1st session held for feedback on City of Pittsburgh’s preliminary 2024 budget

PITTSBURGH — The Gainey Administration held the first of five community feedback sessions on the city’s 2024 preliminary budget Wednesday evening.

Officials say the goal is to gather input and make changes before the final budget is presented to city council in November.

Public safety was one of the main topics of discussion.

The budget allows for the hiring of twelve community aides. They’d be uniformed members of the police department.

“[They’d] respond to important but low risk safety calls. Someone is reporting their driveway is blocked by another car,” Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak said.

Pawlak also spoke with Channel 11 about an issue previously reported on by Channel 11′s Chief Investigator Rick Earle.

>>> Proposed 2024 budget causes stir among Pittsburgh police officers

The 2024 budget allows for 850 officers versus 900 in 2023′s budget.

“After multiple years without recruit classes and with retirements, the number is actually significantly below that,” Pawlak said. “We can get that number in 2024 to 850, 50 less than the authorization. We’re accounting for that financially because it’s going to take us more than one year.”

The event drew dozens of community members. Many had topics they’d wanted to bring up directly to city officials.

“I’ve very concerned with making sure food access and food infrastructure is part of the city’s responsibility in city planning,” Dana Dolney from Pittsburgh said.

“I wanted to address the issue of homeless people up here and see if they’d do something about that,” Len Marcyanis said. He’s lived in Troy Hill for 40 years.

There are four more community meetings scheduled.