By Joe Reuben, Bulletin contributor
The City of Pittsburgh’s 5-year capital budget is a series of projections on what the City intends to spend on physical and economic development projects and programs between 2026 and 2031. The list is put together by the Mayor’s Office after consultations with City Council, the City Controller, and the heads of various City departments. The Mayor then produces a document called the “Capital Budget” that lays out the entire spending picture for Council to adopt, modify or reject before the end of the calendar year. Rarely, if ever, has Council rejected the entire plan because much of it consists of projects and programs that were approved by Council in previous years’ budgets.
Unlike the City’s operating budget, the capital budget doesn’t have to balance. If the City believes it will have access to $100 million in revenues, as the 2026 budget implies, then it’s up to Council to determine if the money allocated to the many projects or programs is worthwhile to spend, or even sufficient. Many of the items on the list deal with the City’s own facilities and infrastructure. Public works facilities, street repaving, public safety vehicles, parks, and recreation centers are just some of the areas in which the City has to divide up the so-called $100 million “pot.”
The $100 million that the capital budget projects to spend over the next 5 years comes from a number of different sources. Several of these are hard-and-fast numbers, but others are only educated guesses. A portion of the budget ($10 million) comes from a transfer of revenue from the City’s operating (or General Fund) project, so that’s pretty definitive. Another reliable source ($51.4 million) comes from what is known as “bond revenue”, which the City raised from the sale of bonds in the private marketplace, and will have to repay, over time, to the investors who purchased them. A third stream, $26 million, will be coming from “other sources” which usually means the state of Pennsylvania or the federal government These numbers are only estimates at best, given the state of affairs these days in Harrisburg and Washington, DC. Some of that money may already be pledged by these “other sources,” mostly when it comes to transportation projects. But who can safely predict how much money will actually be coming our way in 2027, or 2028, or 2029? And if doesn’t, what does that mean for the projects or programs they’re supposed to support? As an example, the City believes it will have $1 million from the federal government to spend in each of the next 5 years to support senior citizen centers across the city. But what happens if Washington decides to do away with that funding stream? Will all of those centers then have to close? In another instance, the Mayor’s Office is asking to reserve over $2 million to demolish unsafe structures in 2026. But the budget says it still has $2.6 million that hasn’t been spent from prior year budgets. How realistic is it, then, that the new allotment of money will actually get out the door? Could some of those funds be better spent elsewhere?
Still, despite the misgivings one may have when perusing the 184-page document, it is the only blueprint the City can offer its residents and taxpayers. There is no other way for the City to communicate how it will be using the $100.2 million in resources. For this part of the East End, several projects do show up on the City’s radar. One is Phase II of the reconstruction of the Penn Avenue roadway and related infrastructure from Evaline to Graham Sts., which is expected to carry a price tag of over $10 million when it finally gets rolling in the spring of 2026, after nearly 8 years of active planning by the City. And, interestingly, the City says that in 2029, it anticipates spending another $1 million on a third phase of Penn Avenue’s reconstruction, with $800,000 coming from “other sources.” One might call this wishful thinking at best because there isn’t even a plan at this stage for how that money would be spent.
One deliverable in the 2026 capital budget that will most interest Garfield residents is $4.5 million in bond revenue set aside for Fort Pitt Park’s expansion and the overhaul of its athletic field (see chart below from page 108 of the budget). Based on a neighborhood meeting City officials held in Garfield this past summer, the project does appear to be on track to break ground in 2026. And, unlike senior citizen centers, the money won’t be coming from “other sources.”