{"id":300146,"date":"2026-10-05T15:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T15:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/300146\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T15:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T15:14:14","slug":"colin-mcnickle-addressing-pittsburghs-financial-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/300146\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin McNickle: Addressing Pittsburgh\u2019s financial mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh could face a major budget deficit this year and perhaps a multimillion-
\ndollar shortfall in coming years. And a researcher at a local think tank says there are myriad steps that must be considered to help begin to balance the books.<\/p>\n

\u201c(I)f estimates from the Office of Management and Budget\u2019s (OMB) second quarter report hold, the year will end in a deficit,\u201d says Eric Montarti, research director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe preliminary 2027 operating budget <\/a>and five-year forecast show four years of negative operating results and a negative ending fund balance in 2031,\u201d Montarti says. \u201cFaced with these financial projections, city officials must take a hard look at what services the city provides and how they are provided.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Corey O\u2019Connor, in a Sept. 30 news release, says that throughout a five-year projection period, the rainy-day fund will be depleted and the city will run out of money.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the year ahead, we must work with our partners on finding new revenue sources, reducing expenditures, growing our population and tax base and continuing to make the tough decisions to operate an efficient and lean city government that delivers for the people of Pittsburgh.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Office of Management and Budget published its second quarter (April through June, unaudited) report <\/a>Aug.15. For the quarter, revenues totaled $135 million. This was 6% lower compared to $142.9 million in 2025\u2019s second quarter. Of the major taxes, collections of property, wage and deed transfer taxes were up while payroll preparation and parking taxes were lower.<\/p>\n

Expenditures totaled $149.5 million, 7% lower than the $160 million reported for the same year-ago quarter. Eight of the 27 departments\/bureaus\/offices etc., had lower spending compared to last year\u2019s second quarter while the remainder were higher, the think tank scholar says.<\/p>\n

Montarti says the preliminary operating budget for next year shows $728.4 million in revenues (including $27 million from the fund balance) and $728.4 million in expenditures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe budget would incorporate separate transfers to various trust funds into the general fund, leaving only a transfer to capital funding separate. The budget also proposes to lower how much is contributed to pensions\u201d Montarti says.<\/p>\n

There are some encouraging developments and some alignment with the Allegheny Institute\u2019s recommendations <\/a>for the mayor for belt-tightening, Montarti says.<\/p>\n

He cites a Sept. 1 news article that quoted a City Council member noting he \u201cdoesn\u2019t want to lay off workers but suggested shrinking the city\u2019s workforce through attrition by not replacing those who retire or quit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The councilor said that if \u201cwe can do more with less, I think that\u2019s going to have to be on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot filling positions that go vacant will help to lower the city\u2019s salaries, wages and benefits and lower the number of employees relative to city population, a rate that is well above other cities,\u201d Montarti reminds.<\/p>\n

It was in a Sept. 2 news article that the mayor\u2019s chief of staff said the city must \u201cget back to paving, snow removal, emergency services, parks and recreation \u2026 our key functioning areas. And other things, which are great services and great benefits that we cannot afford to do and that local government wasn\u2019t set up to do, are going to have to be looked at.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as the city controller later noted, Pittsburgh must \u201cchange other things that are expenses that we\u2019ve had for the last few years, and what that looks like is to be seen. But the reality is the current trajectory of spending is unsustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

This also harkens back to the Competitive Pittsburgh Task Force report from October 1996, in which it was noted that the city \u201cmust focus on essential functions. The City cannot waste resources on activities that are better done by others,\u201d the study concluded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a strong case to be made that aspects of core services such as garbage collection and snow removal ought to be opened up to competition,\u201d Montarti says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have also recommended the inclusion of language in the Home Rule Charter that would limit the annual growth of spending and place a higher vote threshold on the ability of officials to raise taxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat, and the avoidance of granting subsidies and incentives to specific businesses in an attempt to stimulate growth, have yet to be embraced,\u201d Montarti laments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh could face a major budget deficit this year and perhaps a multimillion- dollar shortfall in coming years.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-300146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300146","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=300146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}