Good afternoon and welcome to Pittsburgh City Council's cable cast post agenda on the annual comprehensive financial report or ACFER and the 2026 first quarterly financial and performance report for June 24th, 2026.

And we should have more council members with us shortly.

But I would like to allow our the first panel from our city controller's office to introduce themselves and to open with some opening remarks if you like.

Thank you, Councilperson Strasberger.

I just want to first acknowledge my colleagues who join me at the table today.

Um Deputy Controller Pete McDevitt, who is at the table for the first time from the controller's office rather than council budget.

Um Jamie Zala, the chief accounting officer for the city of Pittsburgh, and Namita uh Dwarkinath from our controller's office solicitor.

Um the way we thought we'd do this today is to go through our slide deck and then um have a conversation and dialogue.

So uh the controller's office, as folks know, has four primary functions: internal auditing, which helps the support the city towards uh with targeted evaluation and guidance, accounts payable, we pay the city's bills, inspection and engineering, which confirms the work was done, and our accounting division, which manages our books and produces the annual report financial report of record, the annual comprehensive financial report, which we'll be talking about today.

Each year, our office puts out the ACFAR city code requires us to create a general purpose financial statement by May 1, and our office goes beyond that and creates a document that meets the standards of the government financial officers association, including component units, additional statements, footnotes, and statistical tables.

So, what's different between the ACFAR and the budget?

The budget is a plan, the ACFA shows the results.

These are the two main financial documents that the city produces each year.

The budget is the chief policy document of the city, and it outlines what the city plans to accomplish through which policies and programs it funds.

The ACFR shows the audited results in line with government accounting standards board of how well the city is spending following its spending plan, excuse me.

For your awareness and the public's, um, the ACFAR differs from OMB, the reports that OMB distributes because those reports reflect a cash basis, which is the amount of money and when money is moved from and to and from accounts.

It tells us what everything we did within a year costs us.

This lets us know the true cost of government in a fiscal year.

An accrual basis is also called GAP, which stands for generally accepted accounting principles.

Think about our 2025 water bill.

The bills were received in 2025 but paid in 2026.

But the ACFR shows it in 2025 because it was the year we used the water.

Now we'll just have a conversation about the big picture with the general fund in 2025.

We brought in 687 million dollars in 2025, and we had 732 million dollars leave the general fund.

This is a net loss of 44.6 million dollars.

To compare, we had a 7.1 million dollar gain in 2024.

Highest percentage of our money comes from.

This will continue to be our most stable source of revenue as it's the least susceptible to an economic downturn.

However, it is still vulnerable to a lowering common level ratio.

Interest earnings, which are reflected under miscellaneous, make up a smaller proportion in 2025 due to the loss of ARPA funds in interest-bearing accounts.

In terms of revenue, the city did quite well with revenue generally last year and outperformed budget on most major taxes.

Despite outperforming budget, real estate earnings were still down compared to 2024.

And as I mentioned, our interest earnings also went down as a result of no longer having ARPA.

Where money goes, in 2025, we spent more on streets and sanitation than we did in 2024.

We increased our contributions to culture and rec as well as economic development.

We spent slightly less on general government costs, including the bureaucratic functions that keep things running every day.

In general, city expenditures were up a relatively modest amount, less than 2%.

Salary increases, as noted on the deck, include overtime, which our office has continued to caution about.

Salaries and overtime are not interchangeable, and having less staff who work more, particularly within public safety, leads to worse outcomes for both employee retention and quality service provision.

Property services, including utilities like the water bill are also notably increased.

And as a reminder, 2025 was the first time we paid a full water bill.

Our office has been quite vocal as well about the fleet, which is why we highlighted it and included it in this year's presentation.

We spent, excuse me, we spent an average of more than a million dollars a month to maintain our fleet in 2025, with unanticipated costs reaching more than half of planned maintenance costs.

A newer, safer fleet avoids high cost repairs and allows for better strategic planning.

We did see a large influx of new vehicles in 2025, especially for police, resolving a multi-year backlog.

Fire continues to lack adequate vehicles, and costs and lead times continue to go up due to the monopolization of the fire apparatus industry.

Capital project spending.

In 2025, we funded just over 115 million in capital projects, and we spent almost 123 million, with over half going towards mobility and infrastructure projects.

We're able to spend more than what was funded in the capital program because, unlike money in the operating budget, capital funds will continue to roll forward until they're spent.

So this shows us catching up a bit on old projects.

Sorry, the American Rescue Plan Act.

So the city has benefited from the American Rescue Plan Act, federal COVID relief for the last several years.

All ARPA funds needed to be obligated by the end of 2024.

So 2025 was the last year without ARPA dollars.

Excuse me.

2025 was the first year without ARPA dollars transferred into the general fund or sitting in interest bearing accounts.

We spent 20.1 million dollars on ARPA related projects this year and have 12.3 million remaining to spend by the end of 2026.

The loss of ARPA revenue reflects the biggest impact on the general funds net operating deficit in 2025.

In 2024, we transferred 46.5 million dollars to the general fund.

In 2025, we transferred zero to the general fund from the American Rescue Plan Trust Fund.

In 2025, our net loss was 44.7 million dollars.

When we look at our typical revenue and expenses, the variances are relatively small.

The reason we are seeing a 44 million dollar net loss is because we no longer have the American Rescue Plan dollars to rely upon.

We have cautioned repeatedly that ARPA dollars mass the city's spending problems and the mask is off.

ARPA accounts for almost exactly called the Rainy Day Fund.

Now we'll just touch on how 2025 impacted some of our major balances.1 million dollars, approximately a 22.7% of all 2025 expenditures.

In 2024, the fund balance was 199.9 million, and the 2025 figures represent a decrease of 33.8 million.

Budget projections have this figure decreasing to 73 million by the end of 2030, representing the fund balance at 10% of expenditures.

GFOA typically advises a fund balance of approximately 17% or two months of spending to cover any unanticipated expenditures.

Our statutory minimum is at 10%.

Our gross bonded debt made a significant we made a significant bond payment of $66 million last year, but we acquired a new bond for $61.

Gross bonded debt shows an $8 million increase from last year to a total of $512 million.

We are budgeted to spend more than $78 million in debt service in 2026 before payments drop to $48 million in 2027.

The city's pension continues to be an extreme bright spot with an increase of $162.2 million invested from 2024 to 2025.

That brings the combined pension funds to a total of $931 million.

And I want to highlight the bright spot that this is in 2003 when the city was on the verge of Act 47.

The fund was about 35% funded.

It's 78% funded at our last meeting, is a significant, significant accomplishment for the city in the previous administrations.

As you all know, the controller's office is not a budgeting entity, but our hope is that the ACFER can inform council and OMB in their budget creation process each year.

A thing to remember and something we continue to talk about during the budgeting process is our is that our, excuse me, are our concerns with the so-called below the bind below the line transfers.

The American Rescue Plan dollars have inflated revenues, transfers out have complicated the true cost of the expense of government.

The city uses transfers out currently to encompass both true expenditures and transfers to other city accounts.

Below the line money out included after the general fund expenditures on our budget help revenues and expenditures look like they net to zero, however, they continue to deplete the fund balance.

The controller's office has had a nice partner with OMB in trying to address this problem, and we look forward to continuing those conversations.

When we talk about the fund balance at council, we often use it as shorthand for the unassigned fund balance or our rainy day fund.

We focus on the unassigned fund balance because it helps us understand whether we have enough money to deal with the short-term crisis.

The unassigned fund balance is also a figure used to determine whether we are in compliance with the standard of the fund balance as a minimum of 10% of expenditures.

The unassigned fund balance is just one small piece of the total fund balance, which reflects all money that the city carries.

At the end of 2025, that figure was at 451 million dollars.

There are four kinds of fund balance which we'll describe.

The first is sorry.

The first kind of fund balance is the restricted fund balance.

Those are funds that we have zero control over.

They must be spent in a certain way based on a state on state or federal law, and we can never free them up for another purpose.

The second is the committed fund balance.

These are funds that city code dictates for what they're used.

The biggest item in this category is special revenue funds like the parks tax.

It would take a legislative act by council to change how these are spent.

The third kind of fund balance, and where we have the most money, is the assigned fund balance.

This is money that we have agreed to use for a specific purpose, but that purpose can be changed without altering city code.

These are our capital projects and encumbered contracts for goods and services.

And then, of course, the unassigned fund balance reflects anything left over.

Prior year roll forward represents unspent money that was tied to a specific budget year.

For example, if the controller's office had a contract to buy new check printers in 2025, but we were not able to purchase them, those funds would roll forward to buy printers in 2026.

But when this happens year over year, we end up with a mismatch.

We have prior year expenditures added to current year expenditures, but we only have current year revenues in the budget.

We're happy to talk further about budgeting suggestions, including separate out fund balances.

PPS does this quite well.

Reflect transfers to non-city funds as expenditures, the $12.5 million we sent to the URA.

Reflect transfers to city funds as committed a committed fund balance and reflect prior year roll forward as an assigned fund balance.

As you all know, nope.

No, that's it, yeah.

Okay, sorry.

Um, folks are not probably surprised.

Uh we've been warning about this for several years.

A problem we can see is a problem we can fix.

Last year's millage increase represents an important short-term solution.

Um at the county level, regular assessments can help stabilize real estate revenues for the good.

And on the state level, it's important to begin discussions about potential opportunities to increase our revenue streams similar to the opportunities Philadelphia has as a first-class city.

And with that, I'm happy to open up the floor for questions and just want to thank my colleagues for the work that goes into this report.

Thank you.

Thank you, and thanks to your colleagues as well for putting this report together.

Um, I also want to give you kudos for uh I understand that there was a little bit more that was um meted out throughout the year prior to the AC force, so that the last month and few weeks leading up to the final deadline was maybe more manageable than um prior year.

So wonderful job also just kind of making the uh the information and data that's necessary to compile, you know, more manageable throughout the year.

Uh I want to note that we have been joined by council colleagues, uh Councilwoman Kim Sala Netro, Councilperson Bob Charlin, Council President Daniel Lavelle, Councilwoman Deb Gross.

And um, just as a reminder, there is a and councilwoman Warwick online.

Um, we uh it's been my intention as city council finance chair to hold regular um post agendas after each quarterly report.

This one will be you know coming after the ACFAR report, the the uh suggested and regular annual ACFER report um post-agenda session.

Um, because I think that we will probably have some questions that are both germane or germane for both the controller's office and controller and for the uh our OMB and finance departments, and some questions might be asked twice, and we can hear uh the same or differing answers depending on the vantage point.

So, with that, I will be happy to open up to my colleagues for questions, and I'll start with Councilwoman Salah Netro.

I want to thank you for all your hard work on this.

You guys do a great job.

I really only had just one quick question just for my own personal clarification.

Um, the 12.3 million dollars remaining in the ARPA funds that has to be spent by 2026, the end of this year.

Correct.

Okay.

That's really all I had.

Just thank you for your hard work.

I know it takes a lot to put all this together.

Thank you.

Thanks goes to my colleagues who work on this month for half of their year.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Uh, with that, we'll move to Councilperson Charlotte.

Yes, uh, thank you for for being here, and I know uh, especially Jamie, how much work you put into this.

Um, and I also know that this was an easier year for you because of the work you did beforehand, and um so appreciate all of that and and how this uh comes to be.

I wanted to follow up, I kind of blanked on the last thing you said.

You was one of your uh suggestions.

You said something about what Philadelphia does, and I just didn't catch what you said.

Oh, uh begin discussions about potential revenue opportunities to increase streams um like Philadelphia does as a city of the first class.

Okay, so looking at at what else we could find revenue streams from.

Correct.

Do you do you have any?

I mean, I know you're not a you will tell me you're not a budgeting body and a taxing body, but any suggestions on things that you you think would be helpful?

I mean, one would be increasing the local services tax.

It's fifty-two dollars a year or fifty-two dollars a year, a dollar a week right now.

Um that would be a on a relative scale, um, something that we could do pretty easily, but we need approval from the state legislature.

Um I don't know if Numida, Jamie, or Pete.

Yeah, the the a lot of the key is working with the state because we're hamstrung on what we can do.

We we have like real estate taxes and parking tax, and there's not much else that we can fiddle with, so uh it's really lobbying the state to open up what cities of the second class, which is exclusively Pittsburgh is able to tax and how much they're able to tax.

Yeah, I think that's one of the problems we ran into last year is like there's just there's not a lot of moves that are available to us, and and just the unfortunate makeup of the state.

You know, the the local service tax is such an easy thing to increase, and if you doubled it, you know, from fifty-two to a hundred and four, no one is leaving the region because of that, no one's moving away.

But unfortunately, there will always be more state representation outside of the city than in the city, which leads us to the problem that that we run into here.

But short of like, you know, doing what other cities have done and just putting like a toll gate in to find ways to capture revenue from suburbanites, we're we're really hamstrung with our options there.

Yeah.

Um and so, you know, I I would love to be able to work on that, but I unfortunately it seems feels like $52 is gonna be set instead.

And the fact that $52 is not adjusted for inflation, it was $52 I did it, and it's 23 years, yeah.

You know, it's still $52 is crazy.

Um I would love to change that.

That's a blue sky dream.

I'm not sure how realistic it is, but it would be great.

Um I also wanted to mention, so I came in a couple minutes late and I was trying to watch on YouTube and screwed that up.

You I caught you talking about the de-transfer tax.

Um, so the deed in 2025, the deed transfer tax buffed national trends um and finished above budget.

And uh, you know, when you look at national trends across the country, real estate sales slowed pretty considerably, and we you know, we didn't suffer the same demise from that revenue stream.

Um as you know, it's five percent.

I don't let me see it from the actual number.

Let's see.

Um we finished more than 10 million dollars above budget in 2025 with the deed transfer tax, which is it also indicates that people are moving here and moving into the city, which is real a really it is a bright spot when you think about our 2025 um the outcome of our 2025 fiscal year.

So my understanding is when you know Hoff was being discussed in the housing opportunity fund, which was never actually linked together, but was kind of built with the idea that this funds this, um, that the deed transfer tax was always going to in order for the the for Hoff to work or the housing opportunity fund to work, we were gonna have to have like one major sale every year, like one skyscraper move hand.

Something like that has to has to also happen.

It can't just be balanced on the back of individual two hundred thousand dollar property sales.

Residential.

Uh, do does your office keep track of how this money comes in, or do you just no, and I actually I don't believe we have those files don't sit in our office, they would sit with real estate.

Yeah.

Um but yeah, I mean that is a big concern is that if you're only putting this on the back of property owner residential property owners, um it is an expensive tax.

And we've cautioned for years, including my predecessor controller Lamb, that the cost of city government falls very heavily on the shoulders of the people who live here, and the deed transfer tax is another tax on you know on residential properties and therefore the people who live here.

Yeah, I I can speak for a lot of people in my position and definitely me personally, the detransfer tax is a huge impediment to first-time home buyership.

I totally agree.

And you know, we would love to be able to find a way there there is uh a program through the URA, but you know, you have to be under a certain income threshold that a lot of people aren't in order to be able to take advantage of that and be able to expand um first time.

I I it is a dream of mine, and I know that we're not in a position right now to be able to do that, but I would love to be able to expand the down payment assistance that comes out of the de-transfer tax to help offset that is you know, I can tell you that I have multiple times looked at what it would look like to buy this house, and I'm good, good, good, and the detransfer tax comes in, and I'm like, I'm not there yet.

So um, I think it's it's really important.

Yeah, and I we need to do more in Pittsburgh to make home ownership accessible to more people.

Um, you know, when you think about the how to address some of these long-term problems that are in this report, it happens through growth.

Um, obviously it needs to be equitable growth, it needs to be um fair and shared across the entire city, but we need to make sure we're growing and we grow through providing opportunities and figuring out how to make homeownership accessible, you know, whether that's someone who has rented for 35 years in the South Side Slopes, or um, you know, who is a recent college graduate and what has decided that they want to stay in Pittsburgh, and you know, how do we help them uh purchase a first home in in Greenfield, you know?

So I I totally agree with you.

It's one of those things that makes us less competitive around you know our neighboring municipalities that you can go to Dormont and not have to pay five percent on either side.

You can I don't know if what theirs is, but I assume it's three.

Um we don't, you know, that that's a big difference in some of the absolutely is makes it harder to live in the city of Pittsburgh, and that that is therefore more earned income taxes and all the parking taxes and all the other things that we would collect.

Um, so I I would love to see us be able to reform that.

I know that right now is not the time, but yeah, um cool.

I think I will pass it off to other members and I'm sure I'll have some other things here, but thank you, Councilperson.

And um next, I believe we have council president Lavelle for any questions he might have.

Thank you.

Um I'll still walk in late, so it's okay.

So I apologize.

Um, I don't really have any questions at the moment.

We haven't discussed.

Oh, I'd apologize.

Um we have not discussed 2026 yet.

We're starting with uh 2025 ACFAR and then second panel will be finance and OMB to go through the first quarter 2026.

Okay, thank you.

Um, so no questions, but I will note for my colleagues, um, because the local service tax uh her come up.

So there is a bill at the state right now, bill 2488, that is proposed to increase the local sales tax from 52 to 156 dollars.

Now, my understanding is they've gotten pushback so far um because they're saying 156 is simply too high, um, that in the age where everyone's talking about affordability, etc.

etc.

That seems untenable.

But um I meant to if colleagues are open to do a will of counsel to send to Harrisburg the saying that we were support we would certainly be supportive of that, and I will certainly work on that for next week.

Thank you.

Thanks, Council President.

Thank you.

Uh Councilwoman Gross.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I was also um as the public is probably noticing, we had a very long council meeting that ended and we had to all try to scramble back to harvestes before we got back out here, but I was trying to watch on the monitor as well.

Um so just some basic uh clarification on your very helpful charts.

I noticed that like um just you probably said it verbally, but again, I was doing two things at once when I was back in my office.

So when we get to just where our money comes from on page three, um I noticed that your bar chart and the presentation is kind of all in percentages.

Just again, just remind us kind of what the numbers are.

I think I've got it on page.

Well, I don't know.

The actual annual comprehensive financial reports in front of me.

I can't really figure out what page it's on.

There's a statement in that position that I'm looking at to but maybe that's the wrong one.

So there's multiple statements within the ACFAR, and they all tell a different story.

Well, I'm just kind of so um the top of the chart, the top chart on your slideshow of page three, just says where the money is coming from.

So that people understand our kind of basic revenue streams.

Your presentation has it by percentage, but it doesn't really say like, well, how much is property tax and how much is earned income?

And so maybe you said that out loud already, but if you could just say it for us again.

So in the ACFER it's uh page three.

Uh these have a couple extra things, but don't go too far off of the real estate taxes for our long-term, uh, was a hundred and fifty million earned income was a hundred and forty-five million.

And since we are just talking about deed transfer, it's very tiny.

Yes, I can relate to that.

Is 53 million.

We should have those things that like trout fly fishermen have when they have like a big magnifying glass for tying their tiny things.

Um, so yeah, so I was struck that the bar chart, and I don't know that you called attention to it, that the bar chart and the amounts for earned income taxes are nearly as high as property taxes.

Yes, revenue.

So when you're thinking about like the buy chart of city revenue, that they're equal, like that is a new thing.

I mean, I feel like 20 years ago it was like a one to four ratio, maybe one to five.

It was like 20%, you know, earned income was much, much lower.

And I'm not sure if I'm if anyone at the table kind of has a memory of that that long, but it's so, and it's not because we raised the collection.

It's just the incomes have increased that much, and property taxes haven't had the increase that we think will be there with a reassessment.

Thoughts?

Yeah, it looks like it's a lack of a reassessment over the past decade.

Um has definitely meant that those real estate taxes are going down with the common level ratio applied to it every year.

And exactly like you said, people have earned more money year over year over year, so that we've collected the same percentage, but their the money that they're making has gone up, so you you're exactly right.

It hasn't been this close a ratio ever.

So, and just as a reminder again, if anyone's just kind of dropping into the conversation, that's not because we wanted it this way, right?

We we didn't want it this way, right?

The county is in control of what your sit your house is assessed at or downtown buildings assessed at what any of the buildings in the city are assessed at.

So we we cannot control that.

And then similarly, the courts decided to unilaterally lower the percent at which you're actually charged relative to whatever out of date more than 12-year-old assessment is on the building.

So those have interacted, and I'm not sure.

We've said it before at this table, but if you wanted to elaborate anymore, I don't know if you can if you know what that drop-off has been with the common level ratio.

I don't know the number off the top of my head, but I will note that Philadelphia mandates countywide, therefore citywide reassessments, and because all 49 other states require regular reassessments, we are the largest county and therefore the largest city that doesn't mandate um regular reassessments in the United States.

Right.

And it's not again, it's not because city Pittsburgh City Council is just chosen not to do that mandate.

We actually don't legally have that power because for us, Philadelphia is both its city and its county, and it has both powers.

This table in this room does not have that power.

Correct.

So it just again is a reminder.

I believe the common level ratio this year is 50.6.

So just about half of fair market value is all that we can collect as being assessed on.

Half of what the assessment is.

Half of what the fair market value is.

Half of what the fair market value is.

Elaborate that.

Sure.

So the common level ratio dictates what percentage of the fair market value is assessed.

So the assessment falls underneath the fair market value ratio to or the far fair market value to that amount.

If you have a house worth $100,000, the common level ratio says that that house could only be assist assessed and taxed at 50,600.

Alright, so let's yeah, let's use our vocabulary correctly.

But who establishes the fair market value?

That's a great question.

Fair market value tends to be assessed by the sale price, most of all.

So I don't believe that's true.

Well, that's when reassessments happened because there's an assessment that happens when you have your fair market value.

It's done by comps as well.

We're not doing a great job of assessing either fair market value or assessment across the city.

So when people are debating what their assessment should be, they're contesting both their fair market value and they're using the common level ratio to do it.

Are you talking about the cases where someone's actually in front of the county board of appeals?

Yes, in front of B party.

So only it's not of the 147,000 parcels that exist in the city.

I apologize, I don't think I understand the question.

That board of appeals isn't um reviewing the value of every single parcel in the city.

No.

And so it isn't basing that board of appeal has the power to put the fair market value of your house at the most recent sale price.

But it isn't doing that for each one of the parcels in the county.

No, it's when it's contested when there's majority.

So when I say the county has to do a reassessment to establish the values of all of the parcels in the county, including all the parcels in the city.

Oh, absolutely, yes.

That requires redoing all the fair market values so that the assessment value or the assessment ratio can be back at one.

So fair market value matches.

As we sit here today, you know, if you buy if you know your next door neighbor bought their house for a million dollars, um, they're not necessarily being assessed at that.

That is not the established fair market value, nor is it what they're being assessed at.

So they're at a probably a 56%.

50.6.50.6 of what their oldest free market value was from 12 years ago.

That's right.

So we're losing that two.

So this is this is the problem.

But thank you for helping us with our vocabulary.

I think we tend to broadly just say what your assessment is, meaning your fair market value, but it's there's two different terms.

Um, so okay, so we just kind of get a grip on what our our high our two highest revenue streams are both real estate um and earned income tax, and those are nearly equal.

Um I just want to say I agree with Councilman Um Sherland on the deed transfer tax.

I think we were always concerned about it being unfair burden on first time homebuyers.

It took us a year of struggling over that change.

Um, and it was a difficult vote.

Um, and if there was some other fund that wasn't that that took the burden off of home buyers, um I think that would be a really important change to make, to take to find a different source um of income to lower that de transfer tax rate because we're losing homeownership and it's going down.

Um, and it is I think something that we should be concerned about, whether people can build equity, who can build equity, who has access to property value equity.

So I think that is that's definitely work in front of us, and I couldn't agree more.

Um I think you already went over again, there's like percentages.

Maybe you already said for expenditures is the very next page, page four.

Um there's numbers in the box at the bottom of the page that says you know, total salaries are two hundred and ninety-five point eight million or so, and then that's up nine million from the previous year.

But in the bar chart, I'm trying to read the tiny numbers at the top where your money goes.

So the biggest expenditure by far is the public safety department, which is police, fire, EMS, animal control.

And that says, you know, it says 44.6%.

Is that the percent of the expenditures?

Yes.

So total expenditures.

And total expenditures was roughly six six hundred and forty million.

For 2025 expenditure.

Am I just on one?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

640 million.

And so what is 44.4% of 640 million.

Sounds like calculators.

It'd be much faster to do it this way.

It's less than 320.

6.8.

Wait.

It's less than 320.

Because that would be 50%.

44.4, it's about 284 million dollars.

284 million.

And then the next.

The next one says highway streets.

And but this is only operating budget.

Yes.

Yes.

Because like paving is under operating.

I'm just wondering why that's so much because I know there's not that many employees.

It's not, you know, public safety has like a thousand employees easily.

Between fire and police, it's got more than a thousand.

But I'm wondering why.

That's 20 nearly 25% of expenditures.

Because Domi doesn't have that many employees.

It might be.

I think it's deep includes part of DPW as well.

For like maintenance.

Um maintenance.

It's something that I can dig into.

I don't think it's on payroll.

It's not on.

I mean, it would go towards all the maintenance and stuff for the trucks as well.

Um all the pothole patching.

I don't think it would cover trucks.

But it would cover the asphalt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I feel like we can, you know, we were pushing paving expenditures closer to 10 million, if I'm not mistaken, right?

For a while, we were only around six million.

No, uh last year for paving.

I can't remember.

It's probably just for the record that we don't have these things kind of memorized for the public because some of the paving is done by the utilities, and so some miles of streets maybe aren't being covered by our budget, they're being covered by the PWCA budget for reconstruction, or God knows in my district these days, people's gas, um, where there's tons of construction over the place.

So I would I would I'm guessing that that's both payroll and like the direct costs of asphalt of paving.

I'm not sure.

Um and then general government, I think is self-explanatory.

It's kind of like we've lumped in like all of the other payroll and like stuff.

I'm curious about that water bill.

Do you happen to know if you've got it under general government?

And you know, we're looking at like 18, 180 million.

That gets paid out of DPW.

Oh, so maybe that I don't know.

That's where I'm thinking that might also be uh within there.

It's something that I'd have to I don't have off the top of my head.

But for the if the public wants to download this, it is in this.

Yes, there is all the answers to my questions are actually in this gargantuan stack of paper.

Um I was just wondering, since we didn't, I didn't know what had been summarized into the bar chart, so we can we will we will definitely find that.

Um, so it means anybody wanna chime in chime in now.

Okay.

Um so and then I'll I'll just flip back down to the um the elephant in the room is like part of a herd of elephants that's in the room with like every mid-sized city.

Yeah, yeah.

Um so unfortunately we're not every mid-sized city.

Every most American cities are dealing with budget deficits.

Bigger cities and smaller cities that this cities that you think of is fast growing, cities that you you know, in the Sun Belt.

Um, everybody's dealing with budget deficits right now, and the American Rescue Plan uh for all cities masked spending problems and allowed us to ignore inflation uh for four four years, and now this is this is the outcome.

And most cities are having uh reporting deficits for the uh preceding year.

Um, you know, we we really need to focus on figuring out how to address that in the immediate term and then the longer term strategies that we can um employ as a city to incentivize growth and figure out how to bring people here.

So you mentioned you say it's inflation.

I said that it masked uh the city, it it allowed the city to ignore inflationary pressures on the budget for four years because we were depositing between 40 and 50 million dollars a year into the operating budget from federal COVID relief dollars.

In the again, since it's it's probably not in the bullet points, but so in the longer report, does it show the increase in like commodity prices or inflationary costs on direct purchases?

I mean you would be able to we don't highlight inflation like as a chart year over year.

Um can you see some of the line the categories of direct costs?

And I will mention to all of you when you voted to reopen the budget, you added fuel costs because of the inflationary pressures on um the cost of petroleum, and you also see that with um paving because paving's made with asphalt, asphalt's made with petroleum, and as that increases um our ability and capacity to uh to pay is diminished, and so not it's not on the revenue side as well with the central business districts.

Well across the city.

You see that in the I mean across cities you said of of all sizes.

The growth in the wage tax um obviously it doesn't mirror inflation directly.

And it's not about central business districts.

You can not have wages that aren't downtown.

Correct.

I'm not trying to understand your question.

For five years, six years we've been discussing, well, post COVID, let's say, so five years, we've been saying that because the remote work and the changes in work arrangements have decreased occupancy in the largest value buildings again across the country, right?

Generally in central business districts, and so that they have um gone into forfeiture or um been sold at deeply discounted rates or downwardly appealed their assessments because it took a few years rolling out because commercial leases are generally five-year leases, if I'm not mistaken, right?

And so they couldn't break their lease, you know, in 2021, but by 2022, 2023 they were breaking their leases and or you know, renegotiating their leases, taking smaller footprints, and that is part of the occupancy problem, that's part of the real estate problem that larger buildings that supplied a lot of the revenue in our property taxes appealed to the County Board of Appeal to downwardly appeal their assessments.

This is the conversation that we've been seeing here at the table now for or three or four years.

You don't see that impact here on the revenue side?

Yeah, we're that's uh I mean reflected directly in the real estate taxes.

Okay, I thought you just said that it was uh uh expenditure or expenses pressure.

So the ARPA dollars allowed the city to ignore the increase the rapid increase in price in prices of goods, commodities, food, everything, fuel, because we weren't addressing any cost, we weren't doing any cost containment in those four years because we had effectively padded um our revenue streams with those COVID relief dollars.

So that's I'm talking about it in that context.

And when you look at the operating deficit, yeah, we'll just say it's both, right?

So there's both inflationary um pressures driving up our expenditures, and also we've lost some of the revenue on property tax, especially the larger properties.

Yeah, I think you're exactly right that that we lost revenue in property tax from downtown properties, and we accounted for it with the ARPA dollars, but didn't make any changes for whenever the ARPA dollars would go away, and now they're away, and the real estate values in downtown are still down.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure um that, so yeah, we kind of call it tend to do it here, we talk about it other places.

So I think the those are my thoughts going into like the next panel of like, okay, so what are where are we at this year?

So appreciate it.

Thank you for your answers.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Warwick uh joining us online.

Do you have any questions for the controller or her office?

Yeah, thank you.

Um, yeah, so okay.

So the fund balance is currently $166.1.

Is that what the unassigned fund balance is $166.1, yes.

That's money, that's our rainy day fund, yeah.

Correct.

Yeah, that's a and and uh and 17% is like the best practice, or is that the legally required?

17% is the best practice, and 10% is what's required per city code.

Oh, great.

And what would what would what would the 17% be?

That represents two months' worth of operating expenditures, um, and it would allow the city to uh respond um more appropriately in an emergency.

Um having any percentage is obviously a good practice.

Uh the 17% is recommended by GFOA.

And what would 17% be?

In dollars.

So it's currently $166.1.

79.

So 7% more than 79.

So it's 79 million is 10%.

Um Jamie's doing the math at the moment.

It would be about 109 million.

Okay, so we're actually okay then on the Red Day fund.

This year, yeah.

It's gonna like get in half in the next five years.

This budget, uh the 2026 uh will impact the the unassigned fund balance even more dramatically.

Um and it's budgeted to continue to go down.

So the goal is to get ahead of a problem like this before we hit a crisis point.

Got it, got it, got it.

Okay.

Um and then you said that the debt service is current, so the debt service, you know, what we're paying in interest basically, or just paying back our debt is $78 million this year, but that will drop to $48 million next year.

Yes, and that is a result of decisions that were made in 2020 and 2021, not knowing what if any federal COVID relief dollars were coming.

Right.

Um and we had a dramatic and overnight um change in our revenue with parking and amusement taxes, and um obviously there was a contraction at the uh in the economy at the beginning of the pandemic.

Okay, and then I know I'm sorry, I know Kate has explained this to me about a hundred times, and for some reason I just cannot like get it through my head.

Can you explain again this concern about expenditures out, right?

Like like the the trust funds being treated in incorrectly.

I'm still not clear on why that I'm still not clear on why the accounting with that is is difficult the way that we're doing it now.

So in the budget, there's no there's rules in accounting.

There's generally accepted accounting principles that we follow to build the act for.

In the budget, there are best practices that you can follow or you can ignore, and we ignore it and put all the transfers out that is money leaving the general fund as a transfer out, so it's not available anymore, but we don't count it as an expenditure.

If we did count it as an expenditure in year five of the five-year plan, we would be under the 10% minimum expenditures as a percentage of the fund balance.

Oh, I see.

So you're saying, so when you say you're talking about like money that we send out to the URA.

Yeah, correct.

Yeah, the housing opportunity fund, the payment for the the housing bond, all that is money that goes out of the general fund that we don't count as an expenditure in the budget, but when you follow actual accounting rules, that's money spent.

That's money that is no longer available in the unassigned fund.

Okay, I'm tracking, but you had also said that that also applies to stop the balance fund now.

Yeah, yeah, I mean that goes into a different fund, so it's it's no longer available in the general fund.

It's an expenditure out of the general fund.

We just don't show it as one.

So that's the one that I don't understand because the stock the balance money is still, I mean, we're using it, like so.

When you go into the into the various pages of the budget, right?

Yeah, it's clear, like if you know, whatever we're paying for OCHS is being paid for with this stuff the BIOS.

Yeah, so it's actually how is that not?

How is that not like treating it as an expenditure?

So so to speak.

It's counted technically as a transfer out, so it's still leaving the general fund.

Um, but we still have control over it.

We still have control over it uh because it's in a special revenue account.

So it's unlike a transfer in that way.

Well, so we can see for in the expenditures, right?

Like this when we add up all the expense if we're spending it internally.

We are adding it up, but it's no longer within the general fund.

So uh the easiest way for me to think of it is anything that is completely leaving our any of our bank accounts is an expenditure.

We no longer have that money.

Anything that we're moving from one bank account that we own to another one, so uh the stop the violence is a good example of that.

It's leaving from the general fund into our special revenue fund, that's a transfer out because we still have that money, but it's no longer part of our um unassigned unassigned fund balance that's within the general fund.

It's now essentially a committed uh fund within a different bank account that uh has been decided it's going to be used for this purpose.

Okay.

I still don't know.

Like they're like going to the URA, like not at not at our hands report, but um, and anyway, that's alright.

Um yeah, I wanted to ask, so about this thing about uh previous so I I understand the problem.

If you have so you've budgeted whatever, you know, how much money to buy printers, I think was the example, but you didn't actually buy those printers in 2025, uh, but you're buying them now in 2026.

Is there a reason that we're not kind of creating a pot that's like this is 2025 operating and we're sort of mixing it in with 2026?

That seems very confusing.

So for accounting, there is we are kind of doing that.

It's just the difference between what is essentially our income statement and what is our balance sheet.

An income statement judges what the money did within a singular year.

So we look at what money we brought in that year and then what money we paid out.

And since a lot of those expenditures, not a lot, but there's a good amount of expenditures that are not related to that year, we're not looking at it within that budget.

But on the balance sheet side, we are those are within our committed funds, so it's where the fund balances, those four different fund balances tell a really great year-over-year story.

Uh when we look at things, uh a lot of parts that we talk about during our press conference is what happened to our unassigned fund balance or unassigned fund balance, even though we had a 44 point million dollar deficit this year, our unassigned fund balance went down by 33, 33 million.

So that other 10, 13, whatever million, that actually came from our committed funds, which is money that should have been part of the roll forward that we reduced it by.

So on the balance sheet that is being accounted for, it's just an income statement is only looking at that singular year.

So I guess my question is I'll say this.

If it works internally, right?

If it's if it if it if you all can understand that and keep it straight, that's that's good, but how can we?

I mean, that's fine, but how can we make sure that when we're talking to the public about these numbers that things like that are clear, so that we're not mixing um, you know, so that we're not saying, for example, I mean, I I remember something about when we were talking about 2025, it was like, oh, there's a deficit, but it wasn't accounting for those things.

You know, it wasn't counting for for some things that we didn't have to pay or whatever, and it's like, oh, well, actually, if we account for those things, then there isn't a deficit, it's actually red-agree.

That's very confusing for the public.

So I think I do.

I apologize.

I do, I think I do remember last year, um, and part of that is also going into a further somewhat confusing pattern of just accounting, and that's the accrual basis.

Uh, where there are certain things, uh, some of it is just timing that uh during the AC for process, I am doing, pooling in revenues that are actually related to 20 at that time would have been related to 2024 that hit in 2025, putting it into the correct year and doing the same for expenses or expenditures.

But there are a couple other things that happen as well.

We uh generally accepted accounting principles and GASB uh decided to do fun and confusing things with how we record leases, and that actually the first year we did it, did for some things last year gave us more revenue.

It's more book revenue than it is money in our banks.

Uh, but I do believe that was a circumstance where I think last year uh on the cash basis we had a profit of 7 million, I think it was three million, and then gap basis was seven million.

Uh so some of those are through the accrual basis, which is a little bit of a truer sense because it's accounting for things that actually happened in that period of time.

Okay, it's it's still confusing, but that's okay.

I mean, I appreciate that's that's the expertise that you all have.

I'm just trying to sort of think from the public's point of view.

So right now, so I mean, you know, earlier in the year we talked a lot about oh, sorry, the public heard a lot about deficits, right?

Obviously, we did a tax increase, that was that that helped.

Um, and I mean, I think at one point there was a headline that was like 40 million dollar deficit, and then we opened the budget again, we pulled some.

So, are we in an operating deficit right now?

Yes.

And like what is that?

If you could explain that just to say, when you the maybe the best way to think about it is the money that we had to pull from our savings account, our unassigned fund balance was 33 million dollars.

So when you don't bring in uh roll forward money, which was about 11 12 million dollars last year, and you only pull from our our savings account, we pulled $33 million from the city's savings account last year to function as a government.

Got it.

So that's just saying, like, you know, according to the budget that we passed.

Yeah, so so we went into our same, but we didn't, but we didn't bring ourselves below where we should be in the rainy day fund by doing that.

No, um, but the the pattern moving forward with revenue and expenditures is very concerning.

Um we will get to that number very quickly if we don't act and um move on cost containment measures and focus on long-term growth.

Yeah, so I I um and and you know, you know, everybody has their I of course am not I I'm not a fan of austerity measures.

I mean, obviously, if there's you know places that we can trim, you know, or be more efficient in how we do things currently, that's all great.

But I'm I'm I'm not a fan of scaling back services, right?

I think we there's actually like numerous services that we need to expand on uh to meet the needs of our residents.

Uh, but you know, that that's that that aside, um what I mean.

If you could put a number out there, and I know this is trivial, but but um how much additional like for us as a city to kind of be in a place where you as the controller kind of take a you know can take sort of a deep breath and be like, oh, okay, this is actually comfortable.

This this feels this feels comfortable.

What would that number be?

If like every year we were to increase the revenue by X, then you know you would feel better about the state of affairs moving to forward now.

I mean, last year we I wish we had brought in 33 additional dollars, 33 million additional dollars.

Um, you know, there's not a but there's not, I mean, it depends on what you spend um to know what you need to bring in to cover those costs, and that's forward-looking, and you know, as I've we've all said, the controller's office doesn't do budgeting, um, but we need to figure out how to make sure that our uh our we are bringing in enough revenue to cover our expenses, or we're need to make sure that we're only spending as much as our revenue brings in.

And I know that people have different mindsets about how to approach that.

Um, but the reality is the trajectory that we're on, we need to address um cost containment in the immediate term.

We need to focus on growth, we need to figure out how to bring in additional revenue, and you know, what that number is would depend upon the year.

I could tell you that two years ago your budget director told you that you were 75 million dollars short of being truly fiscally healthy.

Okay.

Okay, so 75 million.

I mean, that would be so that's two years ago.

Two years ago.

Per year.

Yeah.

To lower how much we're taking out in a bond every year and increase the pay-go transfer to buy more vehicles to be able to demo more condemned properties.

Right.

Just to make sure we're paying for everybody's health care and can give everybody a good cost of living increase and provide all the services that we want to provide.

Then to be able to do that, I mean, again, that's what I'm sort of looking for.

But so if we say that like $33 million is what we dipped into our savings account this year, right?

Last year.

Um, sorry.

Right, right.

Is it you know, in uh, you know, ideally we would not have done that, right?

We would have just used, you know, what we have, but uh, ideally, yeah.

So somewhere between 33 million and a hundred and a hundred and seventy million.

I mean, yes, we try to think I'm just trying to get like sort of just for the public, like, just for the public's understanding, right?

Like short of cutting the service.

I mean, you know, like that there's there's ways to there's like ways to to address this issue, right?

So it would and and probably ultimately would be a combination, but either we cut services and save money that way, or we increase revenue, right?

And uh to the tune of like a hundred million dollars a year just to kind of you know land somewhere in the middle, would be the amount of money that the city needs to increase its revenue by to kind of be able to really do provide the services that we need to, right?

With what we're talking about vehicles, talking about after school programs, we're talking about all of these things, right?

That um that we need to provide for our residents.

Again, I mean, I would just go back like our office doesn't budget, but just to I mean, we just need to make sure that we're covering the cost of government year over year so that the fund balance, unassigned fund balance or rainy day fund is available in an emergency.

Um those decisions are for you all.

I I obviously don't want to cut services, but I do think that there are ways that the city can contain costs that don't necessarily mean that we're you know not providing essential services to city residents, and I would never advocate for that.

Um that may come that I would love to like hear more about those.

That's probably uh a stepway post agenda.

Um but uh yeah, at any rate, okay.

I don't think I have any other questions.

I just I do feel like what what it comes down to is I mean, yes, you know, perhaps some process improvements and whatnot to um to make things run more efficiently, right?

I'm sure that there are opportunities there, but also the need to increase revenue uh is clear and in the near future, right?

I mean it it depends on how much you're spending every year, and that would dictate if additional revenue is necessary.

But when we're looking at this at this um precarious rainy day fund, we are looking at that for for next year.

Like what year does the rainy day fund become scary?

I mean, uh 2025.

Um, I no, I mean, but right now it's a it's a little it's at the end of 20 at the end of 2030, it'll be at 10% of expenditures.

And that's using the the questionable um, transfers out versus expenditures.

Uh at the end of this year, it's gonna be 15.5% is what is what uh the operating budget shows.

Okay, so so already at the end of this year will be below not not the legal limit, but the best practices.

Yeah, below GFOA best practices.

Right, by the end of this year, and then it will just progressively get worse going forward.

Correct.

Right, okay.

So again, I just want to I mean, you know, whether it's whether it's uh streamlining and uh finding cost savings or increasing revenue, uh the need is there.

For us to figure something out.

Yeah, I would I would say the sooner the better to address um the structural issues with the budget or with the with the budget, the expenditures, revenue, etc.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I agree.

I agree.

So yeah, that's it for me.

Thank you so much.

I do I appreciate I appreciate just sitting down and having these conversations.

Uh it's always helpful just to kind of even if it's a repetitive, even if I make the repeat to me a hundred times, transfers in and transfers out, it's helpful to hear it again.

So thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Uh Councilman Wilson, any questions from you?

Yeah, thanks.

Sorry I missed the presentation.

I did have some questions.

This unassigned fund balance.

This is literally the rainy day fund.

This is the ready down fund.

I heard you say that earlier.

Just to get in the weeds a little bit.

It's just called unassigned because the obvious is that it's it's not obligated anywhere else.

Anywhere else, yeah.

That's money that's available to be used in a circumstance like last year when we spent significantly more than we brought in.

Okay.

I mean, I've just been listening along.

I mean, it's it's um definitely concerning.

I can hear some members work, you know, working through the concerns through the questions.

This is alternate budgeting suggestions.

Can you do you mind just going over this?

Maybe.

So I'll turn it over to Jamie Salah who's the chief accounting officer.

I think a lot of this is just how um to go off of uh Councilmember Warwick of how we can talk about this.

Some of it is it gets confusing when we're talking about a deficit that is different from what our fund balance is showing.

Uh and these are just some different ways that we've seen other cities or like we have Pittsburgh Public Schools go through.

Uh Pittsburgh Public Schools, it's very tiny on the paper.

Uh, but they go through it where they uh show your their revenues, their expenditures, and then go through the beginning balance of their fund and kind of uh is it the change?

Yeah, they have a they're showing their deficit with that the ending full fund balance.

So that's including the rainy day fund, that's including their committed, they're restricted, uh, and assigned, and then going back through and actually uh defining those to go then down and show here's the money left over that our government has.

And you think this would be helpful just to show like a true number.

I do, I think that's a um a little bit more of a truer story to tell.

They're both true stories, uh, but much like in business, we see businesses have bad years here and there, but they're padded in between with good years.

Uh so we know that can happen.

That's a normal thing because a a income statement or statement of activities, sometimes you're spending more, but it's only one year worth of stuff.

Your fund balance is going to show here is from the inception of us being a government, the money that we have collected and all of the profits that we've had throughout our time being here.

And is this with the way you see it currently uh versus the way it could be changed?

Sorry, let me rephrase this the way it could be changed.

This is um the way it's laid out, basically.

That's what it sounds like to me.

Like the way it's the way it's laid out, the way we see our numbers, we work out doing the calculations.

That's all that all rests in O and B.

There's not like a there's not like an ordinance to say how this is no.

It's kind of up to you how you want to show it.

Like I said, there's not hardly.

At least it's up to them.

City council gets the set the final budget.

So O and B can send over a budget, and you can change those transfers out that are actual payments to the URA to show them as an expenditure.

But the budget that people can download online is ultimately that's OMB's decision, right?

What they put on there.

It's what you pass.

So literally we could pass the budget.

We could have we could manipulate that final document.

But who does do that manipulation?

I mean now it's Kirsten and Cherry.

Sorry, Director Wallsley and Assistant Director Relowski.

Yeah.

Okay.

But originally, but it originates in the mayor's law.

So we develops the initial budget, but you have a traditional budget office.

So we have we done that?

Or traditionally we just don't do that.

It has been done.

There, I mean some of those transfers out initially, OMB had put them as uh expenditures, and then the council budget office um had moved them to transfers out years ago.

And they've just kind of lived that way ever since.

Okay.

Not something I'm typically think of like a final document we wanted to look like this.

Okay.

All right, thanks.

Thank you, Councilman.

Councilman Coghell.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um thank you, Controller, Peter, Jamie, and my tell your husband I say hello.

I always do it.

So no, thank you.

This information is all all very good.

And I know you probably went over this, but let me just clarify for my own sake because I was thinking about this and somebody was talking about it.

So our trust funds.

We have housing opportunity fund, we have stop the violence.

What else?

We have about, I don't know, between eighty and ninety, probably right now, trust funds.

Yeah.

Um, if you're talking about only the transfers out and expenditures that are trust funds, so uh it's the housing opportunity fund, the stop the violence trust fund, and again, those are distinct because one is a transfer and one is an expenditure.

Um the tech modernization fund, the I think that's are those the only three that are below the line.

Uh pay go.

We actually have the trust fund.

A slide in there.

It's slide 18, which or maybe a little bit later.

It's uh the true cost of transfers out, where for the ACFA purposes, we detailed out here what we are considering the transfers out.

These are the items that are staying within city bank accounts but no longer within the general funds.

Right.

So in your reporting, it it's an expenditure.

Yes.

Well, even though it's within the city and it's used for some of the things.

And the expense is the m like the money, the 12.5 million dollars we send to the URA is not a transfer.

That's an expenditure.

And it's no different mechanically than us paying um, you know, for pay paying folino for paving or something else like that.

Okay, so we're talking about let's just use a house HOF in the stop the violence fund.

Um so half of that basically is an expenditure, is what you're saying.

Because it the money that goes to the stop the violence.

So I say it's $20 million a year, somewhere in that ballpark.

Last year it was uh about I think it was $10 million to the stop the violence trust fund and 12.5 to the URA.

Because they risk the housing opportunity fund, and then we have the 2.5 million dollar bond repayment that we make.

Okay, and of that between those two entities, there's those two trust funds, um, so say 22 million dollars, um, roughly half of that is on your report, is an expenditure.

Yes, the uh transfers out into the URA is an expenditure for us.

It's an expenditure, right, right.

Even though it stays within city government uh basically in one fashion or another, it's an expenditure for us.

Yes.

Got it.

Got it, got it.

Would um now, you know, you talked about the detransfer tax being uh surplus of ten million dollars.

Above budget, yes.

Yeah, and that's probably indication of the price of real estate, number one.

I'd like to think it's new people moving in, but do we have any sure facts on that?

Or we just we just know about the surplus and I don't believe that we have the ability to know where people are going.

We don't track people to that level.

But I again we'll reiterate that it bucks macroeconomic trends in the United States.

Like we have a stable housing market, which I think is healthy and good.

Um and with good long-term indicator for the city.

Yeah, so I'd like to think it reflects people moving into the city of Pittsburgh.

I don't think it does, honestly, maybe a little bit.

I think it will reflect like just in the neighborhoods that I represent.

The housing costs has gone up a hundred percent over the past five or six years, I would say.

So I think it more of an indication of cost of real estate, which, you know, obviously a higher percentage and higher percentages paid into the de transfer tax.

And I agree with my colleagues as to like I wish you know it becomes a barrier to for for some people, more expensive to move to the city of Pittsburgh.

But it's lucrative, and you know, we have to collect money.

I always say, I say all the time now, just from being here for nine years.

I feel like, you know, first of all, our population from the time I was a kid has decreased a hundred percent, right?

It went from seven hundred thousand to three hundred thousand.

So we have a dwindling tax base, but we still have big city expenses.

We still need a police force of this size.

We still need paramedics, we still need fire, public works.

All of that infrastructure built for 700,000 people.

And and factor in bridges, by the way, you know.

I think to myself, I I become like envious of these southern Florida cities.

I'm like, pave the roads once it's probably good for 20 years versus ours is good for like five years.

Yeah, right.

The population is growing and the people are moving there.

But more importantly, they don't have bridges to to one bridge could set us back, could turn us upside down.

I mean, it's it's it's ridiculous.

And as I know we're making those efforts, but those costs are always going to be there for us because we can't get around Pittsburgh without the bridges.

Factor in our roads and how difficult they are to pave and the climate and you know, all that.

So it's no wonder Southern cities, I feel like, you know, it's easier for them to balance their budgets because they don't have the expenses we have.

So I always say we have big city expenses, but now we have a small city budget in the way of 300,000 property.

Well, not property, almost 300,000 people.

They're living in the city of Pittsburgh.

So it's safe to say I would say, you know, we decreased our housing stock or or our homeowners by, you know, 100% in the past year.

So here we have a doing.

So therefore we're forced to find new ways, new initiatives.

We took the, you know, the necessary action to raise our property tax, which will be helpful and um I feel, you know, ultimately we had to do it.

So uh any suggestions?

I know I heard you talking about was it the commuter tax, fifty-two dollars a year?

Yeah, and then councilman uh council president Laval mentioned that it's before uh before the state legislature right now, which is great news and sign me up for the will of council.

Yeah, yeah.

And is that based on council president?

Is that based on a percentage or is that just a flat fee?

It's a flat fee.

A dollar a week.

And that's for every municipality across Pennsylvania.

No, it's just Pittsburgh.

Oh, just Pittsburgh, okay.

So that will make a significant impact if we're able to collect that.

Yeah, and again, it's up to the state legislature to agree.

And we need that authority.

We need to go back to Harrisburg, Madam Chair, I think.

You know, for a couple of reasons.

I hear it's been a struggle to get out of committee this year.

So we really do need to.

I mean, I think that's the key to a lot of this is is working with the state to unlock those kind of things.

Yeah, right, right.

Um, and I was surprised, like Councilwoman McGross said that uh the the um uh payroll expense tax is kind of gonna outweigh our property tax.

Yeah, rights tax, yeah.

In the next couple of years we'll probably pass that.

Yeah, I would say, right?

Yeah, and let me ask you this in that uh if the county were to proceed with reassessments and say they're done.

So it's I from what I understand it's gonna take two years at least just to even do that once they do decide to take it up.

Say they're done.

Now for what I understand it has to be neutral revenue.

So what would that mean for our budget?

What does that mean for our revenue?

We're capped at five percent.

It's the windfall provision.

Yeah.

So it would likely like all the values would go up, but we would have to adjust our millage down.

That's what happened last time.

Um but like GFOA best practices say that you should do that every two or three years.

So like every two to three years, we could have like a five percent bump.

But but as councilwoman gross was saying, the city has absolutely no control over doing that.

Every other state.

Sorry.

Senator Fontana introduced legislation to mandate it at the state level and have it be paid for across the state.

Because the other thing you do run into is um in some of the communities that are on county borders.

I mean, Westmoreland County hasn't hasn't done a reassessment, I believe, since Jimmy Carter was president.

Um so the thing to remember too is when it's just Allegheny County and you have people in Monroeville, I mean, people do decide to settle in Murraysville because property taxes are so low there.

Um, they obviously provide significantly less in terms of hum like human services.

Um, but when you're I believe that it would be best handled at the state level, um, and it would just take away the politics of it, right?

This is gonna happen every five years, it's gonna happen every 10 years, whatever the um the the uh rhythm is, but it just needs to it A, it needs to happen.

Um and it would be preferable if it was done at the state level, and Senator Fontana's legislation came to fruition.

I I feel the only true way to a healthy budget where we can all be happy and have enough you know funding to go around is to increase the population.

And that's a long, long road.

Yeah.

I think this year we at least stayed neutral.

So from nineteen estimates.

Yeah.

From you I mean, when you look at populate like the the census from 1970 and then to eighty, ninety, two thousand, twenty ten, I mean, our population declined I would drastic drastically is the word I would use.

Um and it's stable, it was stable in 2020, and then estimates obviously a full census isn't done annually.

Uh the one thing we all have to talk about, um, and I speak about at length when I'm in c community groups, is my grandparents who came to Pittsburgh all came from four different countries.

Um the unfortunate reality is that the th that we will benefit from immigration and that's true if people come from Harrisburg, and it's true if people come from Honduras.

And what we need to do as a city, as a county and as a state, and uh quite frankly, as a country, is remember where we came from and allow people who are seeking safe haven and want to immigrate to the United States to come here, and we need to do everything we can to incentivize them to come to Pittsburgh.

It's cheaper to buy than to rent here.

Um we have cultural amenities that really, really big cities have, and it's much, much more affordable to live, to navigate, and to be, you know, a member of a vulnerable population in Pittsburgh and in Western Pennsylvania.

And our history historic roots you know dictate that that is true, and I can speak to that personally as you know, my family came from um eastern Europe, and you know, I think that we need to really focus on that and those opportunities because when we can be a welcoming place for people who are coming again from Harrisburg or from Honduras, um, we need to because that is the secret to economic growth.

And again, a rising uh rising tide lifts all boats.

And when you look at the shared economic growth that happened um from 1910 through the 70s here, it was because of immigration.

Population boom, right?

I mean, and I agree with you.

Uh you know, if if um I don't I don't care who buys our homes.

I, you know, I want them to be live here and abide by our laws, and uh, you know, that's great because it means more for our annual revenue.

Um, yeah, we struggle with that in Pittsburgh.

I think partly is because of our climate and just you know, yeah, but we can't for some people.

We can't our Januaries don't compete with a lot of Januaries in a favorable light.

But what I will tell you is people can come here, they can go to school in Pittsburgh, their families can do well and thrive, and those are the things that we need to talk about.

I agree.

We have many more advantages and disadvantages uh but for somebody moving from a different country, they're probably like, what how what's the degree in Pittsburgh in the winter?

And so I compare us to like Georgia or Florida, it's like okay.

So um so that's kind of a struggle.

But I agree, I feel like our future home buyers are mostly gonna be immigrants.

I I don't see people flocking here from Florida and Texas and things of that nature.

It's more and there are things that we can do to attract young, I mean, we have more universities here than most major cities, and uh, you know, even those that are double in size.

Um, and as someone who didn't grow up here in, you know, my Pittsburgh or by choice, as I talk about a lot, we do have young, um, you know, recent college graduates and people who are looking for opportunities and want to start their lives and careers, and we need to do everything we can to make sure that this is a place that they consider.

Yep, yep.

I I I agree, I agree, and that's that's a long that's that's a long term.

Um if we can increase our population by two percent next year.

If if we can increase our population, we can stabilize our population.

Yeah, right.

I mean, at least we're trending, we could say we're trending.

I think again this year, did we remain neutral?

Did we we gained residence?

Yeah, there the census is only done every ten years.

So the estimates are that it we grew from uh we grew in twenty twenty five.

Yeah, got it.

So after um the new administration came in, they came out with their uh, you know, uh analysis as to where we financially were, and that range from thirty to forty million dollars, kind of in in arrears.

But your official your accounting is 44 million dollars, 726,000, this number here.

Our net loss in 2025 was forty four million.

Our net loss in 2025 was forty-four million dollars.

Yes.

And another 11 million came from transfers from other accounts.

Do you think we're projected to have to tap into that again in order to balance our budget?

We absolutely will tap into it again in 2026.

It's actually built into the budget.

Yeah.

Um we are there.

Yeah, we will uh again significantly utilize the uh unassigned fund balance.

So what percentage are we required to have in that?

By city code, 10% of expenditures.

What percentage are we at?

We'll be at 15% by the end of 2020.

So after we withdraw to keep our afloat this year, we'll be a fifteen percent.

Assuming we follow the budget, yeah.

So what kind of hit does 30 million take on that uh percentage wise?

Is it um we went from about 24 percent um in 2025 and so that's we're down like seventeen or eighteen, and then that next time we dip it to the fifteen.

Yeah, and we are going down a dangerous road as you say.

It's an unsustainable trajectory.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I agree a hundred percent.

Um, you know, we've made progress.

The administration, I should say, has made progress with the nonprofits, which you know, I I I totally agree with their um their approach.

I to take them to court and sue them was costing us money.

Just didn't make sense to me.

I I just feel like it was a losing battle.

I think now that they see in cooperation.

I think just recently we got three million dollar commitment from CMU, which was fantastic.

Not to say that's gonna cover all our downfall or all our shortcomings, but it will help.

What I'll tell you too is voluntary payments are very likely to be our most significant revenue increase this year and next year.

You're right.

Um last year we collected about 500,000 in pilot payments or voluntary payments.

Um this year the number will probably exceed uh 10 million dollars based on the actions of the new administration.

Yeah, just the UPMC and PNC money for fleet alone.

So that accounts towards it towards when you're yeah, it's revenue.

It's absolutely right now.

So um assuming, and I know in talks that they're gonna continue to, you know, um, we all do well when we all do well.

And you know, there needs to be a recognition that I believe that we all um as city leaders have a responsibility to do everything we can to alleviate uh taxpayers from the financial burden of running the city.

Um as we talked about earlier, most uh more than fifty percent of all city revenue comes from two sources deed train uh comes from um wage taxes and property taxes, and that's a direct hit on city residents.

So anything that we can do as a city to alleviate the cost burden um towards living here.

I mean, this is an expensive government and it falls on the shoulders of city residents to pay for it.

So let's look at a bright spot, our debt ceiling is gonna fall.

We're we're gonna have 30 million.

In 2027.

Right, yeah, okay.

So this is a really this year's.

So we helpful.

Yeah.

This year is it's we're at 78 million, that's what our debt service payment will be.

And next year it drops to 48 million.

Yeah, yeah.

And and the years out, next five years, is that projected to fall even lower than that?

Yeah, it goes up.

Yeah, it goes up.

Because we took that bonds.

Because we're subjected to keep taking our bonds.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Um, yeah, so it stabilizes.

I mean, the significant increase that we saw last year and this year will go back down, but it's going to continue to grow.

Yeah, so it's a kind of a two-year surplus that we'll we'll be looking at.

It's uh it alleviates the pinch point next year.

Yeah.

Obviously, all of that money goes towards other operating expenditures.

Sure, sure.

Yeah, I'm just looking at to close that forty-four million dollar gap and try not to go into our, you know, obviously we've made the commitment to go into our any day fund again.

Yeah.

But I could see the importance of not doing that in the years to come.

Yeah, it's just not sustainable.

Right.

Councilman, I I apologize.

I know the controller has a hard stop at three.

And we have a we have our next presentation also ready to go with OMB and finance, um, which will probably cover a lot of these same topics.

So, um, if there are any last questions from council members for the controller, any burning questions you didn't get to ask.

We covered a lot here, but were there any last questions?

I have a hard line too.

I just have one more simple.

Yeah, I just want to make sure everyone's answer.

Yeah, I won't get into the weeds with it, but you know, the interest earnings.

With the markets the way it's been, how are we losing money?

Well, no, we don't have the American Rescue Plan dollars invested anymore because we've spent them.

Oh, so this is in comparison to the American theory.

This is in case so it's 25 versus 24.

And in 2024, we had those COVID dollars invested.

Um, and so we've actually just pulled money out of that.

Yeah, so we gained interest on all that money, of course, and that's the one that's not.

And it was projected to drop.

I mean it's and it dropped significantly.

Um, I just have I feel like the markets are going bananas and crazy and good and all the right ways.

And that is reflected in the city's the health of the city's pension fund.

Again, we're at 78% funded, um, which is a huge bright spot as as it as it relates to the city's financial health.

Um, and credit goes to, you know, the previous four administrations that have prioritized that annual commitment uh towards our workers and retirees, making sure that we're gonna be able to do that.

I love to say money make money, and if we can get to a point where we could have a hundred million dollars surplus and just invest it and collect the interest off it, that would be a significant, as we can see right in front of us here.

So I think Director Cooler probably feels the same.

So okay, I'm sorry, Madam Chair.

What a segue.

Okay, so any final questions?

I don't see any.

I really want to thank controller Heisler and your whole team who joined us today for sharing with us some of the insights that you found from the ACFAR from 2025.

Um thank you for joining us today.

We will um allow you to get back to business and um and invite our our team from OMB and finance the table to discuss.

We've covered 2025, now we'll discuss the first quarter of 2026 and hear a review of that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Um, let's think about where all of our graphics that's like ridiculous though.

Thanks again.

Hi, thank you.

I didn't even make copies, I thought that this was going to be.

Oh, sorry.

Okay.

So while we're pulling up the presentation, if you'd all like to introduce yourselves, welcome.

We have members of Office of Management and Budget and Department of Finance.

Um, hello, my name is Rhea Price, and I am the Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and uh currently the acting director.

I'm Jen Gula, the finance director.

David Hutchinson, the Assistant Director for Capital and Asset Management.

Elizabeth Sarcone, Assistant Director for Operating and Special Revenue.

Thank you very much.

So we are we have asked you here to provide a presentation and answer council questions around the uh uh what's the formal name?

The first quarterly 2026 financial performance reports or the quarter quarter one report for 2026.

Um we have gotten a preview of this in the joint financial task force report uh uh task force, which I appreciate still meets regularly, and um wanted to make sure all council members also got the same information that we have, keeping the budget um in all time of year consideration, not just November, December for us.

So I'll let you provide your presentation and we'll take questions.

Okay, great.

Uh yeah, so what I'll do is I'll go through all the slides.

Um at certain points, I may um ask Director Gula uh to chime in on revenues, and um assistant director David Hutchinson and assistant director Lee Shercone uh to chime in on some operating and capital items as well.

But um before I begin, um I just want to um make sure everybody realizes that we're discussing Q1 results.

Okay, so these numbers are a bit stale at this point.

I mean we only have um another week left of the second quarter, so um we'll be having another one of these in a um about two months.

Uh we have to issue our quarterly reports 45 days after the end of the quarter.

Okay, um, so what you see here, this is a very high level view of where we stand after the first quarter, and our and this shows our projections for the remaining quarters.

Um don't try to uh uh focus on any of these numbers on this slide.

I'm going to zoom in on um some things that I want everybody to focus on.

Okay.

So I mean, on this slide though, you'll see that I have the adopted budget uh column and the reappropriations uh column highlighted.

And so uh what I wanted to bring your attention to here was um the impact that the reappropriations have on the budgeted expenditures.

Okay, so down at the bottom here you see the 721.5 million dollar figure.

That is the amount that was in the 2026 operating budget as uh budgeted expenditures.

However, and this is brought up by the controller's office in their presentation, and this is um honestly something that I've been harping on a lot lately, but um the the large amount of reappropriations that we rolled over from 2025, and so that was uh a total of three uh $36 million of expenses from uh 2025 that we rolled over to 2026.

Now, what that has uh, the impact of doing is that it increases the spending authority in uh 2026 by 36 million dollars, and um essentially gives the depart the departments um the ability to overspend their adopted budget.

Okay, um this slide again um don't don't strain your eyes because I'm gonna zoom in, okay.

But um I just wanted to focus in on the year-end estimates and uh in relation to the uh adopted 2026 budget.

Okay, and here's where I zoom in.

Okay, up top you see uh what we budgeted for revenues.

That was a 707 million dollars for revenues.

Actually, no, 721 million dollars in revenues, and uh where we see our our the city ending the year at 707 million dollars in revenues.

And then on the expenditure side, uh we see ourselves ending the year with over 731 million dollars in expenditures, whereas we budgeted only 721 million dollars in expenditures.

So uh what that means at the end of the day is right now at the end of the first quarter, and looking at our projections for the uh remain remaining quarters, we're looking at over a 24 million dollar deficit at the end of the year.

Okay.

Some of the stuff I've already mentioned, uh key findings.

We're currently projecting a 24 million dollar deficit at the end of the year.

Uh, like I said, revenues were only projecting uh to take in $707 million dollars when $721 million dollars was budgeted, and expenditures are projected to um end that $10 million over what was adopted.

And that's due to that large amount of reappropriations that we rolled over from 2025 to 2026.

At this point, I'm going to focus a little more on revenues.

On this slide, I just wanted to highlight the large revenue categories that we are projecting to fall under budget.

So there's five different categories for that.

So those are licenses and permits, charges for services, fines and forfeitures, intergovernmental revenue, and interest earnings.

And I'm going to get a little bit more into that in the next slide, and then I'll ask Director Goula if she wants anything to add.

Okay, so first of all, in the licenses and permits category.

So I took a look at every single object account under each of these categories.

And so the reason a large reason why we're going to fall under budget in this category is due to commercial and residential permits.

Whenever we look at the charges for services, the primary driver for that is EMS revenue.

That is significantly down.

As of today, only about $5 million of $28 million that had been budgeted for EMS revenue had been booked.

However, whenever we looked into this a little more, it turns out that EMS is sitting on approximately $7 million.

So, and Director Gula can probably speak more to that in a bit minute.

This may no longer be an issue.

Like I said, these numbers in the quarterly report are a bit stale at this point.

But we have collected $2.4 million so far in the second quarter when the projection only showed $1.4 million.

So I think that right now we're in much better shape than we were at the end of the first quarter.

Intergovernmental revenue, we are projected to fall under budget there.

And one of the drivers for this, I discovered that there was 2.3 million dollars budgeted for Pittsburgh water pensions, and that should not be there.

And we kind of already discussed the interest earnings already, but the budget, just quite honestly, the budget for that was set uh too high.

So that was based on you know uh us earning interest on a much larger balance than than we currently have.

So yeah, at this point, um I'll let uh Director Gula.

Sure.

So just to focus in a little more on the charges for service, and this kind of goes into services we provide.

So when we don't have enough employees, sometimes it also takes a while to move revenues through the system and show up where we need them to, right?

So EMS also they contracted with, they have a third party that bills and collects for EMS services, and I think they moved to a credit card platform, the third party did, and so I think there's some nuance there with making sure that the revenue comes in and is efficiently you know deposited and recorded from the third-party credit card processor that they're using.

And additionally, too, when you also have like a staff shortage, it makes doing those functions a little slower and more difficult.

So there's times, and finance department too has obviously at times felt the same you know, pain where we can't efficiently get things on the books.

So that's a caveat to what's going on with charges for services.

Additionally, interest earnings.

So we already had contemplated the fact that ARPA was gonna go away and we were gonna lose interest earnings because we weren't gonna have as much money in the bank.

But to add to that, the forecast gets done mid-year for budget season.

In the fourth quarter of last year, there were also uh ratings the Fed lowered interest rates, so that in turn also had an effect on what was projected in the budget.

And actually, currently it could at any time.

Like currently, they haven't, but they could at any time lower rates, and if it's not expected, then it wouldn't be presented or forecasted, and it could also affect our our budgeted revenues.

So okay, um now I'm going to move on to the expenditure side.

Um now what this slide shows, um, this is uh out all of our departments, and it shows the first quarter actuals and the estimates for the remaining uh three quarters of the year.

And uh you'll see that I have a number of departments highlighted here.

Now, all of these are departments that we are currently projecting to go over their adopted budget, and um I'll go into every one of these departments in a minute and give a brief explanation of uh why we anticipate them going over their budget.

Okay, so um back to the first quarter, so a total of a hundred and nine almost 191 million dollars was spent in the first quarter this year.

That's versus about uh 160 million dollars in the first quarter of uh 2025.

So that's a 30 million dollars or 19% increase.

However, um there are some anomalies that happened this year uh compared to previous years.

So there were some expenses that should have been paid in 2025.

We've talked about these uh uh in other meetings, but um two of the big ones, of course, uh were uh the Pittsburgh water true up, so that was almost 10 million dollars that should have been paid in 2025, but instead that was paid uh in Q1 of 2026.

Um also we were uh sitting on about 1.4 million dollars in uh non-target uh trans dev costs, so um again that should have been paid in 2025, but was not paid until this uh the first quarter.

Uh everybody remembers the snow events uh the first quarter, so that was about uh four and a half million dollars in overtime and other expenses.

Um, a couple other things that I wanted to point out.

Um, whenever we issue the second quarter report, you will see a bump in salaries and wages uh due to the Teamsters uh contract uh being adopted.

So there was retroactive pay of about uh 222,000 uh that you'll see in in the second quarter.

Um, one thing that I want to uh highlight is that the FOP is still in arbitration, and honestly, um the projections that we have for police salaries and wages, they're probably uh too low because we have no idea how this is going to shake out.

And um, as was mentioned by the controller, uh fuel is an issue, and again, this is something that is almost impossible for us to project for the uh the remaining three quarters.

So, but I just wanted to uh point out that right now.

I mean, we still have over half the year left, and uh we have about as of today, we had 1.6 million dollars left, uh, and that's about 45% uh of the budget remaining.

But we're definitely going to exceed our budget for fuel.

Okay, and uh, like I mentioned um in the uh two slides ago, I would go over all the departments that were projecting to go over their adopted budget and why.

Uh so first of all, the mayor's office is projected to go over their budget, and this is primarily just due to the disparity study and the reappropriation uh that went over from 2025 to 2026 for that.

Um innovation and performance.

Uh, the reason for that is because uh they are currently uh fully staffed, and uh they had a very large amount of reappropriations uh from 2025 to 2026.

So uh that was 9 million dollars.

However, from what I recall, that was lower than what was reappropriated from 2024 to 2025 in IMP.

Planning, they're also fully staffed, and this is due to their comp plan reappropriation.

Public safety admin, so we're still investigating this, but we think that salaries are hitting this wrong.

And they had some large reappropriations as well.

EMS and police, I can't speak too much to this because this is more of a controller's office entry.

So they're expected to go over their budgets, and some of this is due to an accounting correction that happened.

These were actually from 2025 salaries expenses, but they're showing up on the books in 2026.

So this is going to cause them to go over budget in uh likely in Social Security.

And police, that was due to the Axon reappropriation.

DPW admin is expected to go over their adopted budget, and that is primarily due to utilities.

Uh, their premium pay is expected to go over, and they had a vehicle reappropriation.

Uh DPW environmental services, uh, their premium pay is likely uh to go over, and uh their roll off boxes and office supplies have chronically been underfunded or overspent.

DPW facilities, their premium pay is likely to go over, and they had a large number of reappropriations as well.

Uh and finally, uh DOME, uh, they've already overspent their workforce uh training budget, and they had large amounts of reappropriations and computer maintenance uh and bridge maintenance and equipment.

Okay, um, so um due to the potential uh deficit that we're looking at and due to the large number of transfers out that's um I thought the controller uh during her presentation, they did an excellent job of explaining why we probably shouldn't be uh showing these transfers the way that we do in the budget, and that we hope to correct in the future.

But anyway, um this is showing a potential for at least at the very least a 41 million dollar depletion in fund balance, even without the estimated uh deficit uh being factored in.

And uh if we do finish 2026 with the deficit, which we most likely are.

Uh that could be bring our fund balance to under uh 100 million dollars or uh 13.8 percent at the end of 2026.

Um that's all on the operating side.

Um Liz, is there our assistant director Sharpone?

Is there anything else that you would want to add as far as operating?

No, not at this time.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, um now I'll move on to uh capital spending.

Um the first quarter uh showed only thirty this number is correct, okay.

It only showed 37,681 uh dollars in spending, but I just wanted to point out um that this is only for projects that were in the 2026 CIP.

Um this is something that uh assistant director Hutchinson and I have been discussing on maybe showing uh capital spending in a different way, maybe in 2027, because um I I just don't feel it shows an accurate uh picture of what we spend on capital every year, the way that we do uh currently in the quarterly report.

Um and also I just wanted to mention that capital project spending is typically low in the first quarter because um construction season doesn't usually begin until uh late spring.

Um and at this point, I'll let uh assistant director Hutchinson um chime in with anything else that he wants to as far as uh the CIP.

Yeah, just to reuse I'm sorry, Director uh praise this point.

For the first quarter in 2026, inclusive of all budget years, all fund sources, we spent about 23 million dollars.

Right now we're sitting at about 45 million dollars.

When the controller was up here with their presentation and they had the capital slide and they showed an actual negative balance, that's kind of good.

It's almost the opposite of operating where we want to be dipping back into the old years, spending down the old balances so that we're really recycling the money quickly and that the residents are kind of feeling the impact of their taxes.

Um hopefully soon after they pay them to us.

Yeah, so like you said, uh our actual uh Q1 spending for capital was you said 26 million dollars?

23 million.

Or 23 million dollars.

So yeah, that's something that we'd like uh to uh change our quarterly reporting to show that kind of spending uh as well.

Um and I just uh wanted to show snapshots of the the capital spending from the quarterly report.

So but again, you'll see that we only have $37,000.

It only shows $37,000 in spending for the first quarter.

And that was in what was that in?

Uh my screen is street resurfacing.

Yeah, street resurfacing, yes.

And I'm just speeding through these slides, okay.

So and then finally, uh ARPA spending.

Uh the first quarter spending for 2026, uh, we spent about 4.2 million dollars in ARPA.

And uh so as of the this number is slightly different from what the controller's office uh presented, and this is because this is as a result of first quarter numbers.

Again, you know, um, so this is a little bit stale, but there was approximately six sixteen million dollars out of that original three hundred thirty-five million dollars uh that we received from ARPA that we have to get out the door by the end of the year.

And I'm fairly confident that we're going to be able to do that.

And uh that's all I have with uh far as the slides, so um, we can take uh questions now.

Thank you.

Um acting director price and everyone, I will um take questions in the same order as last time unless anyone has an urgent stop time.

But um we'll start with council person Charlotte.

Oh, and sorry, just uh let me interject quickly.

I have asked the clerk's office who has both the controllers and um this presentation in hand to distribute that um digitally to all council offices, so you'll have that be able to really study some of those slides.

Okay, councilperson Charlotte.

Yeah, uh thank you for um for the presentation here, and I know it's uh long afternoon of of this, but I think it's helpful for us to get a scope of this and to hear that 24 million dollar number um allowed here.

I just as a I I didn't know this.

You do the quarterly reports every quarter.

Are we required to do that?

Do we say it is it required that they're sent to us, or do we send it to the state?

Do we do we send it?

Uh we send a communication to city council uh with the quarterly report attached to it.

Okay, so it's like an internal uh code that a rule that we have amongst ourselves.

So that's all right.

We had to know if we had like a you know an accounting firm or maybe look at it.

No, and I can send you the section of city code that requires it.

I was just curious if we were required to do it.

It is helpful to see, and and I'm uh thank you the finance chair for making this a regular occurrence so that we can um as we discuss things, it's helpful to remember to keep in your head like that 24 million dollars are fine.

Um with that that's assuming that.

Um that the spending levels will stay the same.

Uh the one that I'm I'm kind of concerned about is last year we did half of Stop the Violence, um, and you know, we only put uh five million dollars towards it.

Is that this is assuming that we'd put $10 million dollars to stop the violence that we'd be at that $24 million dollar deficit?

No, this is with the five five million dollars.

Oh, so even with a five.

Yeah.

Even with a assuming that we would do five at the end of the year this year, or right for 2026.

Okay.

Um, we're running out of tricks here.

All right.

Um I mean, do you I guess just do you think I do want to say that um we are more conservative at the beginning of the year with our projections?

Um, and as numbers come in, um, at least in my experience in the past, we're working in the office of management and budget, um the end of year outlook looks a little bit better with each quarter.

So I mean that's how it traditionally is, because like I said, we're just so conservative at the beginning of the year uh with our projections, but you know, we get a better picture as the actuals roll in.

I mean, I think it's concerning.

We I think we've all heard about public safety over time and and the real crisis that that is.

Um, but it's concerning that you went through like every department and there's a there's significant overages in all of them.

Um, you know, is that being is that message being filtered through to other directors as well?

I mean, is everybody is everybody getting that message that?

Uh yes, yeah.

I mean, I know that the chief of staff, he's definitely um calling things out with uh different departments, yes.

Okay.

Because I mean we do have, I guess we've got the time now in June to fix some of these things, but we are, you know, getting getting closer and closer to the end of the year here.

Yeah, and we're we just started the budget season now.

Um so I know the CIP communication went out well over a month ago, and I think uh their proposals are due uh July 1st.

And we sent out the operating budget uh memo uh a couple weeks ago, and those proposals are due in a few weeks.

So uh yeah, we're gonna be uh starting to take a look at the 2027 operating budget very shortly.

Yeah, we're finishing up our capital budget requests, and uh, you know, I hope those are funded, but at the same time, makes some of this look kind of bleak here.

So um with that, you know, I just appreciate your presentation and appreciate the opportunity and uh your partnership all throughout the year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Warwick texted that she has a meeting, so I'll go to her next and then move on to others at the table.

Councilmember Warwick.

Yeah, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Um, yeah, just really quickly, this is actually um a question I asked in the last session.

So um so we have this so we're looking at you know projected spending and where we are, you know, and and budgeting.

There's a 24 million dollar deficit, uh, you know, because our expenditures are higher than anticipated.

Does that include the expenditures, like the rollover from 2025?

So things that we we we're we thought we were gonna buy in 2025, but we're actually buying now.

Yes, that is one of the reasons why we are projecting uh a deficit because there was such a large amount that was rolled over from 2025 to 2026, which essentially gives the departments the ability to overspend their adopted operating budgets.

Okay, so uh see this is what I'm saying, still a little confused.

So do we not reserve so like if I'm doing my home budget right, and I'm like, okay, I'm you know, I'm setting aside whatever amount to pay for, I don't know, you know, a new car, but I don't end up buying the car till next year.

I mean, that's still the same money, like are we not accounting for that?

That it's like, okay, but that was 2025 money, so that money should actually be extra that we haven't like in hand in 2026.

Um, I mean, are we not clarifying like where those two buckets are?

Like this was the money we budgeted in 2025, we still have it, so it's still there, or we just spend it.

So whenever I six budget, okay, so whenever I say that we're looking at a $24 million deficit, um, that is just quite simply uh the amount that we're we're going to be spending 24 million 24 million dollars more is going to go out the door than we're going to bring in in 2025, um, and that is on the budget side, but then the controller's office, whenever they were going over their uh presentation, uh they mentioned uh that the unassigned the unassigned fund balance of 166 million dollars um that factors in that that 36 million dollars that was reappropriated.

So they're just different ways of looking at it.

I don't know if that and this is more for for the public, like I'm not, and by the way, I I'm not trying to minimize the the fact that we are in a dire budget situation at all, right?

I just is it's really just for clarity for the public.

It seems to me that when we've communicated about the like, because when we say we're on a 24 million dollar deficit, right?

That makes it sound like we guess what I'm asking is when we are looking at the funds that we have, are we keeping let's so let's say there's money from 2025 that we didn't spend just because we didn't get around to it.

Are we as the city, as as you all as the budget office, like holding on to that money in a separate account, you know, maybe that's not the right word, but in a separate bucket to make sure that it is still there for us to buy whatever that thing was that we we were gonna buy.

Well, yeah, that's why we reappropriate it, and uh those numbers are in the restricted, or is it restricted or committed?

Do you know Jen?

Fund balance?

Probably committed.

Yeah, the committed fund balance.

Uh the control's office went over those different categories in uh in their presentation, but that 26 million dollars is accounted for there, and that is why we do the reappropriations because we don't want that that funding was budgeted in an operating budget year, and they may have got they may have contracts or purchase orders out for those items, and we don't want to penalize them in the upcoming budget by making them use their current budget year's funding for things that they had thought that they were going to pay for in the previous budget year, right?

Correct, I get that.

So, okay, well, let me ask it a different way.

The $24 million operating deficit, if we take out the rollover, so we're not counting money that you know we set aside last year and we just haven't gotten around to spending yet.

What is that deficit?

What is the deficit now if we take out those those rollover expenses?

If we didn't have the rollovers, we wouldn't have a deficit.

Okay, so I mean that's just kind of I mean, again, this is just for the maybe this is just in my own head, but that if it's not really a deficit in the way that some of us might think, I mean, I understand from an accounting perspective, it's a deficit, but it's not a deficit, like from somebody thinking, oh, you know, I have negative money in my bank account or something like that, right?

Like that's kind of how it sounds to the public.

Well, we're dipping into our rainy day fund to cover this money.

We're not, right?

This is just this is just an accounting term.

Well, one of the things I want to point out is that basically this is not uh factoring in those transfers that are outside of the expenditures.

So that's 41 million dollars there, that's not accounted for in these numbers.

Okay, I guess I'm not I'm not tracking what you mean.

Could you could you say that again?

Yeah, so um whenever I say that we're looking at a uh 24 or 26 million dollar deficit, that is only that I'm only saying that the operating budget, the items in the departmental expenditures are going to exceed the revenue that we're going to bring in in 2026, but then outside of that, we have over 40 million dollars, and those transfers, um, you know, the the stop the violence fund transfer, the housing opportunity fund transfer, um uh those items, those total 40 million dollars.

That's not included in that uh 24 million dollar deficit number.

So no matter what, we are looking whenever we factor that in, we are looking at a deficit no matter what.

Okay, and that's going back to this issue of not counting those transfers pass as expenditures.

Yes.

Absolutely.

But we said now, not for housing opportunity fund again.

I we we talked about this before, but with stop the violence in particular, though, that even though it's a transfer out, it's still money that we have, like it's still money that we can use here in the city as opposed to sending it to the URA.

Yeah, we still have some control over it, yes.

Right, okay.

Um, so I guess I guess I would just ask, I don't know.

I mean, maybe this is more for the folks in the media to kind of figure out how to communicate.

But um, I don't know, it does just feel important to me what we are saying.

Like we we are that the public understands that if we have a 24 million dollar deficit, that if we don't count money that we set aside and save from last year, we just didn't spend, we still have that money, and we don't have a deficit anymore.

Right, that 24 million dollars is really all just rollover from 2025, and it's on our books.

I understand it's on the books of like money that we are spending in 2026, but it isn't money that we are overspending per se, right?

Like over our budget for 2026, it's just money that we that we had left over that we kept, you know, piggyback, so to speak, or on 2025 Piggy Bank, and we're just happening to be spending it now in 2026.

So I I wouldn't normally do this, but I I want to make sure that I ask this council member so you hear it too.

Isn't it isn't also that it's it's highly unusual the amount that we are carrying over this year that that has ballooned year after year.

So that otherwise would be going into the fund balance, but we're just like holding on to this money and carrying it over and carrying it over, and that is ballooning in sort of a significant way.

Yes, that is correct.

Um, maybe I should have included that uh table uh here, but in the joint financial task force meeting, I had I did have a slide that showed how that number has ballooned.

Um, I think I went back to 2017 or something like that, and at that time that number was around three million dollars.

And so that number that has been reappropriated, it is ballooned to, well, from in from 2024 to 2025, it was even higher than the amount that we reappropriated from 2025 to 2026, but yeah, it is unusually large.

Yeah, that's actually an interesting question.

I'm glad uh Madam Chairman you bring it up because and I do have to run, but um, because that is right, that sort of points to like efficiency issues, like why are we having such a hard time getting money out the door?

And I'm sure there are a plethora of process issues within the departments that can be, you know what I mean, can be scrutinized around that, but um definitely something that we should that we are you know, the administration, and I'm sure that they are um looking at anyway.

That's all for me.

I do have to run, but thank you so much for letting me jump jump the queue.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Okay, councilwoman Gross.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um I just want to acknowledge how many kind of like important points that we have covered that make it harder to talk about what cash is where, what expenditures are where.

Just in the course of this one postage in the session, it's been like the difference between cash accounting and accrual accounting means that our budget looks different than the controllers look back on the budget looks because of different accounting methods that I think we brought up again just recently in Council Woman Morwick's thing the need to talk about transfers out as actually expenditures, which I, you know, I don't know when we fix that, or as soon as we fix it, it'd be better.

So then we can just have the same number in front of us instead of saying, well, it still is categorized as a transfer, but let's like all acknowledge that it's actually an expenditure, but we haven't like labeled it that way yet and all that kind of stuff.

And then I think I will spend more time on this: this idea that even though our let's say 2026 budget has a certain amount of expenditures approved for each department, they really are also there will be more money than we approved than that coming out of those departments because of last year's money still being coming out.

And that's the that's what I'm understanding is the rollover expenditures.

Um and then this last, and then also I'll get back to it's almost like the inverse.

In our capital budgets, we are actually looking at one year, but we actually need to look at many multiple years sometimes to see what actually total expenditures are, and it's something we go through every year with residents, at least I do, where they're like, why is my project defunded?

And you're like, it isn't defunded, it's fully funded, it was just fully funded in last year's capital budget.

It's not in there's no new appropriation, but the old appropriation hasn't disappeared, you know, that kind of thing.

So it's it's a it's a it's a very difficult conversation.

We have to constantly remind ourselves how to talk about these things.

Um, so back to the contract rollovers and their increase over time, even though we don't really have a slide in front of us or um a um a number maybe we do have a number for the let me ask it this way for the contracts, let's say that are currently rolling over from 25 to 26.

Do you know how much of them are for stuff and how much of them are for services?

Um, I don't have that figure for you right now.

I'd like to know absolutely because we're to you're just talking about the operating budget.

Right.

So it's not like a fire truck.

No.

That's like, you know, we ordered it four years ago, but we still don't have it, and that's that that's on that's on the capital budget, so it's not one of these.

I suspect, I have a hypothesis in my brain, that you know, 20 years ago we wouldn't have seen this much because really our operating budget was just actual living being payroll, like people on payroll.

And that because we do so much less with actual city employees and so much more with contracted services, subcontracted services, whether that's speed bumps, or whether that's um all of our paving, or whether that's um clouds-based INP services instead of literally rooms full of like typists on you know, typewriters, that you know, we have more potential contracts.

We have way more contracts than we used to, um, and so the business of each department is kind of like contracting and contract management in so much of our operating delivery of services on a daily basis, and so therefore, there's there's more potential of it to roll over.

Like twenty-five years ago, it would have just been like payroll that wasn't expended, and it just got swept into the general fund and it didn't carry over.

Does that no, that's right?

Does that make sense?

Yeah, no, it makes complete sense.

And I I think you're on to something there.

So I think we should maybe dig further into.

We can't do this afternoon, but like, what are things that we have subcontracted and are subcontracting about, just so we know, you know, for many years we objected to the how much money we spend on these technology contracts, right?

And yet we're we can't function without them.

Because the information isn't like sitting in index cards in a card catalog anymore or something, or you know, isn't in pieces of paper that are filed away as much as they used to be.

So um, and and it we're not alone, right?

It's not like the city of Pittsburgh has done something that badly compared to other cities, right?

But um we need to under get a grip on that, I think.

And yet there are still some ways, and you know, and in some way we were just talking about it a short while ago at council this morning about how you know we're relying on nonprofits to do recreation programming when we used to have employees who did it.

So similarly, um we have seen things like city steps built by subcontract that took seven years and a million dollars, versus city steps that our carpentry division did in 48 hours.

Um for much cheaper, won't last as long, because they're built of wood, but we really I think we should have a discussion.

Those are both, maybe one of them's capital budget, one of them is operating budget, but you know, to my point, you know, that there are some things that we should just have a separate discussion about whether we should be subcontracting them out or whether we just got into bad habits.

I always have this kind of you know, storyline in my head that when we fired 50% of the city government employees, which was I forget what year, you know, in austerity, then it became our habit to be like, well, we don't we don't have the employees to do these things, we have to subcontract them all out.

Have we do we have diminishing returns now?

Or or have we just done it like far too long so that it's just become a bad habit?

So I I just feel like that itself we can like maybe drill down into that one topic and see, and then we won't it'd be cleaner for budgeting, but also maybe there's some places where we're just doing things that actually aren't cost savings.

Separate, I don't know if you have any thoughts.

How like where should we start?

Is there, you know, I think of Domi.

Um as a place I think and I think we've done this, but they started off where like they hired, you know, contractors to do flex posts, and God knows how many flux posts we have across the city now.

Those are those like white sticks on the streets.

Now I believe we now can do those in-house.

Um, so that's an example.

Um, so like, yeah.

I think IMP is maybe a little more difficult of a conversation, but maybe our next conversation we kind of drill down on that, or maybe you guys can do some homework and it can just be briefing or something like that.

I don't know.

So um separately the capital budget.

Do you have any thoughts about how do we communicate kind of like here are all the concurrent projects and how much is left in the pot for each one?

Like no matter what budget year it was in.

So that people can kind of be like, oh, it's okay, my my steps or my playground's still getting built, even though there's you know, it's council's not talking about it in budget season, so any ideas.

Yeah, we've had um a couple different capital maps that have done pretty well that started off pretty rudimentary in terms of just showing um the location of the project.

Now we have a version that also links to any engaged page that also can pull some accounting data if we can batch it.

Um we had some communication issues though with the last administration where Domi was doing a competing capital projects map that was more robust in certain ways and definitely had better outreach.

Uh more people were seeing that.

So we kind of abandoned the larger capital one.

But um, that's a tool that's definitely available to us.

And then if there's more information we can add financially to any engaged page, we're always available to give that information to the project managers because to your point, the product the public needs to understand that if they're just not seeing it in that year's budget, doesn't mean it's not happening.

There's oftentimes multiple prior years of funding.

Sometimes when we're in like a planning or design phase, it's especially hard for the public to understand that anything is going on.

They're just not seeing a backhoe in their neighborhood making things happen so that that part gets difficult.

But I think using the existing channels we have in terms of engage um could be a great asset for demonstrating to the public that the projects are still ongoing.

Great, great.

Yeah, let's let's think of ways to do that.

Even if it's a capital project that, oh shoot, I'm kind of confounding myself, but you know, I have to give T.

Gilman a shout out for getting a roof on the concession stand of the Heth's baseball field, um, getting a new roof on the concession stand.

Because like we were begging like it was a capital budget request for uh years.

I don't even think it makes it into the capital, but I'm not sure it does because it was we did he did it in-house, just city employees.

But it still is a kind of capital asset, right?

We have every one of our you know, city buildings including including even the concession stands, um, are included as a as a an asset.

So I don't know where that goes, but it would be nice to be able to show people where where improvements have been made, no matter what budget you're 10.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's I think all I have, Madam Chair, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Conkill.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh I'll begin just piggybacking off what Councilman Gross just said, and this is really not your responsibility, but you're right.

I think we could do so much more in-house.

I think we have a robust public works now.

We have we hired, I think we put on 40 or so employees last year.

And a lot of them are anxious to want it.

The carpentry, for instance, instance.

You know, they they want to be part of a project.

I have a historic building in my district now that would require really a million or so dollars to really renovate the whole thing, but there are immediate things, like um fencing, like just cleaning it out, just that we can probably take on in-house, and I think we'll find we'll save a heck of a lot of money, you know.

I know just from being a general contractor for 30 years, when you operate and you you're subcontracting everything out.

Well, you're duplicating the price of things.

So I would love to talk with you as to and I just think of a variety of things, but mostly regarding public works what we could do.

Demo.

Demo.

We pay, you know, we sub most of our demo out.

I I think all of it, right?

So demo's fun.

I I think we have capable bodies and you know, I really do.

I I think we could get dumpsters, we have dump trucks, we have everything we we have.

And we're not hamstrung, you know, we're not waiting for a capital budget improvement.

We're not waiting for the subcontractor to fit this into their schedule.

You know, we could do it tomorrow.

So I like the immediacy of it.

But most importantly, I think it could save us a lot of money, and we're gonna need to look at finer things like that in order to save money.

I think we could do that in-house.

I can't speak to the tech part.

I'm no help there, but uh I could speak to you know, public works and I think the equipment and the and the personnel that we have and to utilize them better and to stop subcontracting everything out that we can do.

For instance, her, you know, Councilwoman Gross's concession stand roof.

So I and I have many projects like that that I would love to move on tomorrow.

And again, I think the immediacy of it more so as much as the cost savings.

But so uh I agree with you 100% on that.

We can make a list together and um talk about things I I have multiple things in my head that I think we can do in-house, realizing obviously that most of our departments are very busy and utilize to the nth degree, but if it means cost savings, the type of cost savings I feel like we can find, then that's great.

So just wanted to comment on that.

Um you had mentioned uh permits and licenses is down.

They're their uh revenues down.

Why is that?

Do we know?

Um, whenever I was looking at the individual um object accounts, uh it looked at like the primary drivers was uh uh business and residential permits.

So I I can I have the spreadsheet here, building permits.

Yeah.

And that could definitely be.

So reflection that we're not building.

They're people aren't building as much.

Or or not fast enough, because I mean I think the current economy has a lot to do with that.

The cost of goods is higher, so people aren't doing nearly as much as maybe they would have in the past.

I thought they always really they turned over a profit.

I mean we count on a certain amount.

It's not I know it's not an extraordinary amount, but but but that's down.

I'm just wondering what that tells us.

Um, okay, I don't I don't really need to know the answer to that right now, unless you have it at your fingertips.

But um, so I did want to ask of quarter one of twenty-six, you projected a deficit of how much?

Uh twenty-four million dollars.

Okay, and and a lot of that is expenses that we didn't anticipate, like the um unpaid health care insurance, for instance, correct that we paid.

Um, um are you referring to the the VIBA issues or you said health care insurance?

Well, uh unpaid retired health care insurance is I think there was sixteen million dollars or so that was brought over that we didn't anticipate in our budget, and we found out that the previous administration didn't pay the bill.

Uh no, I don't um that's not part of the expense.

Okay, no.

Um so no um that was in the budget reopener.

I think you're referring to um some of the um things that were budgeted uh with the VIBA trust fund.

Is that what you're referring to?

You're probably right, yeah.

Okay, all right.

But um no, um this first quarter, there was that ten million dollar water bill.

Yeah, that was until that was one, and also the cost of the storm, which provided a lot of overtime, 4.0 million, I think you said.

Yeah, but there's a couple hundred thousand dollars in outside council too in law that would should have been paid in twenty twenty-five as well.

Yeah, now I also know that the draft is going to uh accumulate a lot of overtime costs, and I know that was towards the end of April.

Is that factored in this deficit or is that figures in too late for that when that will be factored in next one?

Well, uh so most of that is going to be reimbursed by uh the two million dollars that we uh received from the state to cover the draft.

Yeah.

Yeah, but we don't know exactly how much.

Oh no, I have those figures.

I yeah, I can uh I can provide that.

So we have factor that in as a as part of the 24 million deficit.

No, because we're gonna be reading.

Exactly.

Okay, well, that also falls outside of the this particular Q1.

Right, yeah.

And this is uh the end of March.

That's what I'm saying.

Right, okay.

So it's uh so yeah, quarter.

Oh yeah, January, February, March, we're talking quarters, okay.

Okay, so okay.

Well, that answers my question.

Um the monies that we roll over that we were speaking of, um, even though we roll them over, but is all of that money accounted for for certain projects and whether it be capital or or operating, or is there some of that money is like canceled capital projects or abandoned projects?

Whenever we refer to the reappropriations, that's the operating budget owner.

So what those are uh those are amounts that were tied up in a lot of like professional and technical services contracts?

So it's already obligated.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Right.

Right.

But that's and that's why you don't factor it in because it's already.

And then there's also purchase orders uh were created, but we may not have received that item or paid for it, so those would roll over as well.

Yeah, so it wouldn't be responsible to factor them in and you're uh outlook because uh they're accounted for.

And we still have to put that money toward the whatever operating costs those are.

Okay.

Correct.

Okay.

And you project at the end of 26 deficit to be how many millions?

Um just looking at the budgeted expenditures and revenues uh um between 24 to 26 million dollars.

24 to 26.

And the first quarter was how many millions did you factor in for this all that is together.

Yeah, yeah.

But didn't you factor in for the first quarter of the deficit?

Wasn't there a number on that as well?

Like I thought the first quarter was higher.

Oh, um, so uh I mentioned uh in relation to the first quarter uh compared to last year.

So, so yeah, we had 30 million dollars more in expenditures in Q1 2026 than we did in Q one twenty twenty-five.

Okay, but we don't have a flat number as to you know, first quarter, January, February, March were in deficit of um we really don't budget that way.

I mean, we just budget for the year, so but we don't like really have a monthly budget set aside for uh for each department.

Got it.

That's really uh for me, it's uh very informational, um, little sobering cases, but uh yeah, at least I think we know what we need to do as a city, and I feel like we're trending in the right projection.

I feel we have a very responsible council and administration, so um uh we have some work to do.

But um, yeah, anyway we could save expenses we'll we'll be looking at them, whether it's cutting or raising new revenues, whatever it might be.

So, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

So we've covered a lot, I don't want to belabor too much.

Um I do want to bring up a couple things.

One is obviously we exited Act 47, which is like the words we don't want to hear in 2018, and although I know that we're not hitting any of the marks to um to be um, you know, at risk of entering that again, essentially, like for any public watching, like essentially city bankruptcy.

Um, if the fund balance reaches 13.7%, how close do we think that that brings us to just monitoring, like at what point do we start to really monitor and say, like, okay, this is starting to become a little bit more of an emergency.

I know with five-year outlooks, that's really where we're monitoring, right?

But is there anything else that kicks in to help us uh get ahead of any kind of um yellow flags, if not red flags?

Um, well, I think that point is now.

Um, so we've already, you know, 2025, we did end the year with a deficit.

Um, and there are a number of criteria for entering Act 47 where um uh after you reach three years of that, you qualify for Act 47.

So we have definitely reached year one of that.

And if 2026 shakes out the way that we're projecting, we'll be in year two of that.

And then um, if you just uh, you know, this has been mentioned uh a number of times already, but the trajectory of our fund balance just continually goes down.

So we will quickly in just a couple years um we'll be underneath that 10 10 percent fund balance uh percentage, uh, probably in as close as 2027.

And and if we continue just um as is we'll quickly deplete our fund balance before uh the next five-year period is over.

So we're there.

I mean, we were there a couple years ago, and we were really pretty concerned, but we're we're there still.

Yeah, we're just we're in it.

Um this discussion of the operating deficit, and yeah, I want to reiterate what you know is brought up by other members and what you've read.

This is really just looking at like money in money out versus budget this year.

There's lots of other factors at play.

There's lots of different ways that you can look at the numbers, but that is am I wrong in stating that this is down from a uh an improved from an initial 41 million dollar?

And I'm wondering if we think like how confident we are that this is going to remain because we're already well into quarter two um remain this amount throughout the rest of the year.

How does that usually go?

Right.

Like I I kind of mentioned this previously.

Uh like I said, the first quarter projections are always very conservative.

And um initially uh I at some meeting that we had with the joint financial task force, um we whenever we did a first pass through our projections, we were projecting a 40 million dollar deficit.

Um but then um I know on the revenue side, when uh Jen did when Director Gula, sorry, did a deeper dive into the revenues um and you know saw the way that things were coming in, she revised those.

So there was significant uh difference in those uh projections as opposed to that first time that we presented that.

And then likewise on the expenditure side, um, all the budget analysts did a deeper dive in all of their departments, and so those were revised as well.

And like I said, in the past, in my experience, normally in OMB, but um in other places that I've worked at, other municipalities or at Pittsburgh Water, um, the outlook tends to get a little better uh with each quarter.

So, but we yeah, we we tend to be much more conservative uh at the beginning of the year because we don't want people to be too confident, and so we want to be very cautious, and so um, yeah, like I said, uh we only have one more week left of this quarter.

However, the books still remain open for almost another month, so we won't begin our work on the second quarter report for another few weeks yet, but we'll have um a better picture uh in about a month.

Yeah, look forward to seeing that.

And then relative to the just the departmental over um departments that are over budget, is that is the the sheer number of departments that are over budget typical?

I just don't really remember or have a sense where I wasn't finance chair, and then what can we do?

What can you what can we do this coming year to better estimate needs, even if we're even if we don't have the funds that we wish we had, how can we anticipate needs better or budgets better going into the 2027?

Well, to answer the first part of your question, um, is this typical to have to be projecting so many departments to be going over budget?

In my experience, absolutely not.

Um that is a large number of departments that we're looking at going over budget.

Um, I and I think that especially whenever you look at that large amount of reappropriations, the departments don't even necessarily have the capacity to uh take on a lot of the projects that we have put into the operating budget.

Um if they did, like we wouldn't they would be finishing those those project or those operating initiatives in that budget year, but they're not, so they're rolling over into the next one.

So I think that that's something that we could do better, and um maybe we should tell departments like listen, you're asking for this much money for the upcoming budget year whenever you have 12 million dollars uh from 2025 that was reappropriated to 2026 and work that was not completed, um, maybe you should focus on completing that before starting these new initiatives.

So that's something that we could look at.

Sure.

And then just to if to remember ensure that I'm remembering correctly, I said it, but I I wanted to make sure I was right that if in previous years unspent operating dollars that like if they just it was a self-imposed deadline by the end of the year and they didn't spend it and they didn't roll it over like we're doing now, that would go back into the fund balance.

Was that typical?

Oh, yes, that kind of how we built up our fund balance.

Yeah, for the most part, um, yeah, at the end of the year, if funds, this is in the operating budget only, um, not the capital budget.

In the operating budget, um, if funds are not spent or obligated in a contract or um a purchase order, those unspent funds go into the fund balance.

We've been rolling them over the last couple years, but otherwise they would go into the fund balance.

Yeah, we're not, but um, I want to clarify we're not rolling over the entire unspent amount in each department.

So there's right, yeah.

There's still some that's going in correct, yeah.

For for those sort of like projects that they, you know, projects that they wanted to, software that they wanted to get done and they didn't.

Right, then that goes into the fund balance.

If they if they never got around to putting it into a contract or submitting legislation for it or issuing a purchase order, um, anything that's left over right there, that goes right into that fund balance.

I want to make sure I'm not getting confused.

Yeah, I don't I didn't understand that the rollover meant the way of rolling over cash.

I thought it just was rolling over obligations.

So again, just to put it in like smaller numbers.

If you had, if if city council in the 2025 budget had, you know, a hundred thousand dollar um allocation for again for DOME to do something, um and but it didn't get done.

And then in 2026, City Council approved DOME for like a $500,000 budget.

It's like there's a shadow $100,000 that's also going to be spent.

If I the dollars aren't actually there.

Am I misunderstanding that?

If I can jump in.

So at the end of the year, what operating analysts do for their departments is send out what's called an open orders report.

So we are going through and looking at all of the committed encumbered funds, which in order to do that, you have to go through the contracting process.

You have to have something, an invoice or a an agreement in place.

Only those funds are eligible to be rolled over, and that means you know, we put in a uniform order for public safety, but we haven't received the funds yet.

So we're not going to pay the money until the goods are in hand.

So we're still waiting for uniforms, or we um, you know, have a bridge maintenance contract that hasn't moved yet, either for supply chain or just you know uh timing.

So we rolled some funds over for Domi, for example.

Um, a lot of professional services for our tech has rolled over, but you know, unspent salary funds, unspent supply needs, you know, just general operating dollars, those do not roll over, they are not eligible to be rolled.

So the way I've written it down in my notes is like previous year budget contracts rolling over.

I think if we in the beginning of the presentation, we were like that's actually increasing the expenditures in that department over and above arbitrarily what the 2026 operating budget says it'll be.

Yep.

Correct.

So and some of the money may be in hand and some of them won't.

So for that Domi bridge maintenance, like they have a million dollars, I think, of money that they didn't get around to spending in 25, but they also have money for spending in 26.

So what might happen is they spend the 26 amount and the 25 amount, but in our mind, we only were thinking in this term of 26 dollars.

And it's especially a problem for city council and because the 2025 revenue all got spent, and so both the 2020 leftover expenditures and the new 2026 expenditures, we're trying to pay with only 2026 revenue.

Basically, correct, yes.

So again, I just want to make sure that like I can say it right.

Okay, I appreciate that.

I think the way that we've been framing what constitutes a deficit has changed from last year to this year, which is we're now looking entirely at the adopted budget result instead of the final budget result.

So we're saying we have what we think will go out the door plus what didn't go out the door last year, and incorporating that money into the baseline, but we're not saying that reappropriate amount needs to go to your point for the revenue that's only this year.

So, in a way, again, I don't want to give it back to the chair, but we in the 2026 budget, even though we reopened it, maybe a better practice would be to have like line items of like 2025 items that have carried over, like a call out for those.

The problem with that is that we don't know what that's going to be until uh the budget's closed, so until the the year has ended.

Yeah, but we have until the end of January to fully close, you know, the 2026 projected budget.

You know, we had till the end of January to do that.

So it seems like on each year, even though we vote it at the end of December, because we're sp we have to, that's how it's written.

Carryovers could be acknowledged, like in the in January of do those clarifying year.

Yeah, and that's typically whenever that exercise is done.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

The report is sent out at the end of the year, usually in early December.

And what we certainly can and probably will do moving forward is be a little bit more hands on.

It's not going to necessarily be left open to the department directors or their fiscal people to say, ah, we can close this, or let's leave this open.

It's no, you rolled this into 2026.

You have not spent it yet.

We are not rolling it again into 27.

Um this this happens very rarely, but sometimes we will find funding from not just the previous year's operating budget, but there will be funds from several years ago.

That is rolled over for multiple years.

That should not be happening.

Yeah, and that should be flagged.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

I I that helps me kind of understand not just where we are, but what we should do differently.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Well, and then I'll just we all we all know this here, but you know, the the fund balance is really important because even when we have projects that we would love to be able to do and love to be able to accomplish by put by saying, like, no, we don't have the capacity to do that this year.

We're gonna we're gonna not roll that over and say that we're gonna do it next year.

We're gonna put it into fund balance, and all the money that we can be putting into the fund balance is important because despite criticism in 2020 when the COVID pandemic hit, we were able to avoid major layoffs for six months because we had a fund balance to be able to pay our staff.

And had we been at the level at the minimum level, not just the like um recommended level, we wouldn't have been able to do that.

We would have had to lay off staff before the federal government came in and and saved us.

So um, yeah, anyway.

I don't think I have any other questions.

We've covered a lot today.

Is there anything else for members?

I really appreciate your time.

I really appreciate all the time you spent here both before you um came up to the panel and and during.

Um any closing thoughts?

I know we'll be back here in just a few months to discuss quarter two and see where this compares, and I think having a comparison to quarter one being extremely helpful.

Um, but any anything you'd like to close with.

Um I don't um any of you.

Okay.

All right.

Well, with that, having exhausted the business of this post agenda, this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think that's anything like that, and then I think that's anything like that, and then I think that's a good idea.

Hello everybody, I want to welcome you to the May.

Wow, this is this year's whole thing.

The May the RC meeting.

Um welcome everybody.

I'm gonna turn it over to Commissioner Connolly to um Mr.

Chair Connolly to get the roll call.

Okay.

Welcome to the meeting, everybody.

Um, can you start roll call?

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

Um I'll start with the roll call.

Commissioner Conley?

Present.

Commissioner Dr.

Hall?

Here, uh Commissioner Lewis, Commissioner Dr.

Cushman, Commissioner Siegel here, Commissioner Miss Barnett here, Commissioner Williams.

Commissioner Baltrop?

Present.

Commissioner Yussero.

Commissioner Porto?

Commissioner Gibbs.

Thank you.

We have six commissioners on the line.

Can we get uh the Commission Chair Connor to ask for approval of the minutes, please?

Can I get approved uh motion to approve um the minutes?

Commissioner Hall approve the April minutes.

I guess I can second.

Great, thank you.

All right, motion passes.

Can we open it up?

I'd like to open it up at this point for any public comment, please.

Okay, since there's no public comment.

Chuck, do you want to start with the first plan?

Yes, the first plan uh is 260501.

The South Tide Park Phase 1.

It's a construction project, and we have uh Jacob and the Prime on the line.

Commissioner Chair.

Okay, well, Chuck and I had our routine call prior to, and the this looks good, the participation looks good with the prime or the subs like to talk about it a little bit, how you got your participation.

Good morning.

Apologies, our camera's not working here on our um computer here, but uh as far as the participation, we're just a quick recap, we're about two and a half months into the project.

Oh, what's that?

Oh, yeah, south side.

Um, these apologies.

We're working on another one.

See, we um we got these uh subs from previous experiences here working on um Spring Hill Park and Enright Park.

Um we've just formed some relationships with with these folks.

Uh Cooper Trading has done a good job supplying inlet structures with us uh for concrete uh inlet structures and grates, and then um what's the electricity?

Yeah, Vantage Electrician will be new to us.

And um CRS contracting has been uh has been a solid contractor for us uh providing aggregate and slinging aggregate and uh mulch.

So at this point we have a good level of familiarity uh with these vendors and subcontractors, and we're confident I'm meeting these goals.

Um, let me ask you this.

Did you not advertise for this project?

Uh I'm I'm sorry.

Uh explain what you mean by that.

Did you just reach out to um contractors, minority-owned businesses that you've already done work with, or did you actually advertise this?

Uh we just reached out for competing bids, uh, quotes during the bid phase.

So we did our own research internally to um discover if you know our options.

All right, I'm gonna leave it up to questions from the other commissioners contracting green, no dollar amount.

Is that something that's included in a percentage?

We didn't I didn't hear the first part of your question.

Um is the case contracting is that the WBE?

Yes, C or S contracting is the WBE.

Oh okay, because there's there was no dollar amount beside it, like the other two greens 100,000.

There's only one.

Okay.

The WB, the MB is broken down, that's why they have it to do that.

Okay, so the contract looks really good.

Ms.

Varnett, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Oh, I'm just gonna ask a pause.

So that we just we're just looking at a a piece of it.

Of her screen?

The screen is not yeah, pause the just scroll up a little bit, please.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, the other way.

Okay.

Okay, that's better.

Yeah.

Yes, yes, better.

Is there any more c questions?

Comments?

I just was gonna ask.

So to Commissioner Conley's question, so these are people you've already worked with, and you just went to see what they bid on this contract, or did you expand your um good faith efforts?

Yeah, Vantage is a is a new uh partnership for us.

Okay.

Yeah, we've um usually uh in the past we've worked with a veteran-owned business called Ground Up Plumbing and Electric.

Um they do both.

We have a long-standing relationship with them, but in this case, uh, we had reached out to um I think three subcontractors for the electrical portion advantage, came back with the best number on it.

All right, um, Dr.

Hall, it does say under outreach, appause.

Can you scroll up a little bit more?

It does say that they that they had a pre-bid meeting and posted outreach on social media, open govern local newspapers.

So I'm satisfied with that.

Um it's just Parker, the way you described it, is good was gonna, you know, kick up an antenna, because we uh we do want to make sure that all minority and women owned businesses that are the in this sector have an opportunity to get involved and have an and get a leg up with some, you know, government contracts, yeah.

Okay, I can understand that.

I can't tell you that we got a handful of calls too um for folk from folks who are just aware of the project.

Oh good um, you know, during the bid phase, not after award uh calling to to let us know that they had a number for it.

But like I said, we our our internal policy is three um usually, and when we know we have a percentage to meet um those three vendors are gonna be uh you know, in that in in that category, whether it's WBE or MBE.

So yeah, I I know that we have a we have a couple tried and trues, but in this case, uh I know the aggregate we had gone to M M Lyme, which we had never worked for with.

So yeah, uh we're definitely expanding our net.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's that's the goal, and just so you understand where we're where we're the questions are coming from.

Yep.

Understood.

Okay.

Any any other commissioners have have questions or comments for the for the primary subs?

The numbers look good.

Yeah, they do.

We we commend you for that, Parker.

Yep, absolutely.

We get the intent and uh we've been happy to to do the the public work that may and meet the requirements.

Okay.

Thanks.

Okay.

Can I get a motion?

Make a motion that is approved as written.

Can I get a second?

I'll second.

Great.

Can we do a roll call for?

Yeah?

Commissioner Conley?

Aye.

Commissioner Dr.

Hall.

Hi.

Commissioner Lewis.

Aye.

Commissioner Cushman?

Commissioner Siegel?

Aye.

Commissioner Ms.

Bardnet?

Hi.

Commissioner Williams.

Commissioner Baltrop.

Present aye.

Commissioner Yussero.

Commissioner Porter.

Commissioner Gibbs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The plan passes as presented.

I'm going to turn it over to Bosna to update us on the five ITQ contracts.

Yeah.

Thanks, Chuck.

So we had uh Commissioners, five ITQ plans.

Um, two of which were from DPW and run from uh and three from Domi.

So the first one here is from DPW.

It's the DPW Fourth Division site redevelopment and new maintenance facility.

This is a change order, and the prime here is civil and environmental consultants.

There are two uh subs on this.

Uh one is a WBE, one is an MBE.

Uh the project uh the change order is for 88,700, out of which 10,082 goes to the WBE and 2,090 to the MBE.

Uh the next one is uh Domi uh work order, which is traffic signal design for Steuben Street, Lawrence Avenue, Mifflin Road, and Interborough Avenue, General Robinson Street and Sandisky Street.

The prime here is Trans Associates Engineering Consultants, which is a WBE.

So this is a hundred percent WBE work order, and the project cost is 131,392.

The next one is DPW, it's a change order for Warrington Recreation Center Building Restoration.

Uh the prime is Dennis Astorino Architect.

Um and this change order is for 31,697.

The next one is um is a dome work order.

It is for um construction inspection city um 2010 2026 paving program.

The prime is SAI Consulting Engineering engineers and the uh cost is 97,770.

The last one here is a Domi work order for Emerald View Park, it's for surveying and uh the prime here is civil and environmental consultants, it is for 34,900.

That's it for me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pazner.

Um, can I ask everybody who is not a commissioner to please drop off the call now?

Thank you, and um we appreciate you attending the meeting, if I know.

Can we ask Lloyd and Barker to drop off the meeting, please?

Thank you.

Okay, thank you guys.

Umers.

Two things that I want to update you on.

Did you look at that list that I sent you of the DPW projects up and come?

I'll put it in the same email with the uh synopsis and everything.

You guys have a chance to look at that.

I didn't, but I will.

I apologize.

There are seven or eight projects coming from DPW this year, and that's this DPW.

I'm gonna get the list from Belling today.

Okay.

I say I say this to say one of these months we're gonna be cranked, right?

One of these months is gonna hit us.

Okay.

There's a lot of federal funding money we're still waiting on for some of those projects.

Um, but they all are supposed to go this year.

Okay, so that's the seven from DPW and it's a big five or six from Belmie at least.

And I'll say, Hey Chuck.

Yes.

Um, if if in fact they do kind of bottleneck in the one meeting, uh-huh.

Just just let us uh let the commissioners know with a couple weeks advanced, just so people can make a uh better effort to be on the call because we'll definitely want to have a quorum for that meeting and make and make sure that we set the time aside for it to be an hour.

We're still gonna make an effort to keep it to an hour just as out of respect for everybody's time, not just ours, but the folks on the call as well.

Okay, I will do that, Commissioner Chair.

Thank you.

Um also from me, has any of the commissioners heard or talked to Commissioner Williams.

I don't know how I could get in touch with her.

Because the information I have on her is kicking back now.

The email address that we had doesn't get to her, and we tried the phone number that we used to have on her, and that's coming back unlisted, also.

Where did she work?

Oh Charles Street Valley.

Somewhere on the north side, yeah, somewhere on the north side.

I know.

Charles Street Valley something, yeah.

She was on another, she was on another board.

Yeah, non-profit, which was yeah, but um this is what I I'm I'm trying to figure out.

Yeah, um, if she wants to stay on our commission, that's fine.

But if she's not, I'm gonna start putting it for another commissioner.

Um okay.

Well, we definitely want to try to have a conversation with her prior to doing doing that.

So I would like to.

Did you try chat GPT?

Yes.

I tried a few avenues to get in touch with her.

And I was hoping one of you guys might have talked to her or seen her.

Yeah, I don't have any of her personal information, but I do remember I remember seeing her at an event in Riverview Park last summer, and she was there as a representation of is it maybe it was the park, maybe it was with Aaron Tobin, maybe it was the um parks.

The park conservatory?

Yeah, all right.

I'll try them.

I'll give them a try.

See if they have a better contact for maybe a personal email.

Yeah, I will.

I that's that's a good starting point.

Thank you, Commissioner.

I will try that.

Sure.

I tried all the other places, but I will try that.

Yeah, just try a different avenue, maybe.

Okay.

Um, other than that, like for our office, I just wanted to let you guys know that the big thing is that there's going to be a meeting where there's going to be five or six, seven, right?

So I wanted to let you know that in the annual Williams thing now.

Is there anything from from you guys for me that I need to work on?

No, the only thing I would from me personally, the only thing I would say is if in fact that it does come up that it's gonna bottleneck, like I said, just it's gonna take you know more of an effort to make sure that the the um participation is at is at the at the quota, right?

Yeah, well, yeah.

I understand to bring it in in front of us.

Like just really do I you guys do a great job, and I don't need to tell you how to do it, but that's gonna keep that that'll keep it running smooth more smooth.

Okay, sounds great.

I have one thing, Chuck.

Yes, sir.

Um, I have a meeting with uh with the mayor tonight at our church, and uh construction is one of the topics that he wants to discuss.

And I was just wondering whether or not things are running smoothly from your end in terms of uh the commission.

All right, yes, so far, so good.

The mayor's been really good to us, uh our team so far.

Um so yes, we're so far so good, so far so good.

So and uh he's giving us support too, so which is good.

And I and I want to say I I you know I live here on the north side, so I and I had friends up from Tampa, I attended the draft, and uh we gotta hand it to the administration that draft was phenomenal.

I mean, I just was so impressed with the organization.

I m I made a I sent an email out to um Jason Brown from Carnegie's um Brookayman Science Center, and I said, You guys ran that like a Chick-fil-A drive through.

I've never seen it.

I was I I just am delighted.

I'm a pretty hard person to impress, and I was thoroughly impressed by the entire thing.

Yes, that's what I was giving right to say, Dr.

Hall.

Uh, both the mayors did a great job.

The mayor and Danny did it by getting here and Mayor Carnaval putting it together, but it also they both deserve really big props for that.

So, yeah, they did they well, the whole month of April.

You couldn't move around in our city.

From that to the marathon, the month of April should have been a really bad city.

So I haven't seen the numbers on the revenues yet, but I'll I'll get those later probably next week.

Anybody else have anything?

Well, I think I can make a motion to adjourn.

Yeah, make I'm can somebody make a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Um, I don't know.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm not going to come back.

Um, I don't know.

Good morning, and welcome to the standing committee's meeting for Wednesday, June 17th, 2026.

All council meetings will be live streamed on the city's website, and for guest speakers, please do not turn off your microphones.

Our first order of business is roll call.

Will the clerk please take the roll?

Mr.

Charlotte.

Mr.

Coghill.

Ms.

Gross.

Mr.

Lavelle.

Here.

Mr.

Mosley.

Mrs.

Salonetro.

Here.

Mrs.

Warwick.

Mr.

Wilson.

Here.

Mrs.

Strasberger Chair.

Here.

Five members present.

Thank you.

Our next order of business is to amend the agenda.

Can I have a motion to amend the agenda?

So moved.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Amendment is agenda is amended.

Before we move on to public comment, I would like to note that we are joined by a special guest today, uh, Ruslin Rashechnik, who is the vice mayor of Yidnet's municipality, Republic of Moldova, has is joining us today.

He has been a guest of Allegheny County Treasurer, Erica Breslar's, and uh, we're very honored to have him joining us today.

Thank you for joining us, and welcome to um City Council of Chambers.

Thank you.

Profanity will not be permitted.

Please state your name and neighborhood for the record, and you will have three minutes to speak.

Our first registered speaker is Dylan James Basquew.

I'm here to ask the council to ban age discrimination for adults, people eighteen and older in accessing Pittsburgh's streets and public rights of way.

Yesterday, many community members in the South Side got notice that Pittsburgh police will institute a curfew starting this weekend that goes beyond minors and includes adults aged eighteen through 20, banning them from walking down East Carson Street between twelfth and eighteenth street on weekend nights and instituting mandatory, warrantless bag searches for everyone for the offense of walking down the street of even going to their homes.

They're doing this under the excuse of an event designed to recur every week at the exact time that large numbers of fully adult young people come to enjoy Pittsburgh's businesses in the area, including at venues open to all agents.

An event where the public wasn't informed about its surveillance and restrictions until the 11th hour, with no website but a month-and-a-half-old Instagram page that will just so happen to need that exact amount of street every week, no matter how few people brave its eight-foot walls and surveillance drones that will harass neighborhood residents and demand they produce their papers just to get to their homes.

The best advertisement the organizers could offer yesterday, and I quote, we don't want it to feel like Stalag 17.

In this House of Freedom, this temple of liberty, the yellow-bellied, pusilanimous pretense of an event to justify a crackdown is a sacrilege.

This council should say no to Shalog 17th Street.

Before anything else, it should protect the right of every adult to walk down their streets.

It should ban age discrimination for adults in accessing the public right of way.

I will be here every week to make sure you each know about the full adult citizens in my community that are being denied their rights in their own city.

If you do not fix this, do not ever tell me you didn't know.

There being no further registered speakers, we will now take comments from those in the audience wishing to speak.

Good morning.

Carlino Giumpolo, Panther Holland.

My comments are directed to council members Bob Charlie and Barbara Warwick, the political faces and voices for the vulgarity and graffiti field illegal skate park in Panther Hollow.

They have justified the illegal skate park by saying our playground was not being used.

However, before any construction began, these fundamental questions should have been asked first.

What does a community want in their playground?

What is the will of the community for their playground?

Those questions were never asked.

Last Wednesday, when I was speaking here about this issue, Charlie began laughing and talking to the council member next to him.

These actions indicated this issue and its impact on our community don't matter.

Charlotte's actions in Warwick's continued support underscore one of the fundamental roots of this problem.

Respecting the dignity of others requires first respecting one's own dignity.

This truth can be more fully understood when taken to an extreme example.

A sociopath doesn't respect his own dignity and therefore does not respect the dignity of another.

For him, taking another person's life is no different than stepping on an ant.

When I began these testimonies, a staff member for Charlotte told me to back off because dozens of skateboarders came before this council in support of the skate park, whom Warwick then praised.

However, that kind of mob mentality with the support of misguided politicians, never justified wrongdoing against our community.

Five days ago, at around 8 30 a.m., I once again heard the distinct noise of skateboards crashing onto concrete while inside my home.

I went to the skate park and told the skateboarders that their noise was penetrating my home.

One of them replied to me, expressing the same attitude of Charlotte and Warwick.

He said to me, I don't care.

When politicians do not respect their own dignity, and therefore do not respect the dignity of others, support a mob mentality with all of their wrongdoings, and just don't care.

We suffer the horrific injustice of the illegal skate park.

With the resulting shame and moral humiliation to this council, the mayor, his administration, and the city of Pittsburgh.

Shut down the illegal skate park in Panther Hollow.

Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Okay.

My name is Yvonne F.

Brown.

I live at 715 Mercer Street.

Um, that's in uh at the top of Beffrey.

I've been bringing this sign for years.

But I want to explain it, if I can.

What is it?

Uh we were having politicians in the building.

Katie Rover's tires.

I didn't know it.

And as I was walking down the hall, here comes the county council, the Witt Watson.

He's the beacon, a large black man.

And I said, hey, sir, you remember me?

I said, uh, I came to you because we needed the bus to go down to the bottom of the hill.

Um, I said, and you didn't do anything, so he stopped and he he's a loud man.

I said, Are you hollering at me?

But he explained, no, I will call Pat Authority.

So he goes out the side door.

He lives across the street from me.

Okay, so as I come down further, there's a white woman at the door, and she stops me and explained that she's John DeFasio's wife.

John DeFazio was the president of a college council at that time.

He was running again.

And when she said it, I said, no.

I said, because the woman, the woman, I said, he's this, and he's very disrespectful.

And she said, not my John.

And I said, yeah.

So she grabbed me and she ran and we took.

I'm talking to John.

She said one way, I said the other.

We're all in a bunch.

And I felt someone, I felt a president.

I looked up, that was DeWitt Watson.

And when we all looked around, he screamed and he was hollering at me.

I don't appreciate you telling the president of coffee on me.

Well, the two, we were all shaking, and they were saying, No, no, DeWit.

She's not talking about you.

She's not talking about you.

And I ended up saying they do me like the politicians do me like this all the time.

And I walked away.

Okay, so here's the poem that I had read.

This was the ode to John D.

John's aphasia.

Mindy said you better come back.

She hopes you'll keep your promise to come again.

She said you and your wife know how to groove.

And I think Wendy's learning some new moves.

Don't be afraid, the old people see that frightening scene.

Boy, was the wit loud and mean.

I, Yvonne, thought you and your wife was going to have a heart attack.

The look of fright was a real setback.

But the residents of Katie Lee were Everstar say, hey, John, we have your back.

We won't let the wit attack because if necessary, we will tie them up in the back.

And that's a fact.

So please keep your promise.

Although you are a politician who like the others give out promises that they do not keep.

They said that um, wait a minute.

Oh, but look how Paduto made um did not consider my community.

They said that the every new police chief would go to every community, but Paduto and Gross made the decision that didn't come.

I was almost finished, but you see what it is about.

Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Good morning, Special agent sunshine, Cherise Taylor, the missing child.

Lord, thank you for that juicy ruby red grapefruit this morning.

It was juicy, y'all.

You don't know about the red ones.

Please.

Get one, peel it, and just eat it.

They're very sweet this time of the year.

What are you standing on?

What y'all standing on?

If you are not standing on God's promises, you are standing on sinking sand.

Nobody else promises to supply you with all of your needs through their riches and glory in Christ.

Why?

They can't.

Only he can.

Proverbs 26 says.

Proverbs chapter 20, verse 6 says, Many a man claims to have unfailing love.

But a faithful man who can find Laval.

Our problem today is those who take an oath with God for the positions like judges or the Bell's position.

President City Council.

But take bribe money to pervert the course of justice.

Here's a message with that.

Bribe money will never pay for a funeral.

When God takes you out, not if.

So there's nothing you can do behind his back or in his face that he don't know about.

And that's one of them.

And I'm bringing this morning because we have judges and lawyers and people in high profile positions in our government who are taking bribe money to pervert the course of justice.

And I promise you, it will be returned to cinder.

They will reap everything they have some to pervert the course of justice.

Proverbs 22 verses 22 through 23 says, do not exploit the poor because they are poor.

Because they uh wait, do not export the poor because they are poor, and do not crush the needy in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will plunder those who plunder them.

That's what's happening.

That's why I can still stand here before you, healthy, saved, celibate, and determined to change this world and make it a better place, especially for these children out here.

That's why I'm starting this project.

Uh a night of sunshine, a day of sunshine, a day of jazz, a night of jazz with sunshine.

I need dancers.

I need the little ones, them to come out.

The little ones, eight, ten, ten, and younger.

Please bring them to me on the north side on Sundays between hours of 10 and 1 at the Overizing Building.

Please bring them to me in Jesus' name.

Give us aid against the enemy, oh Lord, for the help of man is worthless.

In Jesus' name, amen.

My name is Junique Brown.

And I'm going to speak from the heart today.

As a black woman, a mother, and someone who grew up in these neighborhoods.

And I know, growing up, I always wonder why we didn't see the veterans' pictures.

But when you drive through certain neighborhoods of Vicksburg, you see beautiful banners lining the streets, faces of veterans, fathers, mothers, heroes.

It's powerful, it's dignified.

It tells you that people that people who live there matter.

But when you come into our neighborhoods, Homewood, the Hill, Hazelwood, McKee's Rocks, Duquesne, those poles are empty.

Not because we don't have veterans, not because we don't have the life, not because we don't have stories worth honoring.

They're empty because we can't afford what other neighborhoods can.

In some places, families pay 70 to no more than 200 for matters that stays up for years.

And our communities, families are being charged for the $500 for less than that.

Because we only get six months.

And I spoke to someone that had a banner up, and it says that banners will be subject.

The dates could be subject to change.

And she paid for a banner years ago.

And um, her banner was broken down before the six months after she saved up that money to get her son up there.

And that's not right.

So I created faces the Freedom Expert because we deserve the same beauty, the same dignity, the same visibility.

I'm sorry, I messed up today, as every other neighborhood of the city.

Our veterans deserve to shine just as bright.

Our families deserve to see their loved ones honor that priced out.

So today I'm asking for the same authorization that other banner programs already have, the ability to use city-owned roles so I can work with Bombing, give the permits, coordinate with UK lights, and run the program the right way.

I'm asking you to approve a resolution that allows faces of Freedom Expert to operate a moral manner program in the public right away.

So our communities can finally have what the others already enjoy.

Give us the chance to make our streets beautiful.

Give us the chance to honor our veterans with the same respects.

And my time is done, so please I'm asking for that so I can start this program because I found out that I gotta ask y'all for something.

Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Are there any further speakers?

Seeing none, we will move on to our standing committee's agenda.

First committee is the Finance and Law Committee.

New papers, Bill 592.

Resolution providing for the sale of certain property acquired by the City of Pittsburgh at Tax Sales.

Items A through W.

6601 Lyric Street, Council District 9, 0 Deerie Street, Council District 9, 6929 Bennett Street, Council District 9, 234 East East Elizabeth Street, Council District 5, 2369 South 18th Street, Council District 3, 716 McLean Street, Council District 3, 616 Industry Street, Council District 3, 604 Beltsuver Avenue, Council District 3, 606 Beltsugar Avenue, Council District 3, 608 Beltsuver Avenue, Council District 3, 612 Beltsuver Avenue, Council District 3, 138 Wabash Street, Council District 2, 821 Fairedale Street, Council District 2, 2128 Lowry Street, Council District 1.

0 Chautauqua Street, Council District 6, 2729 Perry's Ville Avenue, Council District 6, 3622 Granada Street, Council District 1.

Zero Granada Street, Council District 1, 0 Ganada Street, Council District 1, 3632 Granada Street, Council District 1, 514 West Prospect Avenue, Council District 2, 516 West Prospect Avenue, Council District 2, and 520 West Prospect Avenue, Council District 2.

Your motion.

Motion approved.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 592, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Bill 593.

Resolution repealing an item in resolution number 226.

Effective April 10th, 2024, in order to rescind the sale.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 593, please say aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Bill 594.

Resolution repealing items and resolutions approved on various dates which authorize the sale of property in various wards of the city of Pittsburgh due to an incomplete of incompletion of sale, items A through A.

223 Wick Street, Council District 6, 20 221 Wick Street, Council District 6.

750 Cherokee Street, Council District 6, 723 North Matilda Street, Council District 9.

5220 Kincaid Street, Council District 9.

5301 Broad Street, Council District 9, 5410, Kincaid Street, Council District 9.

6406 Dean Street, Council District 9, 7135 Vassar Street, Council District 9.

1116 North Mertland Street, Council District 9, 7154 Apple Avenue, Council District 9, 7220 Idlewild Street, Council District 9.

640 Arlington Avenue, Council District 3, 211 Estella Street, Estella Avenue, Council District 3, 19 Lafferty Avenue, Council District 3, 401 Sylvania Avenue, Council District 3, 417 Michigan Street, Council District 3, 0 Wilhelm Street, Council District 2.

2662 Glasgow Street, Council District 2, 826 Vista Street, Council District 1.

1202 Seidel Street, Council District 1, 1406 Dixon Street, Council District 1.

514 Ferry Wood Street, Council District 2.

2108 Mazette Street Mazett Place, Council District 2.

215 Suncrest Street, Council District 3, 12 Zimmerman Street, Council District 4, and 2129 Belleville Street, Council District 4.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing null and please aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Filed in the Common Please Court of Allegheny County and the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

This is one that the Law Department has asked us to hold for a week.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of a one-week hold for Bill 595, please say aye.

Aye.

Bill be held.

That takes us to invoices.

Is there a motion on invoices?

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of invoices, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Invoices are approved.

Interdepartmental transfers.

Is there a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of transfers, please say aye.

Aye.

That moves us to P cards.

Is there a motion on P cards?

Motion to approve.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of P cards, please say aye.

Aye.

P cards are approved.

That takes us to public safety and wellness committee chaired by Councilman Coghill.

New papers, Bill 584.

Resolution authorizing the mayor, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Director of the Department of Public Safety to enter into an agreement or agreements with the Allegheny County Department of Human Services for the purpose of receiving funds to deliver professional services and to purchase operational supplies and vehicles in an amount not to exceed $800,000 for the city's Office of Community and Health and Safety to provide expanded outreach services to individuals who experience homelessness and housing instability.

Second.

Brief discussion, thank you.

I'd like to call Laura.

Is it Laura you want to speak to?

Yeah.

You can call this.

Yeah.

Come on off there, Laura, if you would, please.

Oh, there's yes.

Sorry, I said that while you were talking.

That's okay.

Hi there.

How are you?

Doing just fine.

How are you?

Good.

First, I want to thank you for the incredible work you did underneath the bridge.

All credit goes to my colleagues, Adam and Emily.

I don't know who else would do such a job.

So I find you to be very useful and your team, of course.

So no, no, thank you for that.

Uh I don't really have any questions.

I think Councilman Charlotte and I will defer to if uh Would it be okay if I so my colleagues Nick and Banner here, and I think that they're best expert to speak to this, so I'm going to be up here then.

Do you think they're not for the bank?

Uh so that would be Ben Benjamin Talek and Hudson, and I'm Laura Dragowski.

You're Laura Drogowski, you are.

And gentlemen, if you will introduce yourself for the record, please.

Sure.

My name is Ben Talek.

I'm the program manager for the RITS program.

And my name is Nicholas Hudson.

I'm the program manager responsible for operations.

Okay, well welcome.

Uh Ben, thanks for all the work you did.

And you know, we'll get familiar with each other, but um, yeah, we go back a long way in discussing this difficult problem, and I hope to speak to you both actually today or some point soon over some other issues.

But okay, that's it for me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Wilson, followed by Councilman Councilmember Charlotte.

All right.

Was someone be able to explain what the bill is?

Yeah, do you want me to go for this?

Uh so the uh we applied for this uh a few months ago with uh the county with the Department of Human Services.

Um I think uh some of you might actually understand some of the history here even better than I do of like the need for expanding our current services into much greater hours.

Right now we work Monday through Friday, eight to four.

This is expanding us until eleven PM during the weekdays, and we will be hiring a part-time shift at one to nine on the weekends.

Um basically everything Ruth is doing now, just expanding those hours uh on the the mobile side on the street side.

Great.

I saw the announcement for this, so I just want to you know highlight this.

I've I figured this is what it was, but um so yeah, we waited this way for this for a while, at least in conversation, at least I think you know, it was always it's always the comment story, you know.

Like if only PLI could get some sort of grant for this as well to go to work at nighttime.

That's true.

Uh so uh so in the in detail though, this means that we will have the same amount of uh workers working that worked on the day in the evenings and on weekends, or to some extent.

So right now we have like currently we have sixteen total staff on the roots team that are uh police zone based.

Uh this this grant in total will be hiring ten people.

Six of those people will be full time for Monday through Friday at 3 pm to 11 p.m.

shift.

So there'll be a slightly less amount of people on the street, um, but still have the ability to canvas the entire city.

Uh the one important note about this really specifically for you is that this grant uh if I don't know if people read the RFP, but specifically does not cover site towers, so we won't be able to expand uh any drop-in sites with us.

So those hours may are being maintained the same correct, yeah, same hours that they are currently.

Okay.

So for the grant, it's 800,000 a year, and how long is the grant?

Uh currently it is one year with the opportunity to expand.

I'm sorry to ex uh to renew.

Sorry.

What what is the who typically received those funds prior to this?

Sorry, did you have something?

I was just going to clarify that it's actually technically not a grant, and that's for the purpose of um being respectful to our partners with the county.

We were awarded this through a competitive process.

But sorry to interrupt.

Okay, so it's not a grant, so it's um just direct funding.

We're on contract.

Yes.

Okay, we're on contract with the county.

And the contract can it's it you know it could be renewed on an annual basis.

Okay, I understand.

Okay.

And was this are they just moving around funds because they see this as uh you know it wasn't like someone was awarded the same work last year?

Because we maybe they did it, maybe there were.

I don't know.

Do you you know the context of this?

Like was like what other nonprofits because I know they had like three of them that they would fund, I think, approximately.

Does that mean that those three wouldn't be funded and how the city would be funded?

So for this specific funding, the RFP went out.

There were multiple organizations that applied for it.

Two different organizations were awarded a portion of the uh I actually forget the total RFP uh award, so that the funding got split between the roots program and the bridge outreach program, which will be covering the uh rest of Allegheny County since we can only cover those city limits.

Right.

Okay.

What do you think this means for the uh the city?

Uh that's a great question.

I I mean I'm super excited first just to be able to expand all of this.

The I I don't know that people understand quite how much like the root staff works uh way beyond their their regular hours, especially on moments of extreme weather, particularly with this really harsh winter we had.

Uh so we had people pulling long hours, we had people working on the weekends just to make sure people are safe.

Uh some of these cleanup efforts that the roots team has helped.

I mean, I in particular prefer to do those after hours because you don't have to compete with rush hour traffic, which is just a minor thing.

Uh but what I think what I hope is um, which you yeah a lot of you have been involved in this too is like really building up a relationship with Allegheny County.

They've been such a great partner.

I think they see the value in roots.

I think this really solidifies our partnership with the county and hopefully opens us up for more partnerships in the future.

I think that's great.

And I uh I never, you know, I'm glad you explained it the way you did and expressed your your thoughts about the the job because I never felt like the positions that were, you know, that uh do this work are nine to five positions.

So it's good to know that people will be you know continue to be paid throughout throughout those hours.

So thanks for all the great work that you do and looking forward to seeing what this um, yeah, how this can just help all communities.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council person charlin.

Uh so great news about this.

Um I do want to ask though, are we going to be hiring more people or they're gonna is this gonna be personnel changes because of the expanded hours?

Is that the game plan?

Yeah.

So if I understand your question right, and please correct me if I don't, um the positions are entirely new, so um, the ten positions that are the mix of the part-time and the full-time are in addition to the current daytime staff.

Okay, so we'll be seeing uh I'll be seeing you know additional faces in zone three.

Cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And council person, to add, I think we have staff who would be very interested in working extended shifts uh the way that our staffing is presently, and this is true for a lot of people in the city.

We don't have the ability to have straight time over time anything.

It's a comp time approach, and we do have staff that ultimately hit the comp time uh ceiling at 144 hours, at which point any time they're working after that is uh you know, uncompensated beyond their salary.

So I think that is a another measure that, you know, if in the future there were a mechanism to do that, we have a lot of people who have two jobs.

I think would be very interested in pairing that back to be able to be committed to doing this job fully uh for longer hours, but that's not something that's possible at the present time, and I think that very fortunately there are a lot of really excellent professionals out there that we feel confident will be able to fill these these roles.

Right.

And I other than just extended hours, is anything functionally changing in the programming?

Just not necessarily.

Uh so I I mentioned earlier they'll be like just speaking Monday through Friday right now.

We'll we'll have that uh uh expansion to into the 11 p.m.

hours.

Um everything else primarily remains the same.

There'll be a group of team, we'll have a phone number that people can call to be able to access these team quickly, uh, primarily for like uh business owners um and public safety officials, and the teams will be able to dispatch, they'll be out and about in the community throughout those throughout those hours, but are really hyper mobile so people can respond to anything.

Um I really appreciate it, and thanks for coming on the table.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Gross, followed by council member Morwick.

Uh thank you for being here.

This is really great news.

I'm so grateful that we're expanding our outreach even more.

But I really is like listening to all the questions at the table that they were a little in the weeds.

So maybe we should just for, because it's been a few months since we've kind of like reminded the public of what all the city is doing.

And I think it's really important to remind everybody.

So maybe give us the 30 second elevator pitch or whatever, like give the you know a summary of like what is this program that we're talking about.

Yeah.

Yeah, so well, one uh before the elevator pitch, like uh OCHS Office of Community Health and Safety as a whole uh has a whole bunch of different programs and roots really like uh intertwines with all of them.

Uh but the nitty-gritty of of the roots program uh we were we started in 2020 as part of Allegheny Health Network.

Uh we uh I think actually Laura and the Paduta administration had seen like homeless people in general were having lots and lots of emergency calls on them when they weren't necessarily doing anything criminal in nature or they just needed a welfare check.

The roots team was designed to try to reduce the amount of engagements that that people were having with public safety when they didn't actually need those engagements.

So if somebody needs a welfare check, you can send an outreach worker.

Chances are we already know that person, we can it we can bring a sec uh any any type of medical care, whether it's psychiatry, behavioral health, substance use, uh, um, if I didn't say medical care, uh we have the VA.

Uh we actually partner really heavily with the animal um animal welfare being human animal rescue and animal friends.

Uh one of my employees right now is actually transporting an animal to get some care at human animal rescue as we speak.

Uh but the idea was making absolutely every service available to people uh as easily accessible as possible.

So people weren't walking throughout the entire county trying to find an available shelter space or find a find a doctor that would treat them.

I'm just gonna summarize that as invest the city investing in care rather than policing for people who need care that don't actually need policing.

So thank you.

I just think it's really important.

It's really it's a really big shift that we have invested in and you know it's now a pretty large part of government here.

How many people we have in OCHS and then roots?

Can you just remind us?

We have over 40.

Great.

So 40 people in OCHS, and then the roots again.

I always forget the it's like reaching out.

Reaching out on the streets, yeah.

Yes, thank you.

Um so that's more particularly um for people who are outdoors, and so as a subset of OCHS, that's how many people?

Uh in all included in the number that Nick gave, but we have six 16 of those people are on the roots team.

Yeah, okay.

No, I think this is just again a how just a just a summary reminder.

So and then this is I'm just reading the title of the bill.

It talks about operational supplies and vehicles.

So if that were like a if it's a one-year thing that needs to be reapplied for, would be I can I can imagine like okay, we've like run out of the operational supplies, but what the vehicles are they still there or they're leased, or like how does the do they go away after a year?

Like, how does that work?

So the vehicles we will um go through a process to purchase and uh for context, I work with uh number of our uh our portfolio of state and federal grants.

So typically we will work with a specific funder per their roles of retaining the vehicle or uh disposition process, um, given that the Office of Community Health and Safety has generally and successfully strive to purchase all of our fleet via non-city funds through a lot of state and federal grants.

Um we would certainly uh make sure that we would go through the process for this funder as we do with other grants that approach sunsets to retain that equipment.

Oh, so we might have to give it back, and so you're gonna have to figure out how to retain them.

So I I don't think I'm following.

This is like a new fuzzy area that I'm not understanding, I think.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Um sorry if I'm not articulating it um efficiently.

So I want to be respectful to our partners at the county regarding their procurement process and any process that that they might have.

But I also think that I want to highlight that um in the RFP, the option to renew is um indicated based on the performance of the proposer.

And I think one of the reasons that we were able to successfully receive this award is because of the amazing work the Roots team that we currently have does.

It's really thanks to the staff who do this already every single day.

And I think that it's also based on the fact that through Ben and the efforts of so many of our other staff, we've been able to build a really strong relationship with our partners at the county.

So I think that there would be a process that we would have to go through and investigate with the county at the end of the one year if um this were not to continue, but I feel very optimistic based off of the amazing work that our staff have done that they're that we're very well positioned in order to continue this into the future.

Okay, I'm gonna I'm satisfied with that for now.

I mean, I I we also do direct contracts for services.

So I can imagine, you know, if we were doing um an almost million dollar contract with someone in vehicles were purchased, we'd we would think those were our vehicles.

So I mean, this you know, I'm I'm I'm content that the it's kind of a co-government thing that we're gonna work out and figure out um the best way to provide the services right between the county government and the city government.

We're just trying to provide the services.

So I I'm I'm not quibbling with that here.

I'm just I was just confused.

And so in the $800,000, it doesn't really list professional services as well.

So this is also um uh staffing, it's covering part of the operational costs for the okay, yep.

I got it now.

I just kind of had missed that part, and I thought it was just about for hard costs, but it's also self costs.

Okay.

Those are all my questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Warbeck.

Um Yeah, thank you.

This is great news.

I'm excited for you all.

Um so when when folks I mean, we uh in my district, we don't have too many folks who are unhoused or whatever, but we do um the oftentimes we'll get folks who are panhandling who may or may not be on house, right?

They're just pay and um uh and we get calls occasionally, you know, about that.

Sometimes in the Squirrel Hill Business District, there's uh a few folks in Hazelwood.

Um so if someone calls 911, I mean, now that now that the hours will be expanded.

If someone calls 911, does that get routed to you, like to your team?

How does that work?

Uh, specifically speaking for the roots team, no.

Uh it is currently up to, so we are not connected to police radio.

So it is currently up to officer discretion who's receiving the call to physically call one of the roots team members.

Uh that's how we have operated since the beginning.

Um, one of the great things about I mentioned, like all these other uh programs in the office.

We do have the co-response team, which their press releases in an hour uh to announce the the relaunching of the program.

Um but they are connected to police radio, and so during the day those calls can be routed directly to our team uh to to the office, I should say during the night that is going to be a work in progress.

Okay, so um, oh, did you want to add something?

Go ahead.

I wanted to say I think you're honing in on something though that we're also pretty focused on.

We don't want this to be a situation where people have to have kind of the insider baseball perspective to know who needs to be who they need to call to get the right response in any given environment.

Um so that's something that we're focused on understanding both from a communication perspective to our partners in public safety, who's on at any given shift at any given time, what are the resources that are available, but also we have had some great success from some of our colleagues with dispatch, and we'd like to get to a point where there's both a dispatchable opportunity for the right response, but also that our partners across public safety, council, government know how to get a hold of us whenever needed.

And so I think we're we're trying to figure out what that looks like logistically since we have a lot of specialization across the department.

So I'm glad you mentioned it, and I hope we can update you on something clearer very soon.

Yeah, that would be great.

And I mean, I know for myself, you know, there's a few sort of, you know, small cast of characters, they know who they are, you know.

So if I call 911, I know to be very specific, right?

About what what I'm calling about.

Um, but maybe that would be helpful too for the public just in the interim.

Do you know what I mean?

Like if you are calling about someone who isn't actually harming anyone or doing anything, you're just worried, right, about their well-being, to be very clear about that in your 911 call, and then that way it gets to the right folks.

Yeah.

Okay, that's it.

Great news all around.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Are there questions?

Councilman Mosley.

Yeah.

Thank you for uh for being here and thank you for the the work that you do.

Um my first question is uh one will first my comment is you know, this is you know, um, you know, really exciting news, and you know, always good to see you, Ben.

Thank you for all the work um that that you do with with my office could sort of uh particularly around um you know the challenges that we have at the Homewood Avenue, uh Frankstown Avenue corridor, and I guess that'll leak um my line of questioning today, um, you know, one of the things that and you know, thank you for going on that walk with uh my my chief of of staff.

Um do you see um you know this added capacity uh that we have, you know, um, given the primary issue around the the unhouse also assist us um in a and not only is like supporting them but identifying those structures you know in the community that that become a hotbed uh for for squatting.

Um and like have you given that much thought and how you know in particular um the folks from the roots program um you know can work with our office as well as PLI, um, you know, to identify those structures and in in neighborhoods that become hot beds because we're seeing kind of an uptick in that um, you know, as we focus on the Homewood Avenue, Franktown Avenue corridor, uh on the parallel streets as you go north toward Lincoln Lemmington, there's more activity in in those vacant buildings.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think there's a there's a few angles to this that I that I see with the current team and this expansion.

Uh so you mentioned PLI, uh, our uh pins team, persons in need of support actually set up a monthly standing meeting with PLI that Roots attends, and they uh I think we share information both ways about information we have on like squatter properties and increase in uh squatting in various locations.

Um we saw quite a considerable increase in people uh taking residence in abandoned properties uh last summer and the summer prior.

Uh the other the other thing, particularly with the Homewood area that we've been talking a lot about, which I think this is where this partnership with the county is going to be very valuable, is uh just what Roots is seeing.

We are physically boots on the ground and being able to advocate this is what we're seeing in this area and this is what's needed.

I think you probably know there was a shelter in Homewood.

I just talked to my team about this a couple days ago.

There was a shelter right in Homewood on Hamilton Avenue that closed a little over a year ago, I believe.

Uh that team has had very significant challenges getting people to access shelter outside of the Homewood area since that shelter closed because people who are homeless in the area are from the area and don't necessarily want to leave.

We've been able to get people physically into shelter, but typically they leave after a couple days just to come back to the homewood area.

So we want to continue to be able to advocate.

This is what we're seeing, this is where how many squatters we're aware of, this is how many people we know are rough sleeping on the street, and hopefully be able to advocate for getting more shelter spaces in in the area where they're going to be utilized again.

And I and if we could talk you know a little bit about uh more about the partnership with the county, which I think um, you know, is is a really positive, you know, development.

I think something that you know we all I'm sure, you know, uh how to put our civic education hats on when we talk to our constituents about you know, cities of the second class and counties of the second class, and then you know, the unicorn, which is Philadelphia city and county, and and how all that that works.

How you know before uh the creation uh of routes and OCHS, you know, the city of Pittsburgh didn't do anything that could even uh remotely um be described as social services, you know, and even that you know, is limited just because of state statutes in our designation as as as a city of of the second class.

So you could you talk a little bit about this partnership with the county and then what we can do uh around this table to continue to support that because you know, we do have a department of human services, which many do not know.

Um that one department has um a larger budget than the entire city, and you know, so that's really you know uh the partner that we have to lean on when we talk about these challenges that folks face in the neighborhoods around the city and they call our offices wanting us to do something, but really, you know, that partner um that we really need to bring to the table is the department of human services.

If you could talk a little bit about that and um the progress that you've made and how we can support that continued progress because we know to address the challenges that we have in our city with the folks who are most vulnerable from that perspective.

Uh, you know, we we need to have an active partnership with the Department of Human Services.

Yeah, I I completely agree.

I uh and please if you have something uh offer, please jump in.

But uh one of the things.

I've been working with like uh in partnership with the county at many previous uh places of employment I've had.

I think my work with uh with council is still fairly new, so I I think I'm still trying to figure out exactly uh how to utilize you to all of your great powers.

Um but I I know we've seen some changes within the homeless system, particularly from council person and having his post agendas with Aaron Dalton, uh the former director of DHS uh and and some of their other crew that was joining that uh when I uh DM SPK.

It's a lot of done.

It has been a minute.

They they have a new director now, so um but I I mentioned before, I think one of the biggest um uses for all of this is going to be the advocacy piece and and bringing uh awareness to what we're seeing.

Uh we've been very successful that with that in the increase of shelter capacity at Second Avenue Commons.

Um both uh our team lead for downtown Tim uh Laura and myself stayed out quite late after the winter shelter closure and uh immediately called the the current director, acting director uh uh Jetka to talk about the need for increased capacity.

Uh after that conversation, he did increase capacity uh almost triple uh what they what they had initially envisioned for that space.

Uh I do think that was directly because of our advocacy in that uh our the roots team is actually also having heavy involvement if people weren't aware uh leadership for second avenue commons is transitioning from Pittsburgh Mercy over to uh the uh the county.

Um the roots team is uh training all the new employees, they've been involved in the hiring process, and I think that just uh really highlights the the trust that our team has built with the county, and I hope to continue that and be able to involve you guys in that going forward.

Yeah, thank you.

And and and my last question is just if you could talk, you know, a little bit about the kind of uh, you know, the one the intersection of of issues, you know, because you know, a lot of times, you know, we just look at down how's and uh you know and housing instability, but you know, we have found in in our ongoing work over the last year around the um the homewood Frankstown uh working group that that we convene, you know, is that and and I think you alluded to in some of your comments earlier is you know, um, you know, we're seeing drug addiction, you know, you know, mental health, um, and obviously, you know, um some of the some of the criminal activity um, you know, that that's also um you know associated with it once we've you could kind of talk about kind of the the issues that kind of stack on because we're not really just addressing uh homelessness and unhoused, you know, I mean we're addressing like a myriad, um, you know, uh of challenges and then some of the best practices, because sometimes we get calls, you know, from constituents or even in some cases community leaders, like, well, you should just, you know, you just pull up a van and you know, just sweep the block and just throw everybody, you know, in a van and you know, and take them somewhere.

Um, you know, can you talk about kind of you know, um what are what are the best practices to really have long-term solutions?

Because we can, you know, pull up a bus and you know, throw a whole bunch of unfortunate people onto a bus and take them to some undisclosed location.

Um, it's been tried before, not by us.

You know, and um, you know, and and yeah, you know, people come out on the block and no one's out there, but you know, if you could talk about, you know, why uh you take the approaches that you take and you know, why it's so hard to do things that actually are meaningful and significant, and actually give folks on a path um to turn their lives around and uh and improving their lives.

I think that would be helpful because you know I know my office gets a lot of feedback on well, why don't you just run out there and you know, probably take an approach that we might have seen in the 1970s or 80s, um, but not one that you know science and and studies have shown is the most not only to holistic and humanistic, but also the most effective way to you know to deal with these kind of problems.

Yeah, I uh I'll try not to ramble too much on this one.

Uh I have a lot of a lot of thoughts.

Um to start.

Uh I I had a little bit about my background.

I I had no intention on ever really getting into this field long term.

I actually started as a volunteer back in 2010 before I was hired in 2013.

Uh one of the things that kept me in here was to to actually see the uh amount of suffering that people have while existing on the street.

Uh that's only made so much worse by the community, the general housed community that doesn't understand what people are going through.

Uh I had seen early on in my career people showing up to her office with feet that were covered in blood because they had been handed a uh a form by somebody that's like, here's all the available shelters, go to them and you'll get a bed.

And so somebody would physically walk to McKeesport because they didn't have money to get on a bus and then walk from McKeesport after they were told they didn't have a shelter down to down to the north side to try their shelter over to East Liberty to try another shelter.

Um this had been happening so much, and I I you can't just hand somebody a piece of paper and expect that all of these services are just gonna do whatever they can to pick people up and and help them through the system.

Uh people can't reliably just walk into a shelter and get a bed, which I don't I'm not blaming the shelter system at all.

I just think we didn't need a better capacity.

If somebody's told there's if somebody's standing downtown and you ask a random person and say, Oh, I know of this great shelter in McKeesport, they helped me out and they walk all the way to McKeesport and find out they don't have a bed, they're kind of out of luck.

Uh it's the same thing with the hospital uh some of the hospital systems as we have people willing to get treatment, walk in, but they're told there's going to be a several month wait.

Somebody wants substance use treatment, there's not a guarantee that they're gonna have a bed in the substance use treatment uh any of the facilities today, and sometimes it's uh several weeks wait.

Uh what we've done is bring a group of people together.

We do not put an emphasis on uh educational background for the people that we hire.

We we have found that people who have had some relation to this work and are able to relate to people on the street are the ones who have been most successful, uh the ones who can actually spend the time, build relationships with people, gain the trust of people, and then be able to physically walk through the door of a shelter or a hospital or a drug treatment facility and advocate for people's needs.

Um we have filmed uh not filmed, geez.

Uh we have formed uh lots and lots of partnerships throughout the entire continuum.

People, I think what you were getting at too is uh uh people typically who are experiencing homelessness have uh touched uh nearly every system.

Uh, like uh ones that I've mentioned, mental health, substance use, the justice system, and so all of these outreach workers end up becoming like the basically jack of all trades and hope hopefully master of more than none.

Uh and we've now formed relationships with Allegheny Health Network, partly thanks to us actually being employed by them for uh almost three or three years before we moved over to the city.

So we still twice a week have uh one of their physicians who actually runs their uh Center for Addiction Medicine.

He comes out on the street and is able to like directly help people who are interested in substance use treatment.

Uh we work very closely with uh one of their psychiatrists uh who's also able to come come outside and and connect with people that way.

Uh I mentioned animal care earlier and like bringing those people.

We have veterinarians that physically come on the street with us.

So actually being able to form these relationships and and uh introduce people, be do the like uh uh what we just call the warm handoff and be like, this is a person I can trust, you can trust them too.

I'll be here through your appointment, I'll be here through your intake, I'll help you with whatever you need to help with.

And we're not gonna leave until you actually get access to what you're looking for.

Um that's what I think is most important about this program.

Thank you.

Briefly, if I can add, I think um what we see from all of our colleagues is that people do make progress in the direction that they want to, right?

Things get better for people, they get healthier, they get safer, but that the public generally sees you know, some people on a recurring basis, but more often than not, just a constant flow of people who are visible.

And I think councilperson Wilson in particular and probably council person are hearing about this from their constituency, which we understand.

Um, and so I think that the challenge is that our teams can be incredibly, you know, successful by whatever designation that is, but that there's an ongoing number of people who have these unmet needs, and and there's a bit of like a cursive competence.

The better our team does, the more people are gonna, I think continue to work with them, which is good.

So there's there's just a few things that I think have been really profoundly important that have been difficult.

One in particular, again, council person wilson is very well aware of this.

This delicate balance is we need a place to meet people, um, and yet it is really difficult for the communities that surround those those places.

And I I don't, I I wish we had a very simple answer.

NIMBY is real, the the benefit that the services have also has some some drawbacks as you try to develop a business district and and make sure that your community members have what they need across the board because health and safety just applies to everyone.

Um so I think that finding a place for people to go, and Ben oversaw the downtown site has a profound benefit.

And when we look at some of the challenges that that are occurring on Frankstown, um, some of those individuals need a place to be that would be inside that would be dignified there.

They could get meals where they could get something, you know, warm or cool, depending on what they need.

Um, so having a physical location can sometimes alleviate or ameliorate some of those challenges.

But of course, the flip side of that is the is that the community raises concerns about drawing a population of people in.

And I think that's gonna have to be like an ongoing conversation.

We figure out how to address, but it does mean that when police find someone, they can you know who needs that help, they can bring them to us uh when EMS does, when fire does, when partners do.

So that does create some mechanism for us to do that.

I think the second thing is we're here to try to help in any way we can to create that balance with you too, because I think that this is an incredibly compassionate group of people who want to see all of their residents healthy and safe, and that means not compromising for anyone, which is a very difficult problem to tackle.

So we appreciate you know, Chief of Staff Turner and your staff's team on the uh time on this, and you know, we want to be more responsive, and I think adding to these teams will help us to do so.

Um, yeah, so thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us today, and thank you for your work.

I look forward to continuing to work with you.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you.

Any further discussion?

I want to thank you.

The next person to thank you for all of your work and congratulate you on this award.

I know you'll put it to very, very good use.

So, or this uh this contract, apologies.

Trying to use the right language.

Um there being no further discussion, all in favor of Bill 584, please say aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Thank you.

587.

Councilwoman Gross, would you prefer to read the next two bills together?

Yes, please, thank you.

Bill 587, ordinance amending ordinance number 11 of 2026, effective May 14th, 2026, entitled Ordnance Amending and Supplementing the Pittsburgh Code Title 4, Public Places and Property by adding Article 9, use of city-owned or operated spaces, chapter 495, prohibiting immigration enforcement in city owned or operated spaces to update the article number to 19 from 9, and Bill 588, ordinance amending ordinance number 12 of 2026, effective May 14th, 2026, entitled Ordnance Amending and Supplementing the Pittsburgh Code, Title 4, Public Places and Property by adding Article 9, use of city owned or Operated spaces, chapter 495, Protecting community spaces to update the article number to 19 from 9.

Motion to approve brief discussion.

Second.

I will be fair to this one, too.

So yes, thank you all.

This is like one of the most classic scriveners errors you can imagine.

So as the clerk read it was changing it to 19 from 9, and those are in Roman numerals.

So in some place in all of the emails of the drafts back and forth, and again, thank you to the law department for helping us.

So that's that's it.

That's the total changes.

Further discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of bill five eighty, bills five eighty-seven and five eighty-eight.

Please say aye.

Aye, affirmative recommendation.

That moves us to public works and infrastructure committee chaired by Councilwoman Salon Netro.

New papers bill five ninety-one.

Resolution providing for a reimbursement agreement or agreements with Verizon Pennsylvania LLC for costs associated with the city steps project where Verizon Pennsylvania LLC would be responsible responsible for paying 100% of the actual expenses involved in certain work to be described in the agreement at an amount not to exceed $6,500.

Motion to approve.

Second discussion.

Councilwoman Gross.

I would like uh just a description of what this is because anything that has city steps in it catches my attention.

Thank you.

Uh good morning, everybody.

Jeff Scalikan, Director for Domi.

Um, this is our federal uh funded city set projects that we've been here a couple times to talk about.

Um these are the steps with the five locations for um they are 56th Street, Potomac Avenue, Clairehaven Street, Dixon Street, and Ottawa Street.

Um this particular bill is for um there's several Verizon um facilities on Potomac Avenue, and this is to relocate those facilities while we in or in construction for the steps.

So Verizon.

Like polls and wires, yes.

Oh, right, yeah.

So we have to have an agreement with um the utilities, and there's another one coming on with um Councilman Mosley's district for pen um water for the same thing to be.

So we have to go separate contracts for every project, and it's only temporary removal.

No, it'll this will be permanent removal because we're gonna when we do the steps, we're gonna put it outside the so the polls will be a little bit outside of the steps.

But like in the same general, it's not like suddenly somebody else's steps are gonna have a poll that didn't use to have a poll.

No, people will still have their Verizon.

Yes, that's also important, right?

The two things for sure.

Um then they pay for the whole six thousand five hundred themselves.

So we do the work and they just reimburse us.

Okay.

Got it.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks for the explanation.

Further discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 591, please say aye.

Uh, affirmative recommendation.

Thank you.

Land use and economic development committee.

Councilman Wilson.

Supplemental new papers, Bill 609, ordinance amending the Pittsburgh Code, Title 9, Zoning Code, Article 1, Introduction and Establishment, Section 902.03 Zoning Map to Rezone Parcels 1P 28, 29, 36, 40, 40-1, 40-102, 40-103, 40-104, 54, 42, 43, 44, and 4B 1301 from the GPRA grand view public realm subdistrict A to RMU residential mixed use and to amend the height map for those parcels in the Mount Washington neighborhood.

Motion is send the planning commission for report and recommendation.

Second discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of bill six oh nine, please say aye.

Uh aye.

Affirmative uh bill will be sent to planning commission for report and recommendation, deferred papers, bill four eighty-one.

Resolution approving a conditional use application under the Pittsburgh Code, Title IX Zoning, Article 5, Chapter 911, Section 91104A64 to Passport Academy Charter School applicant for authorization to operate a school, elementary or secondary use at 1835 Forbes Avenue, block and lot 11 J 56 zoned UPRB, Uptown Public Realm, District Birst Ward, Council District Number Six.

Motion to approve.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 481, please say aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Bill 8.

Ordinance amending and supplementing the Pittsburgh Code Title VII, Business Licensing Article 7, Service Businesses, adding a new chapter 768 short-term rental housing.

Motion to hold six weeks.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of a six-week hold for bill eight, please say aye.

Aye.

Bill will be held.

Bill 564.

Ordinance amending and supplementing the Pittsburgh City Code Title 4, Public Places and Property, Article 7, City Rail City Real Realty by Amending Chapter 454 to update Pittsburgh's Adopt a Lot Program.

Motion to approve.

Second discussion.

Councilman Gross.

Yes.

We had a meeting yesterday about this and the bills that we haven't read yet.

So if with the chair's indulgence, we can just discuss all of the bills that are coming up in Councilwoman Orwick's committee as well.

Thank you all.

Could you introduce yourselves for the record with your names and titles?

Sure.

Andrew Dash, Deputy Director of City Planning.

Mackenzie Pluskovic, Senior Planner, City Planning.

Isabella Gross, Principal Environmental Planner, City Planning.

Thank you all.

And again, I appreciate all the work.

As um Councilman Colica wasn't here last week, and um I expressed my enthusiasm for this kind of what I see as a really kind of next step as we continue over the course of the last 10 years at least to like expand our city resources time and investment in both the space but also personnel and resources to help people grow food from everywhere from allotment gardens, which are the ones where like you're leasing a little plot and like taking the food home when you grow it, to um over the last five years.

We've had an increase in my district that I know of of collective gardens where neighbors are using sometimes city property, sometimes not, having volunteer nights, growing uh food, and donating the food to our hungry households.

We've had one in Lawrenceville for a very long time on not city property, um, the Lawrenceville Organic Garden, where all of the food is donated to Lawrenceville Hungry Households, and um we also have one in Polish Hill since the pandemic that we've been supporting in my office that donates all of the food to um I think it's Tibile Kitchen.

I'm sorry, some blank tab on that long term, saying that right.

But um and these are uh a different model because you could just go at the collective gardens just volunteer there for like for you know an hour of your life.

Maybe number two of again, but there are garden leads and stewards who you know we've got like serious growing plans, like entire like farm production.

I've got some people who were previously professional farmers who are the gardeners on public property um now and who are planning out um productivity and working with city staff to get technical assistance and supplies.

Um, and so that's just that's a little bit of the background.

I know councilman colleges other things he wants to talk about, but why don't you refresh us since we talked about it last week?

Kind of like give us the kind of um overview again.

Sure.

Uh so this package of bills is really to uh provide reform to the stewardship programs the city offers.

Um, you know, one of those being the adopt lot program, which now has been in existence for 10 years, um, you know, which is a temporary reuse of uh vacant properties uh initially for gardening purposes.

We are expanding uses, that's the main difference between uh in this update.

Um, you know, then uh formalizing the greenways program.

The greenways program has been in existence since 1980, but at the same time uh has been where we have gone to city council to designate a greenway with a singular steward that has been a community steward.

We are using this uh to allow us to get into you know kind of more detailed agreements with either community organizations uh with citywide nonprofits or others uh to be able to expand the opportunities for stewardship, make it easier for people to steward or even or volunteer in these spaces.

Um then we are also creating a city farms garden program, which is using underutilized uh spaces within the city's parks and greenways uh for uh urban agriculture, food forestry, or other similar types uh you know of uses that are able to have longer term leases than things like our adopt a lot process in and program do.

Um, then we are getting a small grant uh to do uh to work for which we got from the Open Space Institute uh to do some targeted acquisition, um, you know, because although people see these city, the these hillsides across the city and they think the city is the owner of all of those properties uh in reality.

There is very mixed ownership, um, a lot of long-term tax delinquent or abandoned properties that are not under the city's ownership in those spaces.

And so using that small grant, you know, it is our intent to try to go through and understand where there might be places for targeted acquisition through things like the treasurer sale or the sheriff's sale process, depending on the parcel.

And the last piece of legislation is really in coordination with that garden program, which is uh changing some language in the city code to allow for removal of uh things from city parks and greenways.

Um, you know, this this works for two purposes.

One for the garden program.

So if people are growing food, they're actually able to take the food off site and donate it, sell it, whatever it is that they're looking to do.

Um but this also, you know, was done in coordination with city forestry who have um, you know, have looked for something similar relative to a lot of their work on tree maintenance and uh, you know, in this in the city's parks and greenways, and the ability for folks to take that away for other purposes.

I turned my mic off, sorry.

Um so um thank you for bringing up the agroforestry.

So I mentioned last week.

So we again we've had like these, you know, five years ago, the city just had these like allotment gardens.

We had four of them, and those were the only things that the city really put any energy or effort into, you know, fencing or wood chips or something like that.

Um so that was four, and they're on city property, and they were kind of like DPW controlled.

The ones in my districts have I have two out of the four, have hundreds of people on the wait list.

We just cleaned up the wait list from for one of them by like working through and like contacting people on the wait list, and some of them literally, this is a quote.

No thanks, you can take my name off.

My kids grew up and left home.

That's how long they were on the wait list.

You can take my name off now, right?

It's been like 10 years that I've been waiting for a plot and this allotment garden.

Um, uh I guess I'm curious why the camera like doesn't even, I'm like not even on camera at all.

Just FYI City Channel.

It used to be the back of the heads, but okay, maybe the cameras aren't working in the front.

Um, so um we have expanded those um programs.

I think, by not those specific sites.

Thank you.

Um, not those specific four sitesights, although I do think there is uh this is would not be in this program, but I think there's still a need for the kind of city managed sites where you you're only responsible for your leased plot.

Um and then we've also seen citizen-led expansions of these other ones that I was talking about, the collective gardens.

Um since the pandemic, um, I want to say there's been a real increase of interest in agroforestry and food forests, which aren't exactly the same thing, and I have to rely on my staffers to give me the exact difference.

Um, but we have um added some in my district alone at multiple sites on mostly city property, over 200 native Western Pennsylvania edible foods, mostly nuts and uh berries, so trees and shrubs.

Um people are now moving on to um uh ground cover and flowers.

Um we just I think it last late last year planted sunchokes, which is a native western Pennsylvania sunflower that's a small flower, gets six feet tall, but you eat the tubers, and at the grocery store they're called Jerusalem artichokes.

Um so but it's a it's a native flower in our region.

Um elderberry, which people buy expensive cough syrup at the grocery store, is native to our area.

The black elderberry is what you make the syrup out of.

And it just I can tell you, I've got one in my yard, it just spreads.

You have to like hack it back.