Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey admits that the city’s finances soon could be sucking for the proverbial air — though his administration has taken to downplaying the threat.
But when it comes to anything approaching what we’ll call a full-scale economizing of spending, well, the administration draws the line at cutting city jobs.
“Don’t worry, be happy,” appears to be the messaging trotted out last week in a self-described “fireside chat.” What, no smoking jackets?
A loss of federal pandemic relief funding, increased debt service payments (though with relief on the horizon), a stagnating housing market and decreased property values Downtown are the mutual culprits.
Lest we forget reams of onerous regulations, decades of one-party rule and an ever-increasing fealty to being organized labor’s puppet.
However, happy days soon should be in Pittsburgh’s corner again, the messaging continues.
But despite the challenges – those stated and those openly hiding in the shadows long ignored — Jake Pawlak, director of the city’s Office of Management and Budget, says there are no plans to raise taxes or to cut jobs.
To the former point: What a disaster raising taxes would be. To the latter point: Never mind that Pittsburgh has a bloated workforce relative to a “benchmark city.”
As the Allegheny Institute’s Eric Montarti and Alex Sodini detailed last month (in Policy Brief Vol. 24, No. 29), Pittsburgh’s total employees per 1,000 people were 48 percent higher, based on 2023’s audited report.
That is, it is overemployed by roughly 1,100 employees.
The researchers found police and fire employees (civilian and sworn) per 1,000 people were also higher, with 22 percent and 38 percent more staffing than the benchmark city, respectively.
And the budget is further strained by those associated salary and benefits costs.
That rendering such fat appears to have been automatically stricken from Pittsburgh’s budget discussions – a move that should be considered more than a few bricks shy of a load – is the real disservice to Pittsburgh taxpayers.
Realities must be addressed. Unaddressed, they’ll be more akin to the swarming yellow jackets of a dry, dry summer seeking to sting, kill and suck the lifeblood out of the body politic.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
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