Pittsburgh City Council made a series of changes Tuesday to its proposed 2023 budgets, including amendments to refund the Land Bank, keep the city’s cable bureau and print shop out of the mayor’s office and nix plans for several new positions.
Council preliminarily voted to move $4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding from a proposed LED streetlight initiative to instead fully fund the Land Bank and provide cash for a program that aims to alleviate medical debt for low-income Pittsburgh residents.
The medical debt relief program — which Councilman Bobby Wilson introduced to council Tuesday — would get $1 million in ARPA funding. The Land Bank would get the remaining $3 million being taken from the LED streetlight project, which now has been defunded.
The Land Bank initially was earmarked to receive $10 million in ARPA funding. The mayor’s office later proposed to give it only $7 million, freeing up $3 million for a food justice fund that had garnered widespread support.
The Land Bank already approved a $10 million spending plan.
Tuesday’s amendment attempted to strike something of a compromise by bringing the Land Bank’s budget back to $10 million without cutting cash from the food justice fund. City Council Budget Director Peter McDevitt said the LED streetlight project had already lost a portion of its initial funding for other projects, including paving and demolitions, and several council members noted that the scope of the project had already been reduced.
Council President Theresa Kail-Smith said officials already are exploring a new light replacement project.
“This sounds like a compromise, where everybody’s kind of getting what they want,” Councilwoman Barb Warwick said.
Other council members disagreed.
Kail-Smith voiced concerns about the medical debt relief program and said she’d like to see the city spend less of its money on social services projects when it should be focusing on other basic needs such as maintaining sidewalks, paving streets and ensuring bridges don’t collapse.
Councilman Bruce Kraus said his district has called for additional street lights for years, and he could not vote to take money away from something so desperately needed in neighborhoods he represents.
“I would be in serious betrayal of my constituency that has so vociferously advocated to have their health, safety (and) welfare improved by having better lighting in their neighborhood,” he said.
Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle, the budget chair, said council would be able to fund future street light improvement projects once there’s a plan in place for them.
Kail-Smith, Kraus and Councilwoman Deb Gross voted against the measure, which was supported by all other members.
Council members were more united on votes for other budgetary changes.
They unanimously voted to keep the city’s print shop, cable bureau and web positions in the Office of Innovation and Performance, though Mayor Ed Gainey had initially proposed moving them under his office’s purview.
“I don’t believe there was a member that found any level of support” for moving those services into the Mayor’s Office, Kraus said ahead of a unanimous vote to support keeping those services where they are.
In what Kraus called a compromise for not moving the cable bureau into the Mayor’s Office, council unanimously approved a measure to add a press officer to the Mayor’s Office budget for just over $56,000 next year.
Council also unanimously supported a proposal to increase pay raises for nonunion workers. The budget now calls for a 3% pay raise next year for the city’s roughly 700 nonunion workers — up from the initial proposal of 2%. The budget also includes a 2% pay increase each year after that through 2026, where previously there had been none.
To fund the pay raises, council unanimously voted to nix several proposed new positions, including a new 311 call representative, a talent acquisition coordinator, a financial analyst, an engagement specialist, a call technician, an executive assistant, two laborers and two truck drivers.
“City Council wanted to make sure they received their (pay) increases,” Kail-Smith said. “We’re doing the best we can with what we have.”
Council also gave preliminary approval to measures that would alter how they use some of the money held in the parks tax trust fund.
The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy — which initially was not slated to receive any funding from the city next year — is now slated to receive $800,000 from the fund for work on the Allegheny Commons North Promenade and another $150,000 for the Westwood School Field concession stand.
Gross said officials are looking to transfer additional money from the parks tax trust fund for other capital projects. Council also voted to add $235,000 in parks tax funds for work at Fowler Pool and the Cross and Strauss parklet project.
Another change came to the number of crossing guards the city is looking to hire next year. Originally, the budget allowed for the city to have 81 crossing guards in 2023. Council gave preliminary approval to a plan that would decrease that to 75 total positions, which is still more than the 62 crossing guards the city now employees.
Kail-Smith, Strassburger and Warwick voted against that measure.
“At least in my district, there’s been lots of requests for crossing guards,” Warwick said.
Other amendments council voted for Tuesday included adding two more positions to the Stop the Violence Trust Fund, moving Love Your Block funding from the Department of Public Works to the Office of Neighborhood Services in the Mayor’s office, adding $3.1 million in bond funding for Oliver Bathhouse and budgeting for a new administrative assistant for the Citizen Police Review Board.
Council is expected to take a preliminary vote on the budgets, as amended, on Wednesday.
City Council has scheduled a public hearing about the budget amendments Saturday. Officials are expected to take a final vote to adopt the budgets on Monday.
Julia Felton is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Julia by email at jfelton@triblive.com or via Twitter .
