Pittsburgh City Council approved a 20% property tax increase Sunday morning, taking a drastic step to fill what they described as a $20 or $30 million dollar hole in Mayor Ed Gainey’s proposed 2026 budget.
The tax increase passed by a vote of 6-2. Voting yes were council President R. Daniel Lavelle and councilors Bob Charland, Barb Warwick, Deb Gross, Erika Strassburger and Khari Mosley. Voting against were Bobby Wilson and Theresa Kail-Smith. Anthony Coghill was not present for the final vote, but voted against it in a preliminary vote.
Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak said after preliminary votes Sunday that the mayor would analyze council’s changes to his plan and announce whether he plans to sign or veto them later, suggesting the public would hear from him early this week.
Councilor Theresa Kail-Smith voices her opposition as Pittsburgh City Council meets on Dec. 21, in the City-County Building, Downtown. Six councilors voted in favor of a 20% increase in property taxes. Kail-Smith, whose tenure on council ends this month, voted against the tax hike. (Photo by Alexis Wary/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
“In the last 24 hours I’ve felt basically every emotion except for maybe the positive ones,” said Charland, who said he did not want to raise taxes but that it was needed. “My district is going to hurt from this tax increase.”
The change would increase the city’s millage rate from 8.06 to 9.67 — an additional $1.61 in tax for every $1,000 of assessed value.
An unusually chaotic budget season began in November when Gainey presented a $680 million operating budget proposal to council, with no tax hike. Council members and City Controller Rachael Heisler quickly pointed to “unrealistic” figures in the budget, particularly what they said were underestimates of how much the city would spend next year on public safety overtime and utility bills. They also faulted the mayor’s failure to budget more investment in the city’s fleet of fire, EMS and public works vehicles.
Council outlined a plan to add funding to each of those areas on Thursday, but members were told by their top budget aide that they would have to raise the city’s property tax millage rate in order to fund the new plan.
The increase passed Sunday is lower than the 30% hike suggested by Warwick in a bill she introduced Dec. 8.
The city is poised to join Allegheny County and Pittsburgh Public Schools in raising property tax rates in recent years, dealing city homeowners a combined 1.817-mill jump over two years after a dozen years of stability. The PPS board last week hiked school property taxes by 2%, from 10.25 to 10.457 mills.
Three members railed against the tax hike in pre-vote comments, saying the city has not done enough to cut spending first and didn’t use its COVID-19 relief funds properly.
“While everybody else is raising taxes around us, we need to step up and say we’re going to be the adults in the room,” said Coghill, referring to county and school taxes. “We’re going to make every effort that we can before we come with our hand out.”
Kail-Smith said the tax hike would be too hard on residents and criticized those who supported it.
“Don’t tell me next week that you care about affordable housing,” she said. “Don’t tell me that you care about poor people. Don’t tell me you care about the food justice fund. Because you are making people line up for that stuff with your votes.”
The city counted on routine growth in its taxable property value in the 2010s, negating any need to raise its rate. But the combined shock of the COVID-19 pandemic and a lawsuit that changed how appealed tax bills are calculated stopped that growth, leaving city revenue short of its planned expenses.
If Gainey vetoes any of the bills council passed Sunday, the body would have until the end of the year to vote to override his veto with at least six votes. If the mayor does not sign or veto the budget legislation, it would automatically become law Jan. 1.
Council has planned a meeting during the final hour of 2025 to act on a potential last-minute veto.
Residents: Target nonprofits, not taxpayers
Dozens of residents at a Saturday public hearing opposed the tax hike, with many urging councilors to seek more money from large, tax-exempt nonprofits such as UPMC.
“They’re plundering us,” one commenter, Friendship resident Kasey Brown, said of health care companies. “They’re a middleman. They have no place going untouched when you come and ask more and more and more of us.”
Kasey Brown of Friendship speaks in opposition to a proposed property tax increase on Dec. 20, at the City-County Building in Downtown. “I am here because I have very high rent,” said Brown, who suggested, among others, making UPMC pay some property taxes to offset the city’s budget woes. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
But Pittsburgh leaders have tried for decades to wrest more money from major nonprofits, continually running into Pennsylvania law that makes it difficult or impossible.
Some landlords warned at the public hearing that the tax hike could be passed on to the city’s renters, who make up a slight majority of residents.
“These property taxes are just another nail in the coffin that forces me to price out more and more potential tenants just to break even,” said Xander Paski, who said he manages properties in the Strip District.
Warwick suggested during remarks after public comment that most landlords could swallow the rate hike without passing it on to renters.
“It would be interesting to ask your landlord, ‘What is your mortgage on my unit?’” Warwick said. “Ask your landlord … and then tell me if your landlord is just eking by.”
Kail-Smith, who is departing council in January, said the city is already asking too much of its residents.
“You can’t get blood from a rock. And that’s what you’re trying to do here,” Kail-Smith said.
Charland said he did not want to raise taxes, despite his vote, and that he would “fight like hell” to balance the budget in other ways in the future.
New revenue going to vehicle, public safety OT, utilities
After voting to raise tax revenue by about $28 million for 2026, council voted on more than 30 amendments to Gainey’s spending plan to bring it into line with council’s perception of realistic needs and costs.
Major spending increases approved included:
- Doubling investment in city vehicles from $10 million to $20 million
- Adding $1 million in funding for a small business development program
- Increasing the public safety overtime budget by $8 million
- Setting aside an additional $6.5 million for utility payments
- Adding $1.7 million to the budget for the mayor’s office (keeping it roughly the same as its 2025 level, where Gainey had proposed cuts).
The councilors cut back spending in a few areas, including:
- Halving this year’s transfer to the Stop The Violence trust fund from $10 million to $5 million
- Removing $425,316 in spending on seasonal laborers for public works
- Reducing the city’s budget for computers by $500,000.
The city’s police horses were spared Sunday; on Thursday members planned to eliminate the unit to save $140,000 but on Sunday reversed course.
The sum of council’s changes to Gainey’s plan added $21 million to city expenditures, less than the $28 million the city expects to collect from the additional millage. The total expenditures after council’s changes would be about $693 million.
Charlie Wolfson is the local government reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. He can be reached at [email protected].
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