right?

I can't, I mean the controller's report had a much bigger number.

I can't even what was it two hundred or what was it?

It it's a very large number.

Twenty million is just like to keep pace, and we're very far behind.

So, I mean, so if we were to sort of be right, it I mean it was a number that we could not do, right?

But this the 20 million is sort of what we have been told time and time again, we need to start doing just to kind of keep treading water here with our fleet.

So that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Gross.

Thank you.

Um Director McDowell, I think you just said something differently than you said at the top of the meeting.

I think you said that you wrote it in such a way that it is only triggered if there is a millet increase.

So the way that it was written is it it just this one's just straight up adds the operating amendment number one, just straight up adds pay-go funding um to the capital budget.

Uh but if there is no millet increase, it's kind of goes back to what you were saying.

That money doesn't exist, so you can't do it that way.

You would have to do it a different way if we but it isn't that is not being put forward.

The other way is not being put forward.

The other way has not been put forward.

So what I'm hearing is that if even if we vote yes on this appropriation, it really is only real if there's a millage increase.

Correct.

And so if there's no millage increase, this doesn't happen.

Correct.

Well, that makes it an easier decision for everyone, I would think, right?

So it's literally just contingent on that.

So if there's no millage increase, then there's no transfer to pay go.

Or the pay go doesn't get transferred.

This capital budget item doesn't exist.

Correct.

Because then we will see that language in the packet on Sunday.

Correct.

We can't see we are only seeing numbers right now.

We're not seeing the language.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Interesting, right?

And so if there is revenue, then this would happen.

If there's not revenue, then this doesn't happen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further first round?

Second round, Councilwoman Warwick.

I do want to clarify though, millage increase or no millage increase.

Best practice or no.

I will move to question to put $10 million into fleet, whether we have, you know, by taking it out of the paygo in the outer years.

That is how urgent this is, I think.

And I think that all our directors think that in public safety and DPW as well.

So heads up, everyone.

Okay.

Thanks.

Councilperson Charlin.

Yeah.

So I I'm kind of confused how you have this set to trigger if there's a revenue increase.

One of the things I, you know, is if there's a partial revenue increase of numbers that are being projected, does it fund this partially or how does that work?

I guess it would depend on what that number is.

Like the that's this has been I mean, one of the reasons why you didn't get these until an hour before this meeting is like we've been going through a very difficult exercise that we've never had to do before.

So as uh former chief staff Kevin Aklin used to say a concerning amount of times we're we're f building the plane while we fly it.

Um the there's lots of dis different scenarios that we could end up at.

Um this was the one that I was asked to put forward.

I could come up with different scenarios if I was asked to.

Um I look forward to that over the next 72 hours.

Uh so yeah, I just want to make sure that it that I have an idea what what it's doing, you know, kind of in all scenarios.

Yeah, we should definitely talk about that.

Okay, not at this table, please.

Okay.

I think that makes me even more concerned.

No, I mean individually, like we were saying, like I'm having to meet with everybody individually to answer all of your questions because this is it this can spiral out of control.

There's lots of different scenarios.

But when you make a comment that you'd rather do it not at this table is public dollars, it concerns me, and I'm sure it concerns the public.

Very, very sorry, I mean that.

Thank you.

I I know I know you and I know what you meant, but I'm just saying other people may not.

So I want to clarify.

I do want to just say for the record, we've had a very vibrant conversation today, and I think uh it's the to the benefit of those who are watching and the residents that um many of us were seeing many of these.

I mean, uh certainly I saw this the same time that everyone else did, the full list of amendments, so that we could have the discussion very transparently and open, and um there weren't these conversations happening behind the scenes to you know um uh to hash it out.

We're hashing it out as we see it publicly.

So that's what's been happening.

Okay.

Um so we still have we have councilperson Charlotte's question answered.

Any further discussion on amendment no number one?

Um in favor of city council capital amendment number one, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye, aye.

Abstain.

So we have four ayes and four abstentions.

Don't know.

So it's affirmative recommendation.

Amendment number two.

Number two is to add two hundred and twenty thousand dollars uh of a bond deliverable to slope failure remediation for the Baldol Street landslide remediation by reducing urgent flood control remediation in the flood control project line.

Motion to approve.

Second discussion.

Uh just briefly, if I can uh tell my research, so this is a um part of well, I guess an extension of the a Porter Street landslide that I have in my district in the South Side Slopes.

Um we have uh I don't know, eight, probably more than that.

Uh I don't remember the exact number of houses, but maybe maybe 12 homes that uh we run the risk of uh losing them if we don't do this urgent work here.

This is for um uh the first step of that, but if if we don't move on this, um we will not be able to save those homes.

Uh and we are uh we were asked from Domi that urgent flood control remediation was kind of the easiest place uh to take this from.

So I asked for for all of your support on this, and there'll be an another one uh soon here for that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Gross.

Thank you.

Landslides are very scary.

The slope failures are really scary.

Um I think most of us have had um I've had residents at other homes for several years before things got um reconciled.

Um but flood control is also really scary.

Um so I don't know how to get the I mean I'm I guess I'm not bringing someone to the table right now, but can I get the information if this was new funds allocated?

Um you know, I'm I have uh I have a valley that killed four people in 2011.

So I I I really want to hear Del Me's Rationelle.

Like, do they have enough money in hands?

They don't need this new money.

So I would appreciate.

I don't know if I need to do that, Pete.

Can you help us do that?

In in the uh budget, it shows that there is four million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in prior year funds uh that has been un an unexpended and unencumbered.

So it's not about to expire or anything like that.

And then I do notice that the next few seem to come from.

I I'm reading the spreadsheet version in case members notice.

And they all say bond.

And so it but it's the whole 1.1 million but there's other line items.

So uh if this is the bond that we take out next year, then we would be taking it out for this new line item, right?

It's not from a previous bond.

So because we can't deviate from what the line items above what 10% of the bonds or something like that.

It's called ban.

That's something.

Um so but this would just change what the bond is requested for.

And so these new requests are all also like totally fine to be bought.

They don't need to be paid, none of them need to be pay-go or anything like that.

Because I see, so this is this I know we're only talking right now about the landslide remediation.

Um I'm definitely supportive.

But I see that the next commercial, I'm sorry, it's getting late in the hour.

It's hard to talk.

The same source is funding other kinds of like parks projects in the next couple of items.

Um that's all.

Yes, I just got another, I got paying to um Domi requested $500,000 for flood control remediation, and they were given $1.1 million.

Oh, no.

Well, there you go.

So but if we get rid of it, see did you reallocate all 1.1 or only reallocating the six?

Um yeah, just just uh yeah, it's a little bit more than six total, but 21250.

220, 250 goes 470, because yeah.

Okay.

It's not too bad.

All right.

That that was very helpful.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All in favor of Capitol Amendment number two, please indicate by saying aye.

I affirmative recommendation.

Amendment three.

One abstention.

Just abstain for all of them for sure.

Sure.

So noted.

Thank you.

Number three is to add a $250,000 bond deliverable for facility improvements, uh, sports facilities for JAC stack pool concessions building roof by reducing urgent flood control remediation and flood control projects.

Motion to approve discussion.

Second.

Second discussion.

Councilman Wilson.

Yeah, I want to thank uh my staff and the director McDevitt here for um buying some funds to fix the uh roof on the JAC stack.

Uh it's like a combo building, so it's a it's the pole building, so the the locker rooms for Jackstack pole.

And then also below um below there's the baseball field, so there's the garage, which has all the utilities in there that are just they look pretty bad.

There's a beam that's rusted out, so it might have to deal with that in the future.

Uh but uh there's also some bathrooms, so very well needed.

Um we actually actually tore the building when it was raining, and there were just gallons of water coming through the roof.

So very much needed.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Further discussion.

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment three, please indicate by saying aye.

I affirmative recommendation.

Amend amendment number four.

Number four is to add 150,000 uh for a bond deliverable to step repair and replacement for let it go street repairs by reducing urgent flood control remediation in the flood control projects.

Uh motion approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment number four, please indicate by saying aye.

Uh aye.

Affirmative recommendation, amendment number five.

Number five is to increase the neighborhood business district support under the small business development project by one million dollars in paygo.

And this uh is coincides with council person president Lavell's uh one million dollar increase.

Most of the move.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all those in favor of amendment five, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Amendment six.

Number six, uh it move it adds uh 110,000 in bond to a bus shelter transit stop improvement deliverable under ramp and public sidewalks by decreasing asphalt replacement under street resurfacing.

Motion to approve.

Second discussion.

Councilmember Warbeck.

Yeah, so this is just you know, a small amount of money.

Our bus stops in Pittsburgh are you know, pretty abysmal.

So these so I as folks may know, we we we do bus stops, right?

Domi does bus stops, PRT does buses.

Um and uh they're and shelters are put at our most highly used, right?

We don't put shelters everywhere, but we we do put them at our most highly used uh bus stops, and um the the list is long uh for for frequently used stops that have no shelter, right?

And so in the rain and snow, et cetera.

So that's what that's what this is.

It's not I mean we could do far, far more than this, but it's just a small amount to get us, you know, do a little bit every year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Further discussion?

Councilman Cockhill.

Yeah, just um I guess my my question is is this for shelters?

Okay.

Um do we know how many that would I want to say five, but I'll have to get back to you.

Okay, no locations.

The there is a list of of sort of locations that have already been identified throughout the city.

Um I don't have that, but I'm can I'm happy to I don't know where these would go.

I don't think that a decision is made because the money is.

They're in demand, yeah.

We've had this conversation before.

I agree.

I'd I'd like to see a shelter at every stop, to be honest with you.

However, I guess it's uh not quite in the budget.

I I I'll abstain today until I find out if the exact locations are and um hoping that there's one in one particular spot in my district, that's all.

Thanks.

Thank you.

All in favor of amendment six, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Abstain.

Two abstentions, affirmative recommendation.

And as noted by Council President Lavell, he wish to strike wishes to strike amendment seven.

So we have exhausted our line item budget votes.

Uh as we know, we don't have official meeting announcements, but as we know, there will be a public hearing this Saturday at 11 a.m.

followed by two special budgetary public um uh council hearings at 11 a.m.

11 a.m.

and 2 p.m.

on Sunday.

And with that, unless there are any further questions.

I just want to thank you for the for cheering.

You did such a good job cheering during a very difficult time.

So thank you very much for the work you've done.

Thank you very much.

I want to thank um.

We're not done.

We're not we're not done yet.

I know we're not done, but I want to say we're not done, but I wanted to thank you in a channel.

Council pres I think why don't I thank Council President Laval, who's been um I would do all that later.

And and um and Pete McDevitt and Kirsten Womsley as well.

So can I just say I would thank them all later, but I really just wanted to acknowledge you today.

Appreciate it for the work.

Council President Lebanon.

Thank you.

Um Members should expect to see a memo, not not necessarily today, but definitely by the end of business tomorrow, sort of talking us all through on how Sunday is going to have to play itself out as we really begin to sort of look at this.

One thing we quickly came to realize is we can't pass a budget if we haven't voted up or down the millage increase.

So we have to take that one first, right?

And then under and within our standing committee meeting.

Um and then we'll probably have to recess that meeting to approve it at our regular meeting at two, and then we'll probably have to recess that one to come back to standing committees to then address uh adjust excuse me our budget one way or the other, right?

So half of this may have to get taken out if a millage increase is not approved, some of this can stay in, and then we have to approve all our other budget bills.

So Sunday we'll probably just do everything from right here because it'll make it easier once we get to the two o'clock meeting, um, because we'll have to come in and out of meetings a number of different times.

But I'll write it all out for you so that everyone's clear about how this is going to play itself out one way or the other.

Look for a memo.

Look for a memo.

Anything further?

I'll take a motion to recess this meeting.

Motion to recess second.

All in favor?

Aye.

We're in recession, but we're going to be able to do that.