Pittsburgh controller predicts large surplus for 2019

Pittsburgh is spending within its 2019 budget projection and is headed for a larger than anticipated surplus at year’s end, the city controller said Monday.

Controller Michael Lamb, who released his Popular Annual Financial Report for 2018, said 2019 revenues from all tax sources are exceeding projections and departments, with the exception of the Emergency Medical Services and the police bureau, are hitting budget projections. The city’s total general fund budget is $568 million.

“The real possibility is we will finish the year within budget and with the increase in revenues, the city anticipated a surplus this year of around $7 million,” he said. “We’re going to do better than that. We’ll probably be north of $10 million before the year’s over as far as the surplus.”

The EMS Bureau had spent 54 percent of its $22.6 million budget by June 30 and the police bureau had spent about 53 percent of its $104 million budget, but Lamb said it wasn’t an unusual situation for those two departments.

“That’s something that happens,” he said. “It’s not so much over that they can’t correct and make that back through the rest of the year.”

The Popular Annual Financial Report is a shortened version of Lamb’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. The report is available online and Lamb said copies of the PAFR are available in his office.