Editorial: Gainey's sloppy budget proposal gets a bad grade

Sometimes kids put off their homework too long.

That book report seems like it’s a million years away. There’s plenty of time to read the book, think about it, highlight what’s important, come up with a theme to discuss, write up the argument, edit it, rewrite the report and turn it in on time. Sure there is.

But then the deadline arrives and there you are, improvising a paper about a book you never read, trying to make it seem like you know what you’re talking about.

It’s a bad look in middle school. It’s a worse look in government.

That’s exactly the impression given by Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s budget proposal.

The governor’s ideas for a budget are released like clockwork every year. This book report has had a deadline that was known from the moment the last one was submitted in 2024.

So why is the proposal so sloppy and unprofessional, as Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, noted?

Well, the $680 million plan has issues because of last-minute tweaks. It does avoid layoffs. It doesn’t raise taxes. Somehow, it does this while still boosting spending.

The question is how? Controller Rachael Heisler called it “simply not an honest document.”

That’s one way to get numbers to add up. For instance, it’s easy to keep some of the firefighters’ payroll numbers in line when you calculate based on 679 of them. There are 700.

The budget also puts police overtime at $15 million for 2026, just like this year. It’s a nice thought, and we can’t say exactly what the 2025 numbers will end up being. We do know there was $20 million spent on overtime in 2024.

And 2026 will come with a major event years in the planning — the NFL Draft. With 600,000 people attending the Green Bay draft this year and 775,000 attending Detroit’s in 2024, the numbers for Pittsburgh over the three-day event should be staggering. They could double or triple the city’s population. Police overtime seems like a possibility.

The mayor’s office seems to acknowledge problems. In a different kind of mistake, Gainey’s office underestimated Heisler’s projections for deed transfer taxes by $12 million — almost one-third of the $39 million expected.

Jake Pawlak, the city’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, dismissed it as a typo. Chief Financial Officer Patrick Cornell said he would look into it and update if necessary. Spokeswoman Olga George said a corrected version would fix “formatting issues.”

This is not the report that gets turned in for a grade unless you don’t care about graduating. And to be fair, Gainey doesn’t have to pass this class. He already lost his bid for reelection in the May primary.

But this is not just a bad mark on a report card. This proposal raises real questions about whether the city will be prepared for the challenges of 2026. At best, it’s an incomplete assignment.