Amid ongoing concerns about the city’s financial health, both Mayor Ed Gainey’s budget office and the city controller agreed that Pittsburgh’s finances for the first half of the year looked encouraging — at least for the immediate future.
In an Office of Management and Budget report published late last week, city officials highlighted progress made in the second quarter of the city’s financial year, which ran from April 1 through June 30.
The report projected that the city will end 2024 with nearly a $4 million surplus. That’s an improvement over the estimates the budget office made at the end of the first quarter, when it anticipated the city would run nearly $3 million in the red. Administration officials cited factors like improved revenue projections and more cost savings as reasons for the upward adjustment.
The numbers in the report are “on the whole, good news for the City,” City Controller Rachael Heisler said in a statement released Tuesday morning. Earnings from interest, she said, are exceeding projections, which she credited to successful investment strategies. Parking, amusement and earned income tax revenues are also proving reliable, she said.
Heisler has previously expressed apprehension about Pittsburgh’s long-term economic outlook. She raised alarms earlier this year that the city’s spending was increasing faster than its revenues, especially as federal COVID relief is set to run out at the end of this year.
Heisler’s statement cautioned that while “there are several promising highlights” in the new numbers, “the concerns I’ve raised about City finances are focused on the years ahead.”
Among the issues Heisler has her eye on are high vacancy rates at office buildings in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing hybrid work policies.
End-of-year revenues are still projected to be almost $15 million less than what the city budget originally envisioned, she emphasized Tuesday.
The new projections suggest that shortfall will be offset by cost savings, which Heisler noted came from places where jobs had been budgeted for but not filled. Many of those are in the city’s Department of Public Safety. In the police bureau, 909 full-time positions were budgeted but only 841 filled, and in emergency medical services, only 174 out of 219 budgeted positions were filled.
Still, Heisler said she appreciated the administration’s transparency in publishing the quarterly report.
“These numbers show that the City of Pittsburgh is resilient and working to prepare for the fiscal challenges that lie ahead,” she said.
