UPMC\u2019s gift of ambulances<\/a>.<\/p>\nGainey insisted the city should receive unrestricted funds from nonprofits and framed the debate around the groups paying their \u201cfair share\u201d to the city \u2014 despite the organizations having no legal obligation to pay. He never reached an agreement with any major nonprofit, and a legal strategy to challenge tax exemptions on their properties did not produce meaningful results.<\/p>\n
Former Mayor Bill Peduto, who served from 2014 through 2021, took an approach similar to O\u2019Connor\u2019s, garnering commitments from UPMC, Highmark, Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University to fund specific projects benefiting the city. But he announced the plan shortly before he left office, and Gainey nixed it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s gotta be with specifics,\u201d O\u2019Connor said during an interview Tuesday ahead of his 100th day in office. \u201c \u2026 If you are specific with an ask and making sure that money is audited, those are the conversations we had with PNC and UPMC. They did not want it to go into our budget deficit. They want it to go directly into something that everybody is going to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor\u2019s results so far \u2014 $18 million from a handful of institutions \u2014 mark the most meaningful progress on this front in years. But it remains to be seen if he will secure the recurring, significant monetary commitments that current and former city controllers and other city finance experts say are necessary to keep the city afloat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe absolutely need contributions from nonprofits,\u201d said Erika Strassburger, the chair of City Council\u2019s finance committee, in March. \u201cWe\u2019ve already seen a product of that \u2026 and I hope that [talks] are fruitful, not just in future years, but this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strassburger knows the city\u2019s dire financial situation well. She presided over an unusually dramatic budget negotiation in December in which council rejected then-Mayor Gainey\u2019s plan and voted to raise property taxes to prevent a potentially crushing deficit.<\/p>\n
![\"Five](\"https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/20260105-Mayor-Corey-OConnor-Inauguration-03.jpg\")
Numerous former Pittsburgh mayors have tried to raise more revenue from major nonprofits, without much success. Pictured, from left, at O’Connor’s inauguration: Former mayors Ed Gainey, Luke Ravenstahl, Tom Murphy and Bill Peduto. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source)<\/p>\n
Any feeling that the tax hike solved the city\u2019s problems evaporated in March, when O\u2019Connor announced that the prior administration failed to account for more than $20 million in spending. He moved to amend this year\u2019s budget, adding $28 million in spending and dipping into the reserve fund to make ends meet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The bottom line: The city is still headed for a deficit this year and in the future, despite a 20% tax hike.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After producing a landmark 2022 report on the nonprofits\u2019 massive tax-exempt real estate holdings and the city\u2019s revenue needs, then-City Controller Michael Lamb said, \u201cWhen it comes to the city\u2019s financial bottom line, [nonprofits] have to play a role.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tax-exempt nonprofit organizations own 20% of Pittsburgh property. If the property within the city owned by the five largest nonprofits was taxable, the city would collect an additional $34.5 million a year, according to the 2022 report. That amount is bigger than the budget deficit or the hike taxpayers were handed last year.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh would be far from the first city to make a payment-in-lieu-of-tax [PILOT] deal with local nonprofits. Erie collects about $13 per resident in PILOT revenue, Altoona $5, and Providence, Rhode Island collects $17. Pittsburgh has collected less than fifty cents per capita on average since 2000, according to the controller\u2019s report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor said he does not view those cities\u2019 PILOT agreements as a standard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them, those deals were made a very long time ago and they were just extended,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s get to, hopefully a couple-year agreement, and then we can build off of that momentum to see if there are other priorities when you get to that time frame.<\/p>\n
\u201c… If they wanted to give general fund money, they would have by now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charlie Wolfson is the local government reporter for Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.<\/p>\n
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/mayor-seeks-long-term-contribution-by-upmc\/”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/www.publicsource.org”>Pittsburgh’s Public Source<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.publicsource.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/cropped-ps_circle_favicon_blue.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n
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