Pittsburgh councilwoman mulls spending freeze amid financial concerns

A Pittsburgh councilwoman on Tuesday said she intends to introduce a bill that would freeze city spending.

Councilwoman Theresa Kail-Smith, D-West End, said she believes the city needs to curb spending as the city is facing financial challenges. Pausing spending could help the city stave off a tax hike, which some residents may struggle to afford, she said.

“Our budget does not look great for the next few years,” Kail-Smith said. “We can’t get blood from a rock. We have residents that cannot pay.”

Gainey’s preliminary budget proposal did not include a tax hike.

Kail-Smith did not formally introduce legislation to halt spending Tuesday but said she intended to do so after talking with other council members and Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration.

Director of the Office of Management and Budget Jake Pawlak said the Gainey administration was grateful Kail-Smith did not introduce legislation that would implement a spending freeze on Tuesday.

“As originally drafted, that legislation would have created confusion about spending that has already been dually authorized, potentially disrupting the delivery of necessary services and preventing the city from honoring its commitments and obligations to vendors, community partners, and grantees,” Pawlak said in a written statement.

This comes as officials have raised alarms about the city’s finances, a topic that became highly politicized ahead of the mayoral primary election in the spring. Gainey lost the Democratic primary in May.

Since the covid-19 pandemic, the city has faced declining revenues as falling Downtown property values have cut into the amount it can collect in property taxes. Plus, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently struck down a tax the city had levied against out-of-town professional athletes and performers.

Some officials have questioned whether the preliminary budget Gainey pitched for next year properly accounts for all of the city’s expenses, including public safety overtime.

Kail-Smith called on officials to be “good stewards” of the city’s finances and to focus on core city services, like plowing roads, maintaining city facilities and ensuring public safety.

“We certainly are staring down the barrel of a difficult budget season for next year,” Councilwoman Erika Strassburger, D-Squirrel Hill, said. “My sense is that some level of austerity will be needed.”

Strassburger, who chairs council’s finance committee, said officials throughout the upcoming budget discussions will have to ponder “some mixture of austerity and other forms of revenue.” She credited Kail-Smith for trying to shield residents from potential tax hikes.

“I think it comes from a place of caring for people who have seen rising costs throughout the year,” she said.

An initial version of the bill — which was not formally introduced at Tuesday’s council meeting — would have put a spending freeze into effect immediately. Kail-Smith said that was not her intent and see wanted to implement the pause next year and in 2027, rather than through the rest of this year.

The measure would pause hiring for any vacant positions except for new department directors or bureau chiefs or for positions that directly serve the mayor’s office, City Council and the departments of Public Works and Public Safety.

It also would freeze most city credit cards, non-essential purchases, non-essential travel and non-essential overtime outside of the departments of Parks & Recreation, Public Works and Public Safety.

Kail-Smith, who has repeatedly questioned whether it’s financially responsible for the city to hand out grant money to outside organizations, would also freeze non-personnel funding from the Stop the Violence Fund and other grants.

Pawlak said changes to the Stop the Violence Fund will shift it to a “contract-for-services model” starting next year, instead of distributing the money as grants.

Pawlak also said he did not believe Kail-Smith’s route of introducing legislation mandating a spending freeze was appropriate. He suggested such efforts should be part of council’s conversations around the 2026 budget, which officials must approve by the end of the year.

This comes after Allegheny County and Pittsburgh Public Schools have recently implemented hiring and spending freezes in response to the state budget impasse.