![\"Chandi](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/eed4f53d-7899-4f25-b735-209d3a8d8374_1583091193.jpg\")
<\/a>PITTSBURGH \u2014<\/p>\nPittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor announced his preliminary 2027 budget plan and five-year plan on Wednesday. He said there will not be tax increases or layoffs, but they did make millions of dollars in cuts.<\/p>\n
O’Connor said the preliminary budget calls for cuts to close a $250 million budget gap over the next five years. He said the 2027 budget will be balanced after a $40 million deficit this year, while avoiding tax hikes and layoffs.<\/p>\n
The mayor said that if the city continued on the previous administration’s course, it would end in financial catastrophe.<\/p>\n
“We’re going to put out a budget that is honest and transparent, and it bridges some of those gaps,” O’Connor said. “Obviously, we still have a long-term deficit, but we are putting one out that is balanced for this year by law, and I think they did a really good job in doing so.”<\/p>\n
The preliminary budget will now be presented to Pittsburgh City Council.<\/p>\n
“We don’t want to be in some sort of financial crisis, and we don’t want to do a large tax increase, and we don’t want to do a massive layoff,” council member Bobby Wilson said.<\/p>\n
“The average Pittsburgher just can’t afford another tax increase on top of other levels of government and prices going up,” council member Erika Strassburger said.<\/p>\n
Looking for more news in your area | Subscribe to the WTAE YouTube Channel<\/a><\/p>\n O’Connor said the Stop the Violence Trust Fund<\/a> and the Housing Opportunity Fund<\/a> both have over $10 million in cash reserves. Instead of transfers, he said the city will put the programs and positions that are currently in these trust funds into the operating budget. <\/p>\n The plan also includes expanded funding for the Reaching Out on the Streets program<\/a> through the Office of Community Health and Safety, paving, fleet vehicles, landslides, stormwater mitigation, violence interruption, youth violence outreach work and trauma-informed care programs. <\/p>\n The city made $14 million in cuts and withdrew $16 million from the rainy-day fund.<\/p>\n “There were 27 positions that were vacant that were now cut, so that saves some money there,” O’Connor said. “But then again, mentioning the trust funds, and then also our pension \u2014 usually, we put in about $98 million is our annual contribution. We’ve always gone exceeding that number, so we’re reducing it by $10 million for the next few years is the plan right now.”<\/p>\n City Controller Rachel Heisler released a statement that said, in part, “As the budget process moves forward, I will continue to express my concerns about the possibility of removing important safeguards, such as reducing the city’s pension contributions or allowing the rainy-day fund to go below 10% of annual expenditures. Those protections were put in place for good reasons. Removing them should only be done as a last resort and with extreme caution. If council and the administration determine such steps are necessary due to our urgent cash flow problems, there must be an intentional plan to put them back in place on a clearly defined timeline.”<\/p>\n Download the WTAE app<\/a> to stay connected with breaking news. Sign up for our email newsletters<\/a> to get breaking news in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh mayor unveils 2027 budget plan to address city’s deficit PITTSBURGH \u2014 Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor announced his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[222,122849,74760,79,122836,27022,36178,122841,122837,122842,14701,2092,15118,60769,73,75,16066,74,13547,122848,11753,122839,122838,122840,122843,16988,122844,122845,122847,78,122846],"class_list":["post-297455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-budget","tag-budget-gap","tag-budget-plan","tag-city","tag-community-health-and-safety","tag-cut","tag-deficit","tag-fleet-vehicles","tag-housing-opportunity-fund","tag-landslides","tag-layoff","tag-more-news","tag-oconnor","tag-paving","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-mayor","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-position","tag-previous-administration","tag-program","tag-reaching-out-on-the-streets","tag-roots","tag-stop-the-violence-trust-fund","tag-stormwater-mitigation","tag-tax-increase","tag-trauma-informed-care","tag-violence-interruption","tag-violence-trust-fund","tag-year","tag-youth-violence-outreach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}