Here is the plan that Bill Peduto presented to the Act 47 Coordinators back on April 28th:1. Functional consolidation of municipal services
2. Statewide administered pension & health care reform
3. Non-Profit Payroll Tax
4. Regional Revenue Sharing & Local Tax Reform
5. Baseline audits / Professional management / Outcome-based performance
6. Control of long-term general obligation debt
7. Initiatives to create a competitive workforce
The full 9+ page letter to the Coordinators is available to download in PDF format from his Council district's website. Councilman Peduto ends his introductions with this statement:
We need an $80 million structural change to our budget.
And he begins his closing argument like this:
Getting It Done.
We have the opportunity to fix Pittsburgh's budget. It won't be easy and it can't be approached like a menu -- every one of these steps is necessary to create a City budget in 2015 that is strong, sustainable and fair.
The goal of our Finance Chair's agenda seems to be -- at least implicitly -- to withdraw triumphantly from state oversight in 2015. So it may be more of a 6+ year agenda than a 5 year plan, but why get lost in semantics.
EDITORIAL COMMENTS: Most if not all of the items on the agenda seem like good ideas, but almost all of them will have to be negotiated painstakingly with a host of other governments -- and a few would have to be voluntarily and consistently adopted by the Mayor as operating policy.
It looks like Pittsburgh can do just one of these with little apparent fuss -- item number 3. Might as well get on that!
*-UPDATE: Some of the details, most likely embedded within items numbers 5, 6 and maybe 7, are predictably enough setting off alarms in our fire halls. (Post-Gazette) MORE UPDATE: Or do we have a case of dueling plans: Kaplan's and Peduto's? "Now enter the bureaucrats..."
**-UPDATE: Either way, I look forward to working with the administration in together scrupulously ignoring what will be understandable but mostly unsupportable protestations voiced by some in our Fire Bureau. Down with Murphyism!!
Actually, I think the PG piece is related to a five year plan written by Mr. Kaplan. Which makes the timing of today's Peduto plan more interesting. According to the PG, if Council wnated to include parts (or all) of Peduto's plan in our new Five year plan, the Act 47 team would have to approve that. (rosta ruck)
ReplyDeleteI thought reporters were supposed to protect identities of people like PittGirl? It makes me ill to think how sleezy that anchor must be, how low in his self-confidence that he has to out her. I thought we were all on the same team.
ReplyDeleteI have my guess as to who this hoss is.
Either way, PittGirl would have always been fine. I am glad she finally realized it on her own terms.
BOSTO!