Good morning and welcome to the pre-agenture interview for Monday, October twenty-sixth, two thousand twenty-six for the Chief of Pittsburgh Fire Bureau, the D Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Director of the Department of Innovation and Performance.

And I'd like to thank Mayor O'Connor for the appointment.

And I'd also like to thank Chief Gilman for his leadership and passion for the city.

And I'd also like to thank the staff of the Office of Management and Budget for all their hard work over this challenging year.

Hi,

Matthew Davis, acting fire chief, Pittsburgh Fire.

I'm in my I've been here about three and a half years.

I was hired as the assistant chief of community risk reduction.

And I was there for about 19 years before I came to the city of Pittsburgh.

I want to thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you.

And let the record reflect we're currently joined by Councilman Schrosberger, Councilman Carkill, Councilman Charlotte, and Councilman Warburg is online.

And we'll just start at the beginning and go down the line.

Councilman Schlossberger.

Thank you.

Thank you all for being here today and for your willingness to serve in these positions.

I think I guess I'll go a little bit down the line as well.

At IMP, we're there are some exciting projects afoot, I know, and some exciting opportunities that I think you had worked on with our prior INP director.

And I'm wondering how you're thinking about well, I first like to ask what are your what are your biggest what are your biggest priorities for for the department currently.

You do a lot.

So with that as the sort of backdrop, what is what is your biggest priority right now?

So the biggest priority right now uh I would say with um the budget challenges um one of the things that I have been uh talking with the staff about is leveraging some of the existing resources that we have.

You know, a lot of times there is you know a need comes up and the knee-jerk reaction is to look for something, some new thing that that does that.

And so what I have been encouraging is to, you know, let's first check what we already own, what we already have.

Uh we do buy a lot of things that uh have more capabilities than just the one thing that we purchased it for.

And so um, you know, that's that's one of my biggest biggest goals and initiatives right now is to try to leverage leverage things that we have.

Um in order to do that, you know, one of the first steps would be to have a good uh working asset uh inventory.

Um so that's something that is first and foremost for us.

And you know, when I talk about assets, that doesn't just mean you know, things with IP addresses, computers or you know, phones or switches or routers, that also means software, you know, those capabilities as well.

Uh and also I consider data to be an asset.

Um so if we don't know what data we have or where it is, it's difficult to protect

it

and uh also to house it and to manage it properly.

That's great to hear, because that does then feed into my other question, which is I think we at this table like to um like to talk about um software and and I guess major major contracts, multi-year sort of um processes to move from one either system or software to another.

Many of them are very much needed, and also many of them are kind of coming at us all at once.

And I guess how do you think about then, given what you're saying about having an inventory, knowing what we need, but in some cases, legitimately knowing that like this department needs this major software upgrade or change.

Um this one does too, and this one does too.

How do you how do you think about um in the future when we're faced with these decisions, prioritizing or triaging um uh those kinds of major expenses, multi-year contracts and multi-year sort of um uh I guess um processes that on our end looks like we've allocated this much money and then we're sort of carrying them over, you know, to the next year, to the next year until it's implemented.

But on your end, you know, you know, exactly what is um uh what is happening because it's it's for you know it's it's just the needed, it's the needed software for in each individual department.

How how do you think about prioritizing that or saying yes to one set of workers, no to another set of workers?

Yeah, so um, you know, one of those to your point about about money's rolling over, you know, you have projects that you have invested, you've already invested uh a lot in.

And so you know, you have to really think about um is this something that that is still needed if it's if it's rolled on for this long.

Um is it worth noting um based on what's already been invested?

As as far as prioritizing, you know, you you kind of look at um, you know, always safety first.

Um what is their dependencies?

You know, some things have dependencies, and a lot of times that does not get taken into consideration.

Um that also ties back into the inventory, right?

So we it it's hard for us to know what has a dependency on something if we don't know what these things are or what they're what they're being used

for.

Thanks.

And what what are you most excited about in terms of the potential for um you in this position, but the the department as a whole.

Um

I'm excited about the excitement that the department seems to have, right?

These guys are I I'm really looking to give them a chance to shine uh with all the talents that they have uh to be able to spread their wings and um and and reach out and and and really show the types of things that they can do that they are capable of doing.

Um that I'm just not sure that they have been given that opportunity.

And and you know, these guys are are really rock stars, and I know uh I hear you all talk highly of them all the time, but I see them um day to day.

And so I'm I'm very excited to to work with them and and to help them um cultivate that.

And

I know that there are many who have been there for 30 plus years, right?

Started as interns and have worked their way through with a I think is a testament to the organization and the department um and leadership.