There’s a rebellion underway in Pittsburgh’s city hall.

Frustrated with outgoing Mayor Ed Gainey’s 2026 budget proposal, City Council members are increasingly plotting how to blow up his spending plan.

Gainey’s budget avoids tax increases and layoffs. But critics have derided it as dishonest and “sloppy.”

As Pittsburgh barrels toward a year-end deadline to pass a balanced budget, council members appear more reluctant to endorse a document they don’t believe is realistic — and inclined to buck the mayor and raise taxes or cut services.

Proposals to do both could be introduced as early as next week as council looks to rewrite the budget proposal, Finance Chair Erika Strassburger said.

“I believe it will be a combination — from my thinking, this is just me — a combination of shifting of funds, some level of tax increase and some level of cuts internally in the city,” Strassburger told TribLive on Friday.

She said she hopes other council members will agree.

“It’s going to have some combination of all three of those,” Strassburger said.

Gainey’s $680 million operating budget arrived at the end of September. The administration boasted it held the line on taxes and avoided layoffs while delivering core services.

“This budget reflects our commitment to responsible stewardship – balancing the books while protecting the core services our residents rely on each day,” Gainey said. “We’ve achieved this without layoffs, keeping the dedicated workers who serve our neighborhoods and keep our city moving forward.”

But council members and Pittsburgh’s controller laid into the document, ripping it as unrealistic and underestimating major expenses like overtime.

Council members for weeks have raised the prospects of increasing taxes or reducing services, though no formal proposals have been brought forward.

“As I’ve stated before and will continue to state, everything is on the table right now,” Councilman Bob Charland, D-South Side, said. “Council is put in a very difficult situation. However, it is council’s role to pass a budget. It is our biggest responsibility.”

‘In their hands’

Strassburger, D-Squirrel Hill, has said she believes the city is operating under a structural deficit, meaning expenses outstrip revenue, even though the mayor presented what he called a balanced budget.

Council can amend Gainey’s spending plan and fix what it thinks is broken.

“Council currently has the balanced budget proposal prepared by the Gainey administration, and review is now in their hands,” Olga George, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said Friday.

“It would be premature for us to offer comments at this stage, as we have not yet seen any formal, comprehensive amendments from Council.”

The city is in a challenging financial position. Revenues have decreased in recent years. Federal pandemic relief money is drying up. And the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the city’s facility usage fee, a tax on out-of-town performers and athletes.

Strassburger said she and her peers have asked council’s budget office to outline various scenarios including those that increase taxes or cut costs.

Council will have a closed-door meeting on Tuesday to receive information about those scenarios.

“After that, we should start to have some clarity as to what combination of cuts and revenue generation sources we’re looking at here,” Strassburger said. “It’s going to take a team effort from council members all coming to some level of agreement.”

Strassburger said various budget-related meetings and votes will be pushed back to give officials more time to hammer out a plan. Residents will have a chance to offer feedback during a public hearing.

Tax or cut?

Already, some divisions are emerging among council members.

Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, favors a tax hike instead of service cuts.

During a recent budget hearing, Warwick raised the prospect of having to weigh investing in the city’s aging vehicle fleet against opening pools next summer or having trash collected every week.

Council Budget Director Peter McDevitt likened such tradeoffs to choosing “which core service is worth more.”

Warwick said she was not ready to discuss the size of any potential tax hike, though she said it would be “modest.”

Councilwoman Theresa Kail-Smith, D-West End, said she objected to raising taxes.

City residents this year already faced a 36% jump in their property tax bills from Allegheny County. The city’s public school district is poised to raise taxes next year, too.

Kail-Smith said she worries that adding a city tax increase would be too much of a financial burden for some residents.

“I think that’s not going to lead to homeownership and stability for a lot of our residents. It’s going to amount to fear and concern,” she said. “I think it’s time for cutbacks. I think it’s time for freezes.”

She said she would like to avoid layoffs and look to nonprofits or foundations to help fund some of the city’s costs.

“For me, it’s a time when we have to look at everything,” she said. “We have to look at every dime.”

Time is running out

Council this week delayed approval of a spending plan for the $10 million Housing Opportunity Fund, which supports affordable housing construction and offers support to keep low-income people in their homes.

Members agreed they didn’t want to cut the program — but they also weren’t ready to commit so much money to the initiative.

“From this point forward, what we need to do is find a way to raise revenue, decrease costs or decrease services,” Charland said. “My belief up to this point is that it will probably be a combination of all three. I don’t know where exactly we’ll land.”

Council members during recent budget hearings have asked department leaders to consider where they could curb spending.

Many department heads are already feeling underfunded.

Officials in the Department of Permits, Licenses and Inspections, for instance, said they had capacity to tear down more vacant and abandoned buildings — but not enough money in the budget to meet demand.

The departments of Public Works and Public Safety frequently speak of needing new vehicles. And the Law Department asked for a larger budget for legal settlements than what the existing spending plan takes into account.

“At this point, I believe all nine members agree there is a problem,” Charland said. “I don’t know that there is anyone who has put together a coalition of people who agree on what the solution is yet.”

Time is running out.

If council doesn’t pass a spending plan by Dec. 31, McDevitt, the budget director, said, “That’s uncharted territory.”

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