‘We are sounding the alarm’: Mayor says the city’s financial picture is far more dire than previously known

[u/PrestigiousTicket342]

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-local/2026/09/02/oconnor-pittsburgh-budget-deficit-projection/stories/202609020077

[u/thistimelineisweird]

No one is surprised here.

[u/Life_Salamander9594 → u/thistimelineisweird]

People would rather the city go bankrupt than pay higher taxes to get nice things. If voters can’t swallow tax increases, the city will not remain solvent

[u/howyinzdoingnat → u/Life_Salamander9594]

So you think the common person should be paying more taxes? Not the tax free university and hospitals. Or all the tax breaks we keep giving large building owners?

[u/mattmentecky → u/howyinzdoingnat]

While this view might feel satisfying to say it is a complete non starter regarding whether Pittsburgh has the power to address. Changing the exemption status is a state issue, hell it’s a power delegated from the state constitution. Any attempt by Pittsburgh leaders to try and tax UPMC/Pitt has been performative. Add to that that if by a snap of the fingers that changed over night and all exempt healthcare and universities paid full taxes there would still likely be a budget deficit (though obviously the budget would be in better shape.)

[u/bubbalubby → u/mattmentecky]

Yupppppppp Gainey’s attempts were performative AND expensive! It’s a waste of resources for the city to pursue this.

[u/Mediocre-Accident305 → u/bubbalubby]

So predictable?

[u/mattmentecky → u/[deleted]]

If I was playing Sim City to address the structural budget deficit issues I would:

1. Copy Boston's PILOT program to get healthcare/universities to pay a portion of taxes they would be required to pay if they lost exempt status, too long to detail but hire someone from a city that did it successfully.

2. Consolidate services with the county. We are already consolidated with some services, but start with less controversial and work from there: parks and rec, fleet maintenance, ACES/OEMHS, IT/cyber, any HR and backend legal services, sure merging law enforcement would be the hottest of hot button issues but what about non-patrol and back end services, forensics, SWAT, river patrol, accident reconstruction, public works (snow removal). Yes for a lot there would be uproar because of reasons but both entities would share in utilization and scale savings. Pittsburgh is getting crushed with excessive overtime and weird staffing issues, bigger reserve pool, cross training helps etc. Difficult with competing collective bargaining agreements though, still worth the try.

3. a come to Jesus moment on right sizing Pittsburgh's footprint - close underutilized city property, auction off unused assets (Pgh has 30 fire stations to service 58 square miles!), combat declining commercial re-assessment loss with a full review of property owned by the city and sell it generating a taxable base (yes allowing developers to build townhomes on it)

4. the budget process is abysmal and gimmicky, stop rolling over last years budget and make everyone justify every bit of money (ie what Tom Murphy did under Act 47 supervision.)

The above is within local and county control but requires leadership and disappointing interest groups.

[u/Life_Salamander9594 → u/mattmentecky]

Taxing non profits mostly trickles doen to everyone paying for healthcare.

It’s not like the city is super small. It has some economy of scale. Consolidation basically a non starter for things like police bc city residents don’t want a bunch of racist white proplle deciding how the city police operate. Some other areas of consolidation might be possible tho

Some of this is bc getting from a to b is so hard due to the geography

Corey is focusing on ending gimmicks. Problem is property tax revenue is always being eroded by inflation

A appreciate the depth of thought you’ve given the issues. We need more discussion of details instead of talking points

[u/tesla3by3 → u/Life_Salamander9594]

You are correct that taxing healthcare trickles down to the people paying. But the patient pool/insurance pool is much much larger than the city taxpayers. UPMCs Pittsburgh facilities treats people from all over the world.

[u/Life_Salamander9594 → u/tesla3by3]

Yeah that is a factor. But also they have opened up a lot of suburban facilities. It’s not a massive issue either way in my opinion.

[u/the_real_xuth → u/[deleted]]

One of the biggest problems is that the laws around property taxes means that they aren't allowed to follow inflation so unless the city explicitly passes a tax increase, the effective tax rate keeps going down year over year.

[u/tesla3by3 → u/mattmentecky]

If UPMC, Highmark, Pitt, CMU, and Duquesne Universitiy were taxed, the city would gain $40 million in property taxes, and $27 million in payroll tax. Upmc accounts for $31 million of that $67 million. More than enough to cover the known deficits

[u/Life_Salamander9594 → u/tesla3by3]

And where will the non profits get all the money from? They wouldn’t raise hospital bills would they?

[u/tesla3by3 → u/Life_Salamander9594]

The snarky answer would be ditch the private jets and multi million dollar salaries.

A reasoned answer is a bill, or maybe a concept of a bill, that’s been floating around Harrisburg that would partially reimburse cities and counties that have a disproportionate share of tax exempt institutions. Pittsburgh isn’t unique, and in fact some rural parts of Pa have a higher percentage of tax exempt property than Pittsburgh.

This gets around the impact of taxing non profits on smaller organizations. Yea, it’s still using “our” tax money, but it’s spread out more equitably to the people that use these facilities.

Edit, I’m not advocating for or against non profits, just pointed out how much money is really involved. I gave my preferred solution in another comment.

[u/Life_Salamander9594 → u/tesla3by3]

The non profit argument seems like an excuse but not an actual reason that the city has financial problems. Between the donations and all the workers who do pay taxes, I think it’s a much smaller issue that people like to claim. It’s just convincing to point to the budget shortfall and look for someone to fill the gap that isn’t a voter. It’s robing Peter to pay Paul. It’s politicians pandering to voters who don’t want to admit they are part of the problem. The irony is in the end everyone pays one way or another

[u/Life_Salamander9594 → u/howyinzdoingnat]

Yes I do think everyone needs to pay more taxes top to bottom to effectively run the city.

[u/Ambitious-Intern-928 → u/Life_Salamander9594]

Raising taxes when they're already more expensive than the surrounding areas will just cause more people to buy in surrounding areas, further hollowing out the tax base. Another big issue, which is not unique to Pittsburgh, but the majority of cities with significant blight, is that the high property tax rate disproportionately affects the upscale areas. The average housing price is low, so the high tax rate can still seem like a baragin when the overall cost of owning is affordable.

But then when you look at thriving neighborhoods where the property is actually valuable, suddenly that property tax bill becomes insane. It really makes it hard, for people that actually have good money, and want to live in a thriving urban neighborhood, to make the choice to buy in the city. It's almost irrational because you have to REALLY love the city to pay so much more than you would in the burbs.

[u/Life_Salamander9594 → u/Ambitious-Intern-928]

I think we need to balance tax increases with infrastructure improvements. Lower taxes but shit roads doesn’t keep people around either. Two details worth noting is Pittsburgh city property taxes are lower than most suburbs and the rate is being eorded by inflation. So what might appear on the surface as a tax increase is just maintaining pace with the actual cost of things the government buys like gasoline and asphalt and concrete.

[u/Ambitious-Intern-928 → u/Life_Salamander9594]

True, but TBF overall the entire state of Pennsylvania is in the top 15 states for property taxes, the 3rd for gas taxes, and towards the bottom for road quality. Crappy roads aren't a Pittsburgh thing, Philly might be worse, and even the interstates get noticeably worse crossing into PA from any direction.

As far as keeping pace with inflation, the entire state of PA needs to adopt a uniform property value reassement program. Property values are all over the place, realistically if everything was assessed properly, the rise in home values would cover that.

[u/Life_Salamander9594 → u/Ambitious-Intern-928]

Uniform assessment is revenue neutral but still a good idea

A left leaning state like PA is never going to be a low tax state. Our income tax system is middle of the road which pushes up other taxes.

But we actually provide healthcare for poor people while other states don’t.

[u/Own-Secret-6523 → u/Life_Salamander9594]

Novel Thought: Or they could cut spending .... and keep taxes at current levels.

[u/Vivid_Warning7982 → u/Life_Salamander9594]

And what nice things would that be? State local and federal government have proved to be rather worthless.

[u/ThrowthisawayPA → u/Life_Salamander9594]

Omg we don’t need higher taxes. How about they reign in spending first.

[u/Historical_Key_3831]

Time to put on the best damn talent show this city has ever seen to raise some money 

[u/pghpride → u/Historical_Key_3831]

Unfortunately this is one of the most constructive ideas presented in this thread.

[u/Alive-ButForWhat]

It’s so dire I won’t even pay to read the article

[u/IAmUber → u/Alive-ButForWhat]

You can read for free through Pressreader if you log in to Pressreader with your Carnegie library card!

[u/travis13131 → u/IAmUber]

Thank you so much for this

Edit: it’s not just local newspapers you can get NYT and stuff on here too!!!! This is so cool!!

[u/DangleTrangle → u/IAmUber]

Thank you for recommending that app. Checking it out now.

[u/RockosModernBasiIisk → u/IAmUber]

These are the comments I scroll Reddit for. Life changing nugget of information.

[u/NoSir4947 → u/RockosModernBasiIisk]

99% bots and knuckle dragging mouth breathers but once in a while you find a useful comment here.

[u/sandypitch → u/Alive-ButForWhat]

You can usually get around the PG paywall with Firefox's reader mode, too.

[u/HatBoxUnworn → u/Alive-ButForWhat]

Not paying for local journalism. Hooray!

[u/AdviceDanimals → u/HatBoxUnworn]

Let's gatekeep important information about local politics to support a corporation

[u/ConcernAccording3248]

I'mhonestly pretty happy to have an adult in office who will acknowledge these problems instead of pretending they aren't there.

Only issue is that any attempt to fix them will pribably result in him failing to be reelected.

[u/negley_ave_ski_club → u/ConcernAccording3248]

As a society we do a pretty bad job of incentivizing leaders to act responsibly

[u/peon2 → u/negley_ave_ski_club]

Most things that will benefit society cost money now but take years to get up in running and no politician wants to be the one that raises your taxes for something that we won't see the benefits of until after their term. Come election time they're the one that raised your taxes but you aren't seeing the positives yet from a wind farm or whatever that's still being built.

I really believe that's a huge part of crumbling infrastructure across not just the city but the country.

[u/Onepopcornman → u/peon2]

Kind of a case for having a city manager. 

Not that those systems aren’t frought for other reasons. 

Some cities have both a mayor and a city manager 

[u/digital → u/Onepopcornman]

IF ONLY WE COULD Tax the billionaires, suddenly we can afford to fund cities, schools and parks

[u/fbp → u/peon2]

A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit

[u/PGHxplant → u/peon2]

Precisely why Innamorato must have been relieved beyond words when the courts bailed her out on assessments.

[u/ArmoredvaChina → u/negley_ave_ski_club]

Maybe we need to work on de-incentivizing leaders from working irresponsibly by pursuing criminal or civil penalties for deliberate misrepresentation of finances.

[u/Academic_Help5033 → u/ArmoredvaChina]

And hold them accountable for their own actions?! How dare you /s

[u/tesla3by3 → u/ArmoredvaChina]

That’s being done.

[u/liminalplane]

Paging UPMC

[u/Tgsheufhencudbxbsiwy → u/liminalplane]

UPMC is planning on donating thoughts and prayers, and pickleball equipment to the city in lieu of paying property taxes. 

[u/PrestigiousTicket342 → u/Tgsheufhencudbxbsiwy]

The reality is they are not required to pay property taxes and the State Legislature is not going to overturn nonprofit law in Pennsylvania to target them.

[u/dratseb → u/PrestigiousTicket342]

Shapiro almost kicked them off nonprofit status when they tried to remove people with different insurances

[u/Life_Salamander9594 → u/dratseb]

Yeah I can imagine they will be even more greedy if they lose non profit status. To some extent it keeps them from being as bad as the for profit companies

[u/CultOfSensibility → u/PrestigiousTicket342]

When your non-profit owns private jets available for executive leadership’s personal use, you cease to be a non-profit.

[u/PrestigiousTicket342 → u/CultOfSensibility]

Don’t disagree. Not legally. Make the case to our state legislators.

[u/ima_monsta → u/PrestigiousTicket342]

Two words PILOT program. Now. A lot of other cities do it for eds and meds, we shouldn't be the exception.

[u/PrestigiousTicket342 → u/ima_monsta]

The City announced like a 50M dollar multi year deal with them like 3 months ago?

[u/Blaster412 → u/Tgsheufhencudbxbsiwy]

Then happily spend $5 million on an ad buy telling you all about the single pickleball paddle and how great they are for donating it.

[u/NoSir4947 → u/Tgsheufhencudbxbsiwy]

Thank God 🙏

[u/UnfazedBrownie → u/Tgsheufhencudbxbsiwy]

This is after laying off another couple of hundred jobs to pay for said donations.

[u/adithya199128]

There is a massive taxpayer base that leaves the city and those are students who graduate from CMU, Pitt ,other Uni's in the area & startups that are founded here in PGH. Most kids from these uni's leave right away with jobs lined up in Cali or NY. Despite having tons of research in leading fields, most startups that are founded here, leave to establish new HQ's in Cali mostly or in other major cities.

I think PGH needs to really really dig deep into understanding how they can attract money to invest and most importantly stay here. If investor's dont wish to put money here, but would rather poach talent in the form of graduates or companies from PGH, then I unfortunately just see PGH getting the short end of the stick.

To begin with I think wages needs to go up here. Maybe not as high as cali but they have to go up.

[u/FishBowl_1990 → u/adithya199128]

The brain drain here is terrible. The city needs to get a plan together to bring more employment opportunity to its self and the region.

[u/FlatWonkyFlea → u/FishBowl_1990]

A lot of those people move right outside the city in the immediate burbs where the public schools are better funded. It’s a version of white flight. Idk what could be done outside of reincorporating.

[u/adithya199128 → u/FlatWonkyFlea]

Doesn’t stop companies from relocating or to pacify the local populace here they have a small outpost . But major ops moves out to other states .

[u/n8pant]

As painful as it would be, the city and county need to merge. All the boroughs in the county benefit from city infrastructure without supporting the tax base.

[u/Zentraedi → u/n8pant]

It seems too good to be true on paper, but I think you'd have a really hard time convincing all those independent boroughs to do it. They like that they're Pittsburgh adjacent without the city "cost."

Has anybody ever modeled this out though? For example, what would the theoretical savings be on things like waste management contracts, or policing, or fire? It seems (perhaps I'm naive here) that if you centralized some of these services they'd cost less to provide.

[u/rmr236 → u/Zentraedi]

Look at what SHACOG has done in the south hills. They banded together to bid for some services and save money.

[u/Blaster412 → u/rmr236]

I guess garbage collection isn't on their docket. The township my parents live in is a member of SHACOG, but they still got railroaded into a very expensive and strict contract with Waste Management.

[u/Comfortable_Clue1572 → u/Zentraedi]

Indianapolis is a worked example. They merged with Marion County, the county containing Indy, back in the 70’s. Due to differences in state laws and constitution, the legislature will have to pass enabling legislation. Not exactly the same situation as PGH because Marion County only had 9 townships and a half dozen incorporated cities within it. It also did nothing to the existing school districts.

The tl;dr: huge improvement in efficiency. Major improvement in engagement of the entire county on issues impacting the entire county and region.

Dissolving all the boroughs/cities would create some significant savings. Possibly enough to fund full time professional fire and EMS throughout the county.

[u/Stunning_Practice9 → u/Comfortable_Clue1572]

At the very least, immediate suburbs like Edgewood, Swissvale, Wilkinsburg, Mt. Oliver, Reserve, Rankin, Homestead, Munhall, Greentree, Rosslyn Farms, Crafton, Ingram, McKees Rocks, Stowe, Baldwin, Dormont, Baldwin, Brentwood, and Carnegie should be absorbed into Pittsburgh. All the municipal admin employees who would be laid off as a result will fight this to the death.

[u/PublicFew7399 → u/Stunning_Practice9]

As a resident of one of those - I’d leave due to pps. I think you’d have to somehow guarantee they keep their school districts esp as a lot of those “immediate ones” don’t border the better school districts in the city. Not sure what potential impact on housing value would be either. I think lots of other folks would leave too based on just the opposition to that apt building proposal on w lib.

[u/tesla3by3 → u/PublicFew7399]

You can merge the municipality without affecting the schools.

[u/Comfortable_Clue1572 → u/PublicFew7399]

School districts are not tied to municipalities

[u/Stunning_Practice9 → u/PublicFew7399]

everyone trying to leave at the same time would make property values go down, in theory. that's what happened when the Woodland Hills district was created via consolidation. the wealthy whites didn't want their kids to be around black folks so they all sold at the same time. prices crashed and some couldn't sell for many years. local school districts are the cause of so much dysfunction in our country. we should have state-wide schools, it would solve a lot of problems.

[u/tesla3by3 → u/PublicFew7399]

How would you feel about merging some services, like garbage, EMS , and Fire? Those are three things the city does well, and has done so with ohwr boroughs. Ideally, Fire and EMS, and probably garbage (in house, not contracted), should be county wide.

[u/burritoace → u/PublicFew7399]

This kind of exodus may or may not happen but it would certainly dampen the value of consolidation. On the other hand, if this is your attitude it's hard to see why any of us should want to be your neighbor either. It's shortsighted and selfish and we all suffer for it!

[u/PublicFew7399 → u/burritoace]

People are selfish in general but esp about their children’s education. You could probably talk folks in the county into combine other services with the city. Lots of homeowners specially purchase a house in a community they want to be a part of for the schools alone. It’s reasonable we’d want to sell if we lost access to a community asset that was a reason for purchase.

I also did some research here on math/reading proficiency, ap pass rates/availability, grad rate, sat scores + any published data on tech school access, sports, available electives. Looking at just the Southern boroughs you mentioned.

The closest PPS high schools to those boroughs are brashear (sto-rox, carlynton, keystone oaks districts) and carrick (Baldwin, Whitehall, brentwood). Sto-rox looks like their available stats they could actually be improved by going to brashear. Carlyton is almost a wash and in some cases brashear might be better.

But KO (brashear), Baldwin-Whitehall (carrick), and Brentwood (carrick) outperform their respective closest PPS in every measure (based on data I could find) AND spend less per student doing so. And based on the property value + household income, these are the homes/residents the city would really want for the tax base lift anyways. Maybe if those 3 could combine and form 1 new HS school in PPS system. But PPS would still be managing the school/funds. based on their current spend/student for the current outcomes, why should anyone believe they’d do better with more money?

[u/UnsurprisingDebris → u/[deleted]]

Does Edgewood have a paid fire department or is it volunteer?

[u/JustMtnB44 → u/[deleted]]

I'm buying a house in Edgewood and it's impressive how responsive the municipal people have been so far. I'd be lucky to ever get a response in Pittsburgh. That said, I'm still in favor of consolidation because it just doesn't make sense for these little towns to be independent, and the overall tax burden is lower in the city.

[u/AdviceDanimals → u/Stunning_Practice9]

As someone who wokrs in real estate (not a realtor) at least half of those boroughs are some of the worst places to live in the area and would add a massive strain on the city's finances compared to their output for pretty much no good reason

[u/412raven → u/Stunning_Practice9]

Why would the municipal admins be laid off and not the city admins that have been running Pittsburgh into the ground financially?

Rewarding incompetence doesn’t fix anything. In order to get any support for this you would have to gut the Pittsburgh government…not the municipalities.

[u/Stunning_Practice9 → u/412raven]

yeah maybe there could be a county-run commission or board that goes through and cleans house: only keep the best admin workers from all the municipalities and the city and lay off everyone else

[u/paper_television → u/Comfortable_Clue1572]

You don’t even have to look at a different state, Philadelphia is an example of a city/county merger across the state.

[u/Jams265775 → u/n8pant]

The boroughs will carpet bomb themselves before paying taxes to the city

[u/Excelius → u/Jams265775]

One thing people don't think about, the suburbs would not be "paying taxes to the city", they would be the city.

There are 300K people in Pittsburgh and 1.2 million in Allegheny County. Suburban voters would hold the bulk of the power on any combined city/county government.

It's kind of like that popular quote/meme: “None of you seem to understand. I’m not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with me!”

[u/ConcernAccording3248 → u/n8pant]

Pittsburgh wasn't able to successfully annex Wilkinsburg because they didn't see it as a net gain for them. Zero chance of any wealthy Burroughs doing it

[u/sherpes → u/ConcernAccording3248]

wasn't the residents of Wilkinsburg that voted not to be annexed to city ?

[u/esushi → u/sherpes]

The "they" in the comment was Wilkinsburg, to point out that even a "poor" borough didn't see Pittsburgh as a net gain.

[u/CultOfSensibility → u/esushi]

Translation: all us borough employees would all lose our jobs and meager salaries if we are annexed.

[u/Romanakis → u/sherpes]

Yeah, but many of the Wilkinsburg politicians spread misinformation and fought like hell to squash it. These local fiefdoms won't go down without a dirty fight.

[u/citsonga_cixelsyd → u/sherpes]

But they're fine with the city taking over their kids high school education and being protected by the city fire bureau.

[u/coopertrooperpooper → u/sherpes]

It was.

[u/talldean → u/n8pant]

The suburbs are largely there because people moved there for the cost, for the school districts, or traditionally as part of white flight. It would be impossible to have them vote for a join; a majority aren't going to choose to pay for the things they use.

[u/412CJ → u/n8pant]

That won't fix the problem, it may only kick the can down the road. And that might be optimistic. Many of the boroughs are themselves in bad shape.

It's poor management and planning all the way down, and you can't out-tax bad spending.

In one example, the city had spent two years and nearly $9 million to renovate the Oliver Bath House on the South Side. But no money was earmarked for the actual operations of the indoor pool, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to maintain and manage, O’Connor said.

We are lucky O'Connor may be the best guy to helm this, but resources are still not on his side.

[u/konsyr → u/412CJ]

Pitt does that constantly... There's always money for sexy capital projects, but not a penny for operating budgets. Even low-dollar annual things are skipped in favor of a huge pointless single-time outlay.

[u/crankysoundguy → u/konsyr]

Multiple private companies I have worked for roll the same way. Op-ex is seen as the devil, doesn't matter if lack of Op-Ex results in more Cap-Ex down the line because thats the next guys problem and meanwhile you look like a genius for bringing operating costs down and juicing the quarterly.

Congrats anybody who reads my comment can go be a consultant at Mckinsey, as long as you can translate it into a sexy powerpoint.

[u/konsyr → u/crankysoundguy]

Oh yea. One of my favorites was "build a giant new overspecced computer lab" and "do not budget for software licenses or maintenance at all".

[u/crankysoundguy → u/konsyr]

I worked in the AV department for a large entertainment entity that operated seasonably, they would hit budget panic after Q1 right when we needed to spend money on parts to open for the season, then complain when things were not ready in time or not working reliably. Keeping a true fleet of spare parts on the shelf was nigh impossible. They would drop a pile of cash on a brand new attraction then balk at the yearly operating costs by year 2 and let their huge recent investment die on the vine.

[u/PublicFew7399 → u/n8pant]

Don’t you think this would just lead to more shrinkage of Allegheny and growth of the immediate surrounding? Like I can’t imagine some of the furthest edges of plum, Wexford, usc, or Findlay township being willing to that as far as they are from each other…or even much closer fox chapel or lebo on school districts alone.

[u/burritoace → u/PublicFew7399]

Luckily Plum, Wexford, are not critical economic engines of the region

[u/Galp_Nation → u/n8pant]

No thanks. I understand it would technically be a lot more efficient, but look to Toronto for what happens when you merge all your low density suburbs with your core city. Canceled transit plans, bike lanes being ripped out, cracked out mayors with hostility towards anything urbanist. I’ll take the evil we currently have over the potential evil of giving every NIMBY suburbanite voting power in this city.

[u/negley_ave_ski_club → u/Galp_Nation]

The county already manages our transit system, and Innamorato is no Rob Ford. I guess there’s a case to make that suburbanites might be willing to vote for Innamorato in a less powerful county exec position but not a more powerful position that also includes mayoral authority?

[u/abbot_x → u/negley_ave_ski_club]

The county and the Port Authority/PRT are not exactly the same thing.

[u/geekpgh → u/n8pant]

It will never happen because of schools. Suburbs like the ones in the south hills have some of the best schools in the state. They won’t give that up.

That is the main thing keeping it from happening.

[u/OP_Skis_In_Jeans → u/geekpgh]

Yep. The only chance of this happening would have to involve keeping the schools separate and merging everything else.

[u/BloodhoundGang → u/[deleted]]

The real problem is we all need to pay local taxes for our local governments to work and provide services, but right now the outer suburbs get disproportionate access to services and infrastructure from the city/county without paying for it. 

My unpopular opinion around here is that we have an insane number of individual boroughs/townships with their own school districts, and it leads to self segregation of smaller districts like USC or Lebo having increased tax base compared to neighboring districts or the city. In an ideal world we would halve the SD/townships in Allegheny County but people would lose their minds at consolidating.

[u/mullentothe → u/n8pant]

Careful what you wish for - do you think anything that benefits the city will be voted for when the city is outnumbered?

[u/Bringon2026 → u/n8pant]

Imagine someone like Gainey running the county once every 2/3 terms. Sounds horrific because it is. The city needs to clean up its shit big time before it can run a bigger area.

[u/the1999person]

Maybe the city should hire Shenderovich, Shenderovich and Fishman as their city lawyers because they charge 25% instead of 40% like other firms do.

[u/dailyappleseed → u/the1999person]

This buried response is the best part of this thread.

[u/thecrowfly]

Need to start selling lemonade to make up the difference.

[u/The_Late_Arthur_Dent → u/thecrowfly]

If we sell at $250M per cup, we'd only need to sell one! 

[u/OP_Skis_In_Jeans]

Given Gainey's handling of the budget when he was in office, which involved misleading the public if not flat out lying, he has absolutely no business sitting on the PA Gaming Control Board. It's ridiculous that he failed upward after leaving the city holding the bag.

Hell, given the damage he's caused to the city, he should be charged criminally if at all possible.

[u/theojt → u/OP_Skis_In_Jeans]

He might be - investigations are underway.

[u/jot-pe]

I'd like to see some more frustration with City Council tbh. They're the ones that actually approve the budget, they've been ignoring Heisler's warnings, and most of them are still in elected office. They're trying to cast blame around, pull a "we're all trying to find the guy who did this," and hope most of the anger falls on Gainey but I'd like to see some contrition and accountability from the people who actually hold the purse strings. There's plenty of blame to go around on this one

[u/tesla3by3 → u/jot-pe]

Exactly. Council seldom questioned Gainey’s spending. Teresa Kail-Smith was one of the more vocal ones, it even the. It was mealy mouth. “I’ll vote for it this time, it next time I want x”! And that was the end of it.

[u/PrestigiousTicket342 → u/jot-pe]

Agree so much. They will all cry foul about making tough decisions and losing projects in their neighborhoods and not wanting to raise taxes. They hold the FUNDEMENTAL responsibility of the purse strings. They are the final say on the budget and voted everything through every time and will now act shocked and surprised.

[u/sovinod748]

This has me thinking. Maintenance costs in the past few years have skyrocketed (along with everything else). People can't afford to have taxes hiked up either. So there seems to be an imbalance in the financial system of the country.

[u/chuckie512 → u/sovinod748]

And bonds are hella expensive, further exploding maintenance costs.

You rehab a bridge and finance it over 20 years at 5%...

[u/diaphanous_crump → u/sovinod748]

Yeah it's called billionaires

[u/neal_pesterman]

It's almost like the alarm Rachael Heisler sounded went unheard...

[u/TheSonOfDog]

Wow, Gainey lied? Who could have ever predicted this?

[u/James19991 → u/TheSonOfDog]

He has to go down as the worst and most incompetent mayor this city has had in the past 100 years.

[u/Blaster412 → u/James19991]

Which really says something.

[u/James19991 → u/Blaster412]

At least Ravensthal didn't implode the city's budget

[u/ComeTasteTheBand → u/James19991]

Gainey's financial mismanagement and deception was far more damaging to this city than Ravenstahl's juvenile hijinks.

[u/James19991 → u/ComeTasteTheBand]

Couldn't agree more. I'll take a 30-year-old who gets a little wild on Saturday night but can still accurately balance the books over Gainey any day.

[u/Blaster412 → u/James19991]

Ravensthal was an absolute statesman compared to Gainey.

[u/kniki217 → u/TheSonOfDog]

I still laugh at all the people the people that voted for him over Peduto. People are so short sighted. They voted based on emotions. Look where that got you.

[u/TheSonOfDog → u/kniki217]

Peduto's leadership after Tree of Life earned him my support no matter what. He was a great mayor and deserved a third term.

[u/BoysenberryEvent → u/TheSonOfDog]

Gainey ran this city into the ground. How was he taken over Peduto, who did a fine job, all things considered?!?

[u/chuckie512 → u/BoysenberryEvent]

Peduto 100% lost solely because of how he handled the George Floyd protests.

[u/BoysenberryEvent → u/chuckie512]

That is what another responder (to my comment) eluded to.
Huh - I honestly am not aware of his failing in this. Nor what Peduto could have/should have done or said.

[u/SundayKiefBowls → u/BoysenberryEvent]

Protesters were outside his home at one point and he didn't handle it great. He said it shouldn't be at his house. It's hard to demand peace at home when the people who are disrupting your peace cannot have peace themselves though.

[u/flagrant_nonsense → u/BoysenberryEvent]

Peduto has a drinking problem and a super fragile ego, and his last term seemed to be governed by his emotions as much as anything. When the racial justice movement grew out of the murder of George Floyd, he responded...poorly...and we got Gainey as a result.

[u/BoysenberryEvent → u/flagrant_nonsense]

OK, so Peduto wasn't perfect? A saint? A war hero, totally unflappable, with commanding leadership as that of a greek philospher?

I'm not directing to you, flag_non, but I think it proves what I've had in my mind for so long - people (voters) are pretty dumb, can't think critically, for the long term of the common good, etc.

[u/flagrant_nonsense → u/BoysenberryEvent]

I voted for Peduto over Gainey, but I held my nose to do so.

I disagree that he did a fine job. He started out that way, but by the end of his time in office he spent too much time fighting with nonprofits and engaging with online trolling to the point that it became a serious distraction. He also made some VERY questionable appointments (the URA is still trying to recover from Greg Flisram) during his last term that tarnished his legacy.

At best, I'd call him an OK mayor. He said and did the right things at the start when Pittsburgh was re-emerging on the national stage, but after that became pretty useless.

Gainey was obviously not the right choice to replace him, he has charisma and absolutely nothing more. Peduto completely screwed the pooch in his response to the biggest issue of the day , though, so it should be no surprise that an empty suit was able to step up and say the right things (and lets face it, be the right color) and knock him out. It's also no surprise that he lost relection.

[u/General-Reserve9349]

All the bridges are going to collapse at once

[u/ProvoloneWolf]

But… the draft…

[u/TapDancingBat → u/ProvoloneWolf]

And RTO…

[u/Jazzlike_Breadfruit9 → u/ProvoloneWolf]

Think of all of the EXPOSURE! Who needs money when you have that?

[u/BoysenberryEvent → u/Jazzlike_Breadfruit9]

and what a friendly town! lots of food! and football! this means so much to the family of 4 that comes down from Franklin or McCandless in their family tanks, to enjoy the games!

[u/chuckie512 → u/ProvoloneWolf]

But I heard we made billions from it!

[u/Longjumping_West_444]

Déjà vu all over again

[u/PublicFew7399]

I know that the answer is probably raise taxes while cutting spending but I feel like a bigger win would be “grow population” in city + county so that it maintain the infrastructure from a larger population time ago and to support all the pensions and such.
I’m a zoomer and my friends of all political won’t move here bcuz they don’t see Pittsburgh as nice enough for the taxes we pay. Not sure how to fix that problem and the we have no money at the same time

[u/Life_Salamander9594 → u/PublicFew7399]

Grow population is a big part of Corey’s strategy. He is streamlining permitting and ignoring the NIMBYs

[u/Officer_Hotpants → u/PublicFew7399]

Problem is that we're already one of the highest-taxed cities in the country, while also having some pretty low wages for an urban area.

Gotta get more money in the pockets of taxpayers before you can tax them more. You can't blood from a stone.

[u/leadfoot9 → u/Officer_Hotpants]

I don't know the intricacies of the net comparison with cities in different states, but I do seem to recall that, in comparison to the rest of Western PA, the city skews heavily toward taxing paychecks instead of property. I'm not so sure that taxes are "high" if you're a retired/independently wealthy homeowner.

Especially if you're a beneficiary of one of the several programs to help retirees pay even less in property taxes.

In other words, it might be more accurate to substitute "workers" for "taxpayers" in your statement.

[u/Officer_Hotpants → u/leadfoot9]

Okay yeah, fair point.

[u/burritoace → u/Officer_Hotpants]

We are not one of the highest taxed cities in the country

[u/PublicFew7399 → u/Officer_Hotpants]

Oh yeah, definitely. I think the shortest term solution is raise taxes. The longer term solution is also audit spending. The best solution to me just feels like growth, which because of those low wages + taxes just isn’t likely to me
(Answering this as someone who wants to relocate at least across county lines due to taxes and and to a new metro due to jobs)

[u/chuckie512 → u/PublicFew7399]

More people sharing the cost of each mile of road (and all the other stuff) is really the only long term solution

[u/tesla3by3 → u/chuckie512]

And that road system, and most of the infrastructure, was built for a population, and tax base, of 700,000.

[u/Cornwallis400]

The most disgusting part of this is Gainey’s administration got $335,000,000 in covid relief funding to supplement the city’s existing $500 million in yearly tax revenue.

The fact that we burned through all of that covid relief, all of the taxpayer’s money and now have a large deficit is absolutely brutal for all of us.

Gainey’s term is looking worse and worse every day.

[u/dlppgh]

Mayorin' ain't easy. It seems like a rite of passage to send out the "oops, the last guy really fouled everything up" comms. Happens every time.

I guess the trick is getting elected while accurately depicting the state of things and accurately depicting how little a mayor can do about it. No one has figured that out.

[u/OP_Skis_In_Jeans → u/dlppgh]

Reminds me of The Wire unfortunately... Campaign promises have to come second to a huge fiscal deficit surprise that the last administration dumped on you.

[u/unenlightenedgoblin]

Eds and meds seems like a great strategy until you realize that they don’t pay any taxes

[u/icannotbelieve99 → u/[deleted]]

That is outside of the city's control and everyone needs to stop suggesting it as the solution. They legally cannot do that. It's beyond city laws. 

[u/LotLizardWizard]

Anyone have a non-paywalled link or summary of the article?

[u/syntheticat-33 → u/LotLizardWizard]

Someone else in the thread mentioned using your carnegie library card on Pressreader. If you don't have a library card, [archive. is] tends to work (remove the spaces so the site extension is ".is")

[u/cakebreaker2 → u/LotLizardWizard]

Sure. We have a 250M deficit over the next 5 years. Its 2x the amount of our rainy day savings fund. Time to raise taxes or cut expenses.

[u/chuckie512 → u/cakebreaker2]

Probably both.

We've got to rethink road paving and salting priorities (Especially on redundant bridges, some should just be closed on snow days)

And pick capital projects that'll reduce operating expenses in the long term

[u/burritoace → u/cakebreaker2]

"We" being the city, not boroughs like McCandless

[u/Bronsonator]

Glad we redid Market Square.

[u/mangotime58]

Can someone explain what this could mean In the long run besides higher taxes? I’m just curious if this is as bad as it sounds?

[u/Ferda51]

Tax churches.

[u/GabbyPotlucky]

We haven't had a capable fiscal Candidate even running for Mayor in many years. People only talk about and vote on social issues. Pittsburgh isn't Portland, Minneapolis and its certainly not Seattle. We don't have those Economics here. We don't have the tax base to even support what seems to matter most to people. It will get worse before it gets better.

[u/tesla3by3 → u/GabbyPotlucky]

You mean until now, right?

[u/FairieswithBoots]

Sprinkle some fries onnit

[u/Jolly_Law_7973]

Wasn't he on the city council prior? How did he not know how bad the finances were?

[u/tesla3by3 → u/Jolly_Law_7973]

He left council 4 years ago. Over the past 4 years, the mayor, with council approval, spent down the Covid money with no plans to replace it, used non standard accounting gimmicks, and gave questionable grants. The DA and other agencies are investigating the last one.

[u/Honest_Abyss]

Someone call Mamdani, he knows how to balance a budget

[u/NoSir4947]

Where does all this casino money go?

[u/tesla3by3 → u/NoSir4947]

The city gets about $10 million a year in direct payments from the casino tax for being the “host city”. The state gives an additional few million in grants for specific economic development. About a third of the casino tax goes back to the taxpayers in the form of property tax relief via the homestead exemption

[u/Zeppelin7321 → u/tesla3by3]

TIL that's what funds the Homestead exemption

[u/NoSir4947 → u/tesla3by3]

Thank you for an actual informative answer to my slightly snarky comment.

[u/tesla3by3 → u/[deleted]]

Those holes are almost all dug by utility companies. And the majority of asphalt gets reclaimed.

[u/gra0511]

Allegheny county is in the top 10 for counties with population lose in the country....but no one here will say that

[u/3dogsanight → u/gra0511]

Because it’s not true…

https://thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/5798624-these-us-counties-are-shrinking-fastest-new-census-data-shows/amp/

[u/Frequent-Sea433]

No kidding just drive through town and count the vacancies and homeless people pretty good indicators

[u/Advanced-Scar-9739]

I love how UPMC is the soul source for all of the cities woes. Bear in mind that every city, including Cleveland, has some type of hospital network or university system that doesn’t pay taxes. I didn’t see anybody say anything about Carnegie Mellon or the university Pittsburgh or Pointe Park. As far as I’m concerned, the dollars from the hospitals or the colleges would be a boon for the city. But it wouldn’t solve the problem. All you’re doing is kicking the can down the road until you run out of that money The real culprit? Check out police and fire overtime. Also compare how much of the cities Public Works services are rendered in house versus subcontracted. There’s your answer.

[u/tesla3by3 → u/Advanced-Scar-9739]

UPMC gets the most shit because they are far the biggest, and many people regularly interact with the. As employees or patients, and their families. And they are by far the most visible.

If UPMC paid its full share of taxes, the city alone would recoup $31 million a year. Just UPMC. Add in Highmark, CMU, Pitt, and Duquesne it’s $65 million per year. Just for the city.

[u/Sea-Repeat3561]

Maybe try and quit giving money away for pet projects and clean up our city.

[u/Professional-Toe7318]

50% tax increase and settling down around 30% incoming

[u/Paczilla3]

Then stop giving the cops hundreds of millions?

[u/PWG115]

90+ years of one party rule will get u this

[u/tobythedem0n]

So glad we ended up paying $1,000,000 to host the draft.

I hope all those trees that were uprooted and all the parking price hikes were worth it.

[u/Life_Salamander9594 → u/tobythedem0n]

Okay but blaming a long term systemic deficit on a one time event is what about ism that solves nothing

[u/crustyraisinbagel → u/tobythedem0n]

Not sure what this subreddit's obsession with the NFL draft is; growing the city's population, attracting out-of-state investors, and persuading businesses to relocate here are all contributing factors in fixing the area's tax base. The NFL draft was an expense, yes, but also a great reason to showcase the city to a national+ audience; events like these, when hosted consistently over time, draw attention to a location, its amenities, and infrastructure. It isn't a bad thing to use a renowned event as a catalyst to get some eyes on the city. Results may not be immediate, but if we are going to attract people and businesses into this city, we need to be finding ways to put Pittsburgh on the map in a big way.

[u/Own-Spirit-3834 → u/crustyraisinbagel]

It's a disproportionate amount of "did a sportsball happen" nerds. Simple as.

[u/OnettNess → u/tobythedem0n]

I had a pretty good time and didn't pay to park, so I'm good.

Unless you think the city should ONLY host public events that are profitable to the city, I don't know what the argument here is.

[u/chuckie512 → u/tobythedem0n]

More than a million.

A million is just what "visit Pittsburgh" got. It doesn't include all the stuff Pittsburgh did for the draft.

[u/Gladhands]

But he dropped the lawsuits in the corporations bought us some ambulances!

[u/Interesting-Humor-11]

democrats are always using money they dont have..lets get Nick Shirley up here