On December 20, 2025, Pittsburgh City Council convened a public hearing to deliberate on the 2026 fiscal year budget amendments, specifically focusing on three bills (2451, 2452, 2461) regarding procurement, contract letting, and tax interest rates, alongside a proposed 30% property millage increase to address a projected budget shortfall. Budget Director Pete McDevitt presented a five-year forecast, noting that without intervention, the city faces critical deficits, though he cautioned that a 20% increase is also a viable option to balance the budget without immediate deep cuts. The hearing featured extensive public testimony regarding the necessity of the funds for essential services like the Food Justice Fund and Stop the Violence Initiative, while simultaneously debating the fairness of the tax proposal against the backdrop of under-assessed properties and non-paying major nonprofits.
Good morning and welcome to Pittsburgh City Council's public hearing on Saturday, December 20th, 2025, relative to the 2026 tax and budget amendments legislation. Would the clerk please read the title of the bills? Bill 2451. Resolution authorizing the City of Pittsburgh to participate in applicable cooperative purchasing agreements for goods, materials, equipment, supplies, services, or construction as authorized by the Commonwealth Procurement Code, and the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Law for the 2026 fiscal year. Bill 2452, resolution providing for the letting of contracts and for the use of existing contracts for the purchase of materials, supplies, and equipment for city departments, and the maintenance, repair, rental, and or leasing rehabilitation, renovation, inspection, or servicing of city buildings and facilities, and for any miscellaneous services in and for any city departments and providing for the payment of the cost thereof for the 2026 fiscal year. Bill 2453.03. Bill 2461 Ordnance Amending the Pittsburgh Code Title II Fiscal Article 7, Business Related Taxes, Chapter 245, Earned Income Tax, Section 245.03, Declaration and Payment of Tax at Subsection D so as to fix the rate of interest on delinquent earned income tax for the year two thousand and twenty-six. So as to fix the rate of interest on delinquent home rule tax for the year two thousand and twenty-six. For the record, we're joined by Councilman Strasberger, Councilman Warwick, and Councilman Wilson is with us online. And then we'll take testimony from Register Speakers. Thank you, Council President. Let me just pull this up. Okay, this is um the same presentation that we gave council members a couple weeks ago to go over uh the the just a quick overview of the budget. So quick agenda is to go over the five-year forecast and what uh the council budget office thinks is a realistic version of the five-year forecast with actual numbers that we pay out every year, and then to look at potential uh operating cuts to the budget and potential millage increase scenarios. So this is the five-year forecast that was sent over in the mayor's operating budget, and you can see the operating results are positive in each of the years, and we stay within the threshold of the ten percent minimum fund balance as a percentage of expenditures. Um our office has kind of brought up a lot over the past six weeks or so, it would save us just under three million dollars. Then we looked at a few throughout the city. A little bit more impactful here. We looked at the five year forecast our way out of. If we utility our way out of this, we had various options for millage increases. So this shows options for a 30% increase or a 20% increase for 15 or 10. Um the average residential property taxable value in the city of Pittsburgh is around 100,000. So a 30% increase would increase uh the total bill by 246 dollars per year, or about $4.75 a week. That it's also important to point that this does not take into account possible reductions to the assessed values of those properties for things like the homestead exemption or senior tax relief reductions. So if you are a senior that uh qualifies for this and you own and live in your house and it's taxed at 100,000, that would actually drop the value, the taxable value down to 45,000 a year. Uh so it would be somewhere closer to 140 increase um at a 30% millage increase. So this is what the five-year forecast would look like with a 20% millage increase, but also not applying any of those cuts. You can see that we are able to pay all of those bills that we highlighted as the most urgent and important to address first. Uh you will have a positive operating result, and you will hit your fund balance uh percentage as uh as a percentage of expenditures in each of the years. This doesn't take into account potential increases for um increased transfers to pay-go to pay for fleet and demos, which we sorely need. Uh it still has the outer year increases to salaries for non-union employees at one or two percent in each of the years. Uh and it still doesn't address things like um maintenance for vehicles, but a 20% increase, and we just showed this as an example. This isn't a recommendation, we just wanted to put stuff out in front of you so you could take it in and digest it. Um this would be able to get you to uh a balanced budget. That was it. Thank you very much. Councilman Schlossberger. May this is it possible for this? We realized that this is these were really small numbers for this to be included as an attachment to the uh this budget hearing, this public hearing, as well as any relevant legislation. Thank you very much. Thank you. That director reflect we've also been joined by Councilman Sharlin. We're now going to move on to testimony from our public speakers. Once your name is called, please provide your restate your name, provide your neighborhood for the record. You'll be given three minutes to speak. After we have exhausted our list of registered speakers, we'll take comment from anyone else in chambers, and you will also be given one minute to speak. Our first registered speaker is Daniel McCarthy. Uh my name is Dan McCarthy. I live in Shady Side, and I'm an organizer at Just Harvest. Just Harvest works to address hunger in Allegheny County at the route through economic injustice and through a focus on public policy, food access, and community power.