We heard a lot of things about the City of Pittsburgh's budget for this year as it was being shaped before the new year. That included talk about millions for infrastructure improvements, parks, buying electric vehicles and garbage trucks but there's one thing we never heard that we should have.
When City Council passed the final 2022 budget on December 20, 2021 it included a pay raise for themselves of more than 22% while most city employees only received closer to two percent. City Council members pay jumped from $72,000 per year to $88,000.
Council President Theresa Kail-Smith came on my radio show this morning to defend the massive pay jump:
"I'm going to say this over, and over again. I advocated for this. I think our members earned their pay raise. It has been 20 years since they've had a significant raise," said Kail-Smith.
City Controller Michael Lamb is the fiscal watchdog elected to protect city tax dollars from being wasted. He is outraged and says the vote for this increase happened in secret and never should have happened like this.
"What's most troublesome about this, to me, is that they snuck this into the budget," Lamb said.
Kail-Smith said she has no intention of giving up the raise and pointed out that it was a unanimous decision, 9-0, by City Council. Councilman Corey O'Connor who did vote for it, along with all of his peers, has said that he would give the increase back.
Will the others step up to do same? Tell them what you think: Pittsburgh City Council Contacts
