Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey made many claims in his budget speech Tuesday morning.
11 Researchers reviewed his entire speech and found that some statements were true, but others were not.
>>>Mayor Gainey’s 2025 budget reduces the number of police officers and adds civilian jobs within the agency
“When I took office, we were still purchasing 100% of our energy from polluting sources. Last year was the first time we changed that,” Gainey said.
That’s not true. Although Gainey purchased energy from a wind farm, the previous administration had already achieved its goal of purchasing 100% renewable energy.
According to a press release from the Pa Environment Digest and several former city employees, the city under Mayor Bill Peduto has achieved its goal of 100% renewable electricity by 2020, 10 years earlier than initially predicted.
Peduto even received the Mayor’s Award for Climate Protection for his efforts.
“In 2022, I reopened the police academy after several years without recruits,” Gainey said.
That’s not true either.
Gainey didn’t launch a police academy class until 2023, even though Peduto had budgeted for two classes in 2022.
Peduto’s last class graduated in 2021.
“Drivers told us they had lost the ability to regulate salt. This meant we saved nothing, just a slower response time for our residents,” Gainey said.
That’s true.
The Peduto administration installed digital salt control equipment on trucks, but 11 investigations found this caused more problems with salt distribution.
Drivers had to redo streets and intersections because the devices weren’t working properly.
The Gainey administration has fixed that. They have given drivers the ability to regulate the salt.
“When I took office, the land bank had not moved a single property,” Gainey said.
That is largely true.
The land bank, founded in 2014, didn’t really get off the ground until Gainey took office.
Under Gainey, 150 properties have been sold or are in the process of being sold.
“The agency has been able to deploy a greater number of life support units at one time than at any other time in history,” Gainey said.
While that is accurate, it doesn’t quite tell the whole story.
The city has launched a training program for emergency medical technicians, so they’ve hired more paramedics, who provide basic life support.
But they are still short 29 paramedics providing advanced life support. And severe labor shortages have led to units being repeatedly taken out of service.
“We could barely keep up with basic services like trash collection, EMS (Emergency Medical Service) and community safety,” Gainey said.
Gainey claimed he inherited a city on the brink of disaster, but there is no evidence of that.
Under the previous administration, all of the things Gainey mentioned were accomplished on a daily basis.
In fact, under Peduto, the city once had more than 1,000 police officers.
Now there are only 750 left.
And EMS has not taken any units out of service.
“We also heard concerns from our residents this past summer and are proposing the addition of a new plumbing foreman,” Gainey said.
Last summer, the Gainey administration came under fire for failing to turn on water fountains in city parks.
We’ll have to wait and see whether that one new plumber will make a difference when turning on those fountains next spring.
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