Editorial: Rough water ahead for Pittsburgh's 2026 budget

Is Pittsburgh’s spending plan for 2026 in good shape — or is it steering into the rocks?

“I’m not denying a thin margin for error,” said Jake Pawlak, deputy mayor under Mayor Ed Gainey and head of the Office of Management and Budget.

A “thin margin for error” is not an acknowledgement there could be issues, which is how Pawlak seems to be selling it.

It’s like the cushion that analysts include when reporting political polls to account for the difference that can occur when adjusting a sample size.

The city council’s budget director, Peter McDevitt, is markedly less confident in the mayor’s budget.

“So if something goes awry — as the best laid plans of mice and men often do — we’re up a creek without a paddle,” he said at a budget hearing this week.

Council believes Gainey’s budget is a fiction that falls more than $20 million short of meeting the city’s needs. The shortcomings aren’t just about not having the money to fund big ideas. They’re about basics. In addition to overtime for emergency services, there are questions about having enough for regular salaries and utilities.

There also are questions about having enough to address what has been an ongoing concern for years: The city’s fleet of vehicles — from ambulances to police cars to snowplows — is in rough shape. Since taking office, Gainey has repeatedly said replacing problem vehicles is a priority.

That is only one of the issues that even Pawlak admits will be hard to cover with the proposed budget. But not to worry, he has suggested. The city can make the budget work by plundering a trust fund to make up for revenue that isn’t there.

Raiding your 401(k) to pay the electric bill doesn’t exactly seem like sound financial strategy.

On the other hand, Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, has floated the idea of a 30% property tax hike. While that math might work better, it assumes taxpayers are sitting on enough cash to make it work. That seems just as unlikely as Gainey’s fairy tale budget.

Taxes that are out of reach to pay are likely to result in more bills becoming delinquent. Unpaid taxes are a story you can see played out in many of the abandoned buildings in Pittsburgh.

Council would like to pay $9 million to tear down some of those buildings. It’s in the budget. Does that mean there’s money for it? No one knows.

What is obvious is Gainey’s final budget is not, even according to its biggest defender, prepared to do what it says it would without digging into shrinking reserves.

It is an unsteady raft stacked high with needs and headed for rough water. And while McDevitt is right about the city plunging into this without a paddle, it’s worth noting Pittsburgh might not be up just a creek.

It’s up a river. Three of them.