{"id":30572,"date":"2025-11-11T00:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T00:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/30572\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T00:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T00:54:09","slug":"as-mayor-gainey-unveils-his-final-city-budget-council-members-say-they-will-be-ready-to-tackle-wasteful-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/30572\/","title":{"rendered":"As Mayor Gainey unveils his final city budget, council members say they will be ready to tackle wasteful spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey says his final budget<\/a> is a responsible one, but council members are vowing to take a knife to wasteful spending in tough financial times. <\/p>\n

On Monday, they aimed at a controversial $6 million comprehensive plan<\/a>, saying the public is being short-changed. The Gainey administration said the plan would be worth it.<\/p>\n

“We’re trying to create a shared vision that we want and need to work towards over the next 20 years,” planning director Jamil Bey said.<\/p>\n

However, after being shown what work has been done, council members said it amounts to a $6 million waste at a time when the city struggles to provide basic services.<\/p>\n

“I would be lying if I told you it was worth $6 million. I just don’t. Especially when we’re struggling to put vehicles on the street,” Pittsburgh City Councilman Anthony Coghill (D) said.<\/p>\n

A year and a half ago, council members approved the funding for the plan: $3.3 million to HR&A Advisers to assemble and write the plan, and $2.6 million to Common Cause Consultants to gather public input.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been busy,” Bey said.<\/p>\n

Council members took exception to Bey’s assertion that surveys and public events have garnered feedback from close to 30,000 residents. <\/p>\n

Councilman Bob Charland (D) says he hasn’t seen representatives at public meetings. <\/p>\n

“Unless they’re incognito, they’re not in the same places that I’m at,” Charland said.<\/p>\n

Members said the findings are boilerplate and obvious. Residents want jobs, good public transit, clean energy and more affordable housing. <\/p>\n

Council members say the recommendations are light on specifics, questioning the more than $3 million spent on the out-of-state consultants who haven’t seemed to be in town during this process. <\/p>\n

“Where are these consultants? We’ve paid a lot of money to have people do this work,” Councilwoman Barb Warwick (D) questioned.<\/p>\n

Most of the money has already been spent, and it’s unclear whether council can recoup the last million or two. <\/p>\n

What is clear is that they will be scrutinizing the Gainey budget with a fine-tooth comb to eliminate any waste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey says his final budget is a responsible one, but council members are vowing to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2103,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-30572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-ed-gainey","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30572","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=30572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}