Mayor Corey O’Connor’s administration detailed budget amendments to Pittsburgh City Council Tuesday that would add $28 million in spending to the plan council passed in December, paid for mostly by drawing from the city’s reserve fund.

O’Connor and his staff have maintained that the changes represent spending that was already set to occur this year but was not properly accounted for when the budget was prepared by former Mayor Ed Gainey. That document, O’Connor said, underestimated spending on bridge maintenance, fuel, snow removal, city employee health care and legal judgments, among other areas.

If adopted, the amendments will change the city’s projection for this year from an operating surplus of $15.6 million to a deficit of $6.5 million — even before taking into account transfers of more than $30 million to funds related to capital projects, affordable housing and violence prevention.

The startling announcement, previewed during a press conference last month and detailed in dozens of proposed amendments sent to council last week, means the city will run a deficit this year even after voting to raise property tax rates by 20%. 

“Some of those things need to be fixed right now,” city Chief of Staff Dan Gilman said to council members Tuesday, explaining why the administration seeks changes now rather than waiting for the next budget cycle.

“Payments are due,” Gilman said. “We owe money for fleet maintenance, we owe money for gas. The budget didn’t accurately reflect those realities.”

The amendments would alter the city’s five-year financial forecast significantly. After accounting for last year’s unexpected $8 million deficit and this year’s projected deficit, the city’s reserve fund would end the year 17% smaller than was forecast by the prior administration, a difference of $24 million. 

The projected fund balance at the end of 2030 would decrease by nearly 40% if the amendments are adopted, dropping from $128 million to $79 million. That would leave the city’s rainy day fund at just 11% of the city’s annual expenses, right above the statutory minimum of 10%.

And those projections rely on a 4.4% decrease in spending from 2026 to 2027, suggesting difficult choices await O’Connor as his team crafts next year’s spending plan.

Among the largest expenses that O’Connor says need to be added to the budget:

• $8.5 million for city employee health care coverage
• $6 million for retiree health care coverage
• $7.3 million for legal judgments against the city
• $500,000 for hiring outside counsel to represent the city
• $2.6 million for Public Works roof replacements
• $2 million for city vehicle repairs
• $2.2 million to cover the response to January’s major snow storm
• $300,000 to fund the City Cuts lawn mowing program

City Council members said little to indicate how they may vote on the amendments. Barb Warwick questioned an amendment to remove money that had been earmarked for city vehicle purchases. Bob Charland asked how a set of miscalculations worth $28 million could have escaped council’s scrutiny late last year — including the omission of a relatively inexpensive program that offers lawn mowing to older residents, veterans and residents with disabilities.

Council will take preliminary votes on each amendment April 8 and hold a public hearing on April 14. Final votes are not yet scheduled but could occur before the end of the month.

The administration is not seeking to end the practice of marking tens of millions of dollars in annual spending on capital projects, affordable housing programs and violence prevention initiatives as separate from the operating budget — allowing the city to meet the legal requirement of enacting a balanced budget while in practice drawing significant amounts from its reserve fund.

That practice is how the city could claim an operating deficit of $6.5 million this year — while in reality shrinking its reserve fund by $24 million. City Controller Rachael Heisler has criticized the practice in recent years.

“Until [the transfers] are accounted for appropriately, the budget remains fundamentally unbalanced,” Heisler said in a statement this month.

City Press Secretary Molly Onufer said the mayor shares the controller’s goal, “but the current financial forecast doesn’t allow for this right now.”

Charlie Wolfson is the local government reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Rich Lord.

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O’Connor amendments paint difficult financial future, even after raising taxes

by Charlie Wolfson, Pittsburgh's Public Source
March 31, 2026

<h1>O’Connor amendments paint difficult financial future, even after raising taxes</h1> <p class="byline">by Charlie Wolfson, Pittsburgh's Public Source <br />March 31, 2026</p> <p>Mayor Corey O’Connor’s administration detailed budget amendments to Pittsburgh City Council Tuesday that would add $28 million in spending to the plan council passed in December, paid for mostly by drawing from the city’s reserve fund.</p> <p>O’Connor and his staff have maintained that the changes represent spending that was already set to occur this year but was not properly accounted for when the budget was prepared by former Mayor Ed Gainey. That document, O’Connor said, underestimated spending on bridge maintenance, fuel, snow removal, city employee health care and legal judgments, among other areas.</p> <p>If adopted, the amendments will change the city’s projection for this year from an operating surplus of $15.6 million to a deficit of $6.5 million — even before taking into account transfers of more than $30 million to funds related to capital projects, affordable housing and violence prevention.</p> <p>The startling announcement, previewed during <a href="https://www.publicsource.org/pittsburgh-budget-deficit-overhaul-mayor/">a press conference</a> last month and detailed in dozens of proposed amendments sent to council last week, means the city will run a deficit this year even after voting to raise property tax rates by 20%.&nbsp;</p> <p>“Some of those things need to be fixed right now,” city Chief of Staff Dan Gilman said to council members Tuesday, explaining why the administration seeks changes now rather than waiting for the next budget cycle.</p> <p>“Payments are due,” Gilman said. “We owe money for fleet maintenance, we owe money for gas. The budget didn’t accurately reflect those realities.”</p> <p>The amendments would alter the city’s five-year financial forecast significantly. After accounting for last year’s unexpected $8 million deficit and this year’s projected deficit, the city’s reserve fund would end the year 17% smaller than was forecast by the prior administration, a difference of $24 million.&nbsp;</p> <p>The projected fund balance at the end of 2030 would decrease by nearly 40% if the amendments are adopted, dropping from $128 million to $79 million. That would leave the city’s rainy day fund at just 11% of the city’s annual expenses, right above the statutory minimum of 10%.</p> <p>And those projections rely on a 4.4% decrease in spending from 2026 to 2027, suggesting difficult choices await O’Connor as his team crafts next year’s spending plan.</p> <p>Among the largest expenses that O’Connor says need to be added to the budget:</p> <ul class="wp-block-list"> <li>$8.5 million for city employee health care coverage</li> <li>$6 million for retiree health care coverage</li> <li>$7.3 million for legal judgments against the city</li> <li>$500,000 for hiring outside counsel to represent the city</li> <li>$2.6 million for Public Works roof replacements</li> <li>$2 million for city vehicle repairs</li> <li>$2.2 million to cover the response to January’s major snow storm</li> <li>$300,000 to fund the City Cuts lawn mowing program</li> </ul> <p>City Council members said little to indicate how they may vote on the amendments. Barb Warwick questioned an amendment to remove money that had been earmarked for city vehicle purchases. Bob Charland asked how a set of miscalculations worth $28 million could have escaped council’s scrutiny late last year — including the omission of a relatively inexpensive program that offers lawn mowing to older residents, veterans and residents with disabilities.</p> <p>Council will take preliminary votes on each amendment April 8 and hold a public hearing on April 14. Final votes are not yet scheduled but could occur before the end of the month.</p> <p>The administration is not seeking to end the practice of marking tens of millions of dollars in annual spending on capital projects, affordable housing programs and violence prevention initiatives as separate from the operating budget — allowing the city to meet the legal requirement of enacting a balanced budget while in practice drawing significant amounts from its reserve fund.</p> <p>That practice is how the city could claim an operating deficit of $6.5 million this year — while in reality shrinking its reserve fund by $24 million. City Controller Rachael Heisler has criticized the practice in recent years.</p> <p>“Until [the transfers] are accounted for appropriately, the budget remains fundamentally unbalanced,” Heisler said in a statement this month.</p> <p>City Press Secretary Molly Onufer said the mayor shares the controller’s goal, “but the current financial forecast doesn’t allow for this right now.”</p> <p><em>Charlie Wolfson is the local government reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. He can be reached at </em><a href="mailto:charlie@publicsource.org"><em>charlie@publicsource.org</em></a><em>.</em></p> <p><em>This story was fact-checked by Rich Lord.</em></p> <p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://www.publicsource.org/city-pittsburgh-deficit-budget-amendments-council/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://www.publicsource.org&quot;&gt;Pittsburgh&#039;s Public Source&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/www.publicsource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/cropped-ps_circle_favicon_blue.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;</p> &lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://www.publicsource.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=1331208&amp;amp;ga4=G-CCLXQK5C14&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://www.publicsource.org/city-pittsburgh-deficit-budget-amendments-council/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/publicsource.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

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