Pittsburgh controller describes the city's financial situation as "precarious"
Heisler describes the city's financial situation as "precarious." The city is spending more money than it's taking in while failing to maintain its deteriorating fleet, adequately staff its public safety forces or even turn on most of the water fountains in the summer months.
"We need to make sure that the city is handling its basic functions: keeping people safe and keeping things clean," Heisler said.
Releasing her annual fiscal report on Wednesday, the controller says the city is not yet in a crisis, but will be unless steps are taken to rein in non-essential spending and raise new revenue.
She says the city has spent $24 million more this year than last, and at mid-year has depleted 77 percent of its overtime budget, projecting it will outspend that budget by $20 million.
"This is a significant increase and unsustainable," Heisler said.
The city denies it is close to crisis but concedes overtime is a "long-term challenge." Still, in a statement, Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak said union negotiations and unexpected increases in wage and real estate revenues may offset those increases.
"While we believe that reforms to overtime usage will ultimately play a role in solving this problem, it's clear that process is taking longer than we projected to show the anticipated results," Pawlak said. "That being said, the scale of this issue is manageable, offset by savings elsewhere in the budget and does not give us cause for alarm."
Heisler said the city must move aggressively to encourage job growth and negotiate a deal with the non-profit hospitals and universities for payments in lieu of taxes — something, she says, the Gainey administration has not achieved, which has filed challenges against tax-exempt properties.
"When you're in active litigation against them, you're not going to hit a point where you're engaging in conversation about voluntary payments toward city operations," Heisler said.
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