Allegheny County’s Independent Police Review Board now has enough members to begin work, 18 months after the board’s creation. And while this begins a new phase in the quest for oversight of the county’s 100-plus police departments, questions remain over the board’s role and its members’ balance of backgrounds.

County Council appointed four members to the board in early September. On Sept. 30, County Executive Rich Fitzgerald named his four appointees to the board, meaning that eight of the board’s nine seats are filled. 

The way forward for the board is unclear, though. There’s no word on when the board will begin meeting; it’s not known how many, if any, municipalities will choose to enter the board’s jurisdiction; and the board still needs a ninth member, which must be jointly appointed by Fitzgerald and council.

Of the board’s eight members, four are Pittsburgh residents, three are former law enforcement and one is younger than 55. The board members have terms that vary from one to four years.

Fitzgerald’s four appointees:

• Stacey Hawthorne, a Pittsburgh resident and former Pittsburgh police detective 
• Coleman McDonough, a Bethel Park resident and former county police superintendent
• Robert Meinert, Neville resident and former municipal and county police officer
• Regina Ragin-Dykes, a Pittsburgh resident, pastor and vice president of the Pittsburgh NAACP

Hawthorne told PublicSource in an interview that the board’s charge is to “make the people feel comfortable about police and policing.”

Two of Fitzgerald’s appointees are Black, as are two of council’s picks.

Amie Downs, the executive’s spokesperson, said Fitzgerald felt it was important to have minority representation on the board because of the high number of police-civilian interactions that involve people of color. 

McDonough, who was given the longest term at four years, said it’s helpful for a review board to have inside expertise.

“If you are going to examine actions and motives of people in a profession, then it is helpful to have someone with experience in that profession to illuminate that,” McDonough said. “I think if people on the board keep an open mind, we will be able to establish credibility.”

Some on county council, including at least two members who have taken stands against Fitzgerald’s policies over the years, were critical of the executive’s inclusion of three people with police backgrounds.

While Hawthorne said the board will benefit the public by giving them a neutral arbiter for complaints, critics like County Councilor Bethany Hallam say police presence on the board negates much of its neutrality. 

“I’m skeptical that any actual oversight will come from a board with this significant number of police officers,” Hallam said.

Downs responded to criticism of the choices, saying that selecting people “who have an understanding and knowledge of law enforcement provides balance in the board’s role.”

Council President Pat Catena, who has steadily sharpened his council into a stronger check on Fitzgerald, said, “I would have hoped there would have been a more balanced approach” to the executive’s selections.

Hallam voted along with most of council to approve the law that created the board in April 2021, but only after a version of the legislation she preferred was passed over. She said this week that a previous version of the bill would have barred current a police from the board and limited the number of former police to two. 

“This board was supposed to be something different, to provide different checks and balances,” Hallam said. “It’s frustrating that this legislation has even less oversight than we could have imagined.”

Ragin-Dykes said she hopes the board leads to “bridging the gap between the community and law enforcement.”

Councilman Paul Klein, who led the appointment process in council, said he acknowledged that some police departments would be skeptical of a board with no police experience. He also said council picked four non-police members in part because he expected Fitzgerald to appoint former police officials. 

“The skepticism that so many bring to this process is: If you don’t have someone with that experience then, gee, they don’t really get what’s going on,” Klein said. “Generally there was an effort to strike a balance.”

Scaling up?

A major hurdle facing the new board — getting municipalities to opt into oversight — is also generating mixed opinions from appointees and council members. Under the 2021 law, the board has jurisdiction only over the county police force until any of the county’s 130 municipalities proactively opt in.

Hallam told PublicSource previously that she has been talking to numerous municipalities to urge them to opt in, and she is telling residents that the best way to ensure oversight is for them to lobby their local elected officials to opt in. Catena said in June that it would be an “all hands” effort to get municipalities on board.

Hawthorne and Ragin-Dykes echoed that sentiment, with Hawthorne saying “the more, the better.” But McDonough said he is “definitely neutral” on whether municipalities should opt in. 

“I don’t think [recruiting] is part of our charter,” he said. “I would tell them that that’s their decision entirely. Ideally, police officers should be held accountable by their respective political officials.” 

Klein said he expects smaller, more financially challenged municipalities to be naturally drawn to the board, which can provide a service that they can’t provide themselves. “Some municipalities that are much more vulnerable … might say maybe we need some kind of assist here,” he said.

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org or on Twitter @chwolfson.

Ladimir Garcia is a PublicSource editorial intern. He can be reached at ladimir@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Aavin Mangalmurti.

The post Expertise or bias? Fitzgerald names three ex-police to oversight board appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

“You gonna fix it?”

That’s what Ronald Chess asked a reporter taking photos of the long-closed and crumbling Cowley Recreation Center in Troy Hill last week. The question he posed was one the neighborhood has asked of city leaders since a faulty roof forced the community center to close in the 2000s. 

“I think if they rebuilt this, this would heighten the whole attitude of the community,” Chess said, adding that there are more families with children in the neighborhood lately who could benefit from community center programming. Chess bought a house on nearby Basin Street in 2005, complete with a view of the building and an adjacent ballfield.

A year ago, the city earmarked $6 million from its federal COVID-19 relief funds to demolish the decrepit structure and build a state-of-the-art new one. But the project was stalled for years prior to this allocation, and community leaders have not heard from the city about when it may move forward. 

The Cowley rebuild is one of dozens of projects the city plans to fund with its $335 million American Rescue Plan Act [ARPA] allotment. President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats passed ARPA in early 2021, and Pittsburgh adopted a plan to spend its allotment in July 2021.

The city has until the end of 2024 to spend all of its ARPA funds. More than a year later, most of the planned projects are, like the Cowley center, not started yet. The unspent money includes:

• $15.7 million set aside for seven rec centers, including Cowley
• $23.2 million for infrastructure, including a long-awaited pedestrian bridge for Brighton Heights and improvements to the rusty and creaky Frazier Street steps in Oakland
• $16.8 million for the Avenues of Hope initiative, which boosts business districts in underserved neighborhoods, and other community development efforts
• $41.5 million for affordable housing, including land trusts, homeownership programs and utility assistance
• $10 million to jumpstart the Pittsburgh Land Bank.

See where the city plans to spend ARPA dollars on capital projects

By the end of June, Pittsburgh had spent $85 million of its allotted $335 million, according to a report the city filed with the U.S. Treasury. Of that $85 million, almost all went toward shoring up the city’s operating budget — staving off layoffs due to revenue shortfalls, reopening hiring that was put off earlier in the pandemic and giving a 3% raise to some employees.

Just a few million dollars so far has been spent on discretionary projects, including $1.2 million on demolition, $2.7 million on electric vehicles and $1 million to aid restaurants with sidewalk seating areas.

Maria Montaño, the spokesperson for Mayor Ed Gainey, said construction projects like the Cowley Rec Center have been slowed by the limited “bandwidth” of the city’s project managers and supply chain issues affecting construction materials. She said many of the original target dates in the ARPA spending plan may have to be revisited and moved back, though she did not provide specifics.

Allegheny County, meanwhile, spent $112 million of its $380 million ARPA allotment through early August. In contrast to the city, just 11% of its ARPA spending to date has gone toward filling in budget gaps. The rest of the spending so far includes:

• $40 million in development grants
• $25 million in aid to tourism and hospitality businesses and programs
• $4.2 million for mental health crisis prevention
• $5.1 million for volunteer fire and EMS aid
• Equipment and facility upgrades for courts, senior living centers, the medical examiner and the county controller’s office.

While city bureaucrats slog through the process of contracting and advancing individual projects, the Troy Hill Citizens group is pressing for answers about its long-awaited new rec center. Abby Vanim, the group’s president, said there were no clear answers from city officials at a community meeting last week.

“It’s missing that central community point,” Vanim said of the North Side neighborhood. “Since COVID-19, I think people are really looking forward to places where we can gather as a community.”

She said the neighborhood has come to rely on restaurants and cafes as public gathering points, which have obvious limitations when it comes to hosting community activities, meetings and youth programming. 

“There’s a really, really big hole in the community that needs to be filled,” Vanim said.

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org or on Twitter @chwolfson.

The post Pittsburgh has spent just a quarter of its federal COVID relief as neighborhoods await improvements appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Update (7/19/22): City Council gave final approval to three bills to protect abortion services in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, voting 7-0 on each. There was little discussion on two bills, but one was amended before the final vote. The bill to ban deceptive advertising by so-called crisis pregnancy centers was amended to include a definition for deceptive advertising that mirrors one already outlined in state law. The amendment also created a complaint process and instructions for the city to refer violations to the District Attorney’s office.

The three bills passed unanimously, with Councilman Ricky Burgess absent and the District 5 seat vacant. The bills will now go to Mayor Ed Gainey’s desk for signature.

Reported 7/13/22: Pittsburgh City Council preliminarily approved a package of three bills that would increase protection for abortion services in Pittsburgh, with a final vote expected Tuesday. 

Councilman Bobby Wilson introduced the bills during council’s meeting on June 28, just five days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned constitutional protection for abortion services nationwide. Councilwoman Erika Strassburger is the cosponsor.

“We have states around us that are outright banning the reproductive freedom of individuals in their own state, so it’s just important that we protect people that are seeking health care and individuals providing health care,” Wilson said.

The first bill would protect abortion providers in Pittsburgh from out-of-state investigations or prosecutions regarding the care they provide to out-of-state patients. It would also shield city officials from having to comply with out-of-state investigations into legal abortions in Pennsylvania, unless required by court order or state or federal law. 

Sue Frietsche, a staff attorney and interim co-director of the Women’s Law Project who helped Wilson draft the legislation, called the bill the “heart of the package,” referencing efforts in other states that have already banned abortions to punish their residents who travel to receive abortions in states where it’s legal and the healthcare providers performing services. 

“I have doctors calling me saying, ‘Am I going to go to jail for practicing legal medicine under the laws of our state?’ That cannot happen in this city,” Frietsche said. 

Gov. Tom Wolf issued an executive order yesterday to ensure out-of-state residents can enter Pennsylvania to receive reproductive healthcare services. Frietsche said the first bill would protect city level actors who would not be covered by Wolf’s order. 

If abortions ever become illegal in Pennsylvania, the second bill would instruct law enforcement officials to treat abortion-related crimes as a low priority. Council amended the bill to define the abortion-related crimes that law enforcement officials would deprioritize enforcing — notably excluding “buffer zone” laws that protect providers and patients from facing confrontations on the sidewalks near clinics that offer abortions. 

Greer Donley, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law who helped Wilson draft the package, noted that the bill should not conflict with state or federal law. She explained that it’s only instructing the city to deprioritize enforcement of abortion-related crimes, not entirely forego enforcement. She also mentioned that another Pennsylvania city, Radnor, has enacted a similar law. 

The third ordinance would prevent limited services pregnancy centers, sometimes known as crisis pregnancy centers, from knowingly spreading misleading information about pregnancy health care. Such centers have come under fire for dissuading people seeking abortions. 

Council President Theresa Kail-Smith, Councilman Daniel Lavelle and Councilman Anthony Coghill abstained from voting on the third bill, citing concerns about it infringing on free speech and lacking an enforcement mechanism. 

The council members referenced public comment yesterday from Pastors Jay Gilbert and Tiffany Gilbert, founders of Voices For The Unborn Pregnancy Center. The pastors said they believed the bill would qualify as censorship of pregnancy resource centers. 

Donley said the third bill would not violate freedom of speech because it will only apply to pregnancy centers that knowingly spread false information about reproductive health care. 

“This is just saying you can’t lie to people, that’s it,” Donley said.

With three abstentions and one seat open due to Corey O’Connor’s resignation from council to become the Allegheny County Controller, it’s unclear whether the third bill will pass the final vote on Tuesday.

Abortion services are legal in Pennsylvania up to the 24th week of pregnancy, but some state legislators are seeking to curtail abortion rights. The Pennsylvania Senate and House passed a bill on July 8 that began the process of amending the state constitution to explicitly state there is no right to abortion and no guarantee that taxpayer funding can be used for abortions. The amendment must pass both chambers of the state Legislature again during the 2023-24 session and receive approval from a majority of voters before it could take effect. 

Wolf has blocked abortion restrictions throughout his seven-year tenure, but with his term coming to an end in January, the future of abortion access in Pennsylvania remains uncertain. 

States neighboring Pennsylvania’s western border are considering abortion restrictions, with West Virginia’s only abortion clinic ceasing its services and Ohio lawmakers introducing a bill to ban abortion from conception, unless the mother’s life is at risk.

Amelia Winger is a reporting covering health at PublicSource. She can be reached at amelia@publicsource.org.

This reporting has been made possible through the Staunton Farm Mental Health Reporting Fellowship and the Jewish Healthcare Foundation.

The post Update: Pittsburgh City Council moves to shield patients and abortion providers from prosecutions, investigations appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Allegheny County is moving ahead with a year-old initiative to hire a consultant to plan what could be drastic alterations to the county jail, potentially including decreasing its capacity by half or more. 

Almost a year after releasing a request for proposals, the county has chosen a firm and is now negotiating a contract, according to the county controller’s office. The chosen firm is CDI Architects, a subsidiary of TranSystems. 

The county has done business with CDI Architects multiple times in recent years, and its former parent company, L.R. Kimball, designed the jail in the 1990s. Both entities were bought by TranSystems in 2021.

A spokesperson for TranSystems declined to comment and directed PublicSource to “our client, the county, for this request.” 

Amie Downs, a spokesperson for County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, said the county does not discuss bid selection processes before they are complete, but that “this is the next step in the effort we’ve undertaken to reduce the jail population in Allegheny County and implement reforms in the justice system.”

When Jail Oversight Board member Bethany Hallam asked Warden Orlando Harper about the project during a July 7 public meeting, Harper said he could not comment and added, “I have to do a little more research in order to provide information.”

The call for bids said the county seeks an overhaul for the jail and suggests that 500 to 1,000 beds would be “appropriate for Allegheny County’s population and crime rate.” The jail’s current capacity is more than 2,000. Its average daily population this year is 1,670, down from an average of 1,822 over the last three years.

The request left it to consultants to propose just how to accomplish the overhaul, suggesting that plans could include redesigning the current facility, increased use of other facilities or creating an entirely new facility.

The proposal period opened July 1, 2021, and closed Sept. 1, 2021. The county made no public announcement about the initiative or the ensuing bid process. 

Read the complete request for proposals here.

Bret Grote, the legal director of the Abolition Law Center, said the jail’s population can and should be reduced, but the county’s request for proposals does not adequately explain how it will make that a reality.

“I have a lot of questions about how the county and the court system would be engaged, and the police agencies,” Grote said. “If you just changed the design of the building, that’s not going to change the number of people sent there every day.”

TranSystems, a Kansas City, Missouri-based company with national reach, advertises expertise in architecture, aviation, infrastructure, construction and program management and other areas. TranSystems acquired CDI Architects in 2021 when it acquired L.R. Kimball, an architectural firm whose Downtown Pittsburgh office address is now listed on TranSystem’s website. 

The county has signed several contracts with CDI for engineering and architectural services in recent years, paying $1.1 million when it was under the L.R. Kimball banner and more than $725,000 under TranSystems.

With the jail-related contract under negotiation and the proposal still under wraps, it’s unknown how much a potential contract could cost the county or what the scope of work could be. 

Six other firms submitted proposals for the project, according to the controller’s office. They are: AE Works, GCL Companies, HDR Architects, Justice Management, POH Architects and STV Architects. The proposals are not publicly available until a contract is formally awarded.

The request for proposals was tied to the Safety and Justice Challenge grant the county received from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 2018. The county website says the project’s goals are to reduce the jail’s population and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system. 

In an application to renew its MacArthur grant, the county wrote that it will “complete a community-informed process to develop a blueprint and capital budget request for a redesign of the jail aimed at shrinking its footprint.”

The same application lists several proposed actions to reduce the population of the jail, including:

• a study of racial disparity in bail decision-making 
• expedited court processing 
• reducing probation detention  
• preventing incarceration of people in mental health or substance abuse crises.

The jail has been the subject of intense scrutiny over the last year, with a controversial training contract, chronic staffing issues and a string of deaths among the incarcerated population raising advocates’ fury and putting the jail’s administration on the defensive. 

News of this request for proposals was met with skepticism from jail reform advocates last summer. Hallam, also a county councilwoman, said then that she feared the project would result in more, smaller facilities. Another council member, Liv Bennett, said she wondered if the county would be “morphing what incarceration looks like instead of decarceration.”

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

Keeping local government accountable to you is our job at PublicSource. Civic Briefs is an ongoing series to share more important news and information with you in real time.

The post Allegheny County moving toward contract to reshape jail appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Allegheny County Council acted in April 2021 to create an Independent Police Review Board to provide oversight to the county’s dozens of police agencies outside of Pittsburgh.  Fourteen months on, the board has yet to hear a case or have a member sworn in, and it’s unclear when either will happen.

“It has been a bit longer than I would have liked,” said Council President Pat Catena. 

Part of the delay was baked into the legislation. Board members couldn’t be seated until the first of this year. But the process of appointing board members is ongoing, with no established deadline.

The legislation says the council will select four of the board’s nine members; the chief executive will select four others; and the council and executive will need to agree on a ninth. 

Council is in a protracted process of whittling a list of 15 candidates down to four appointees. While the legislation allowed for the board to be seated in January, Councilman Tom Duerr said it took extra time to find a batch of willing, suitable candidates.

Council invited the public to express interest in serving on the board in March and council members selected candidates to be among the 15 now in consideration. Today at 5 p.m., council’s Committee on Appointment Review will venture to whittle down the group. 

It’s unknown how close County Executive Rich Fitzgerald is to making his picks. His spokesperson Amie Downs said he will make selections after council makes its own, but did not offer a specific timeline.

Once council and Fitzgerald separately finish the appointment process, the board’s jurisdiction will be limited at the start. 

By law, its investigative and reporting powers will initially only cover Allegheny County’s own police force, which patrols county parks and airports and assists local police on complex cases including homicides. Municipal police forces, which number around 100, will be included if their local officials opt in.

The board will not have the power to discipline police officers, but it will respond to complaints from the public with formal investigations, including public hearings and sworn testimony. If the board’s findings sustain a complaint, it can recommend disciplinary action, which requires a written response from the police department involved. The board can also make criminal referrals to the district attorney or state attorney general.

The number of municipalities that choose to subject their police departments to board oversight will depend on the efforts of council members, and future board members, to coax them to participate. Democratic Councilor Bethany Hallam, elected at-large, said she’s already done outreach to about 15 municipalities and has received mixed responses.

“I definitely got told to go screw myself a couple times,” Hallam said, but “there are willing councils all over the county that are interested in it.”

Duerr, who cosponsored the legislation to create the board, said recruiting municipal participation will be a “matter of momentum.”

“If you get a municipality next to one that wasn’t considering it, that could start a conversation,” said Duerr, a Democrat from the South Hills. “If you get one, maybe you get a bunch regionally.”

Catena said he is focused on the appointment process for now, and outreach to municipalities will begin in earnest once it is finished, with the new appointees joining council members in lobbying municipalities. “It will be an all-hands approach,” he said.

Hallam said that while it is the municipal commissions and councils that will make the decision of whether to submit to board oversight, the decision should really be “up to the communities that are policed.”

Duerr said in addition to lobbying municipal officials directly, council members should take a bottom-up approach and try to rally community support for opting in so officials feel more public pressure to do so. 

The legislation that created the review board does not require the board or the county government to solicit each municipality to participate or to offer information to them. Those tasks entirely depend on the initiative of officials who want the board to be robust. 

JoEllen Marsh, a program director at Pitt’s Congress of Neighboring Communities [CONNECT], which seeks to foster collaboration between the city and its neighbors, said Allegheny County’s staggering number of individual municipalities is a barrier to rolling out initiatives such as the review board. 

She predicted some interest in the board among municipal leaders, though they may not know about it yet. “In my experience, there are a lot of local government stakeholders who are interested in working with police in ways that are new and different,” she said.

Sharpsburg’s then-Mayor Matthew Rudzki said in 2019 that it would like to opt into the review board if it were created. (Rudzki is now a district judge.) Other than that, Hallam said she does not expect there to be any takers before the board members are seated. 

The 15 IPRB candidates up for council consideration are: Daeja Baker, Lynn Banaszak, Phyllis Comer, Richard Garland, Stacey Hawthorne, David Mayernik, Robert Meinert, Keith Murphy, Thomas Shook, J.D. Williams, Chloe Persian Mills, Chris Kumanchik, Justin Leavitt Pearl, Tammy Martin and Michael Louis Pastorkovich.

(Update 6/29: The council’s Committee on Appointment Review met Tuesday night and selected six candidates for further consideration. The six are Mayernick, Murphy, Persian Mills, Garland, Pearl and Banaszak. Catena said he will now refer the matter to a special committee to pick four appointees.)

Fitzgerald has no statutory deadline to make his selections and is working outside of council’s appointment process. A council member and council’s clerk each told PublicSource that the review board cannot begin operating until there are five members sworn in — meaning the timing of the board’s launch depends on Fitzgerald making one or more of his appointments. 

“Given my experience on council. It’s really not a surprise” that the process has taken this long, Duerr said. “Once [the legislation] passed, we knew there was more work to do to get it up and running.”

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

Keeping local government accountable to you is our job at PublicSource. Civic Briefs is an ongoing series to share more important news and information with you in real time.

The post Allegheny County approved a police review board 14 months ago. It still has no members and little jurisdiction. appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Update (5/27/22): Pittsburgh’s Department of Public Safety announced Friday that Police Chief Scott Schubert would retire. Schubert, a longtime Pittsburgh policeman, became chief in 2017 under then-Mayor Bill Peduto. 

Mayor Ed Gainey ran for office on police reform and promised to mend the relationship the bureau with the city’s neighborhoods. At the start of his administration, he replaced the city’s Public Safety director but left Schubert in place. Last week, Gainey’s transition committee released its report on public safety, which explicitly called for change atop the Bureau of Police. Gainey said Friday that he did not ask Schubert to leave.

The joint audit described in this story did not directly address Schubert. Gainey said Friday that a national search for a new chief would commence, “centered around the voices of community members,” and take approximately six months.

Mayor Ed Gainey has not done much to change the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police in his first five months in office, but a new audit conducted jointly by the city controller’s office and the Citizen Police Review Board [CPRB] provides a proposed blueprint of sorts. 

A review set in motion by a 2020 voter referendum, the audit contains 23 concrete recommendations touching various parts of the department. Many focus on addressing the racial disparities in Pittsburgh’s policing and increasing transparency around use of force and officer complaints. 

“We don’t need to recreate the wheel,” to improve the police bureau, said CPRB director Beth Pittinger in a press conference Tuesday. “We have the ability now.”

The audit includes a written response by Deputy Police Chief Thomas Stangrecki. Stangrecki wrote “Agreed” in response to 15 of the 23 suggestions, “Agreed in part” to six of them and “Disagreed” to one, which called for certain compliance checks to be moved to an independent agency.

Pittinger cautioned that even with broad agreement from police officials, external factors like state and federal law and union contracts can slow implementation.

Gainey’s spokesperson Maria Montaño told PublicSource in an email that the audit recommendations will “serve as guideposts for us as we finalize our plans” on policing, along with the recently-released transition report and feedback from community meetings. She said the administration “looks forward to releasing our plans in the coming weeks.”

A Public Safety Department Spokesperson said she was not sure if department leaders had seen the audit. The police officers’ union spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

Use of force

The auditors found that in 61% of use-of-force incidents in 2020, the civilian was Black. This rate is disproportionate to the city’s population, which is about 22% Black. The same trend is evident in arrests and traffic stops.

The audit suggests several ways to give the public a clearer view into the police bureau.  

• It recommends the bureau disclose the numbers of officers who have been involved in various numbers of use-of-force incidents. “This could show which officers are prone to using excessive force,” the report says.
• It suggests a similar breakdown of complaints made against officers, “showing outlier officers” to improve transparency. 
• It urges the use of a new data management system to give the public a comprehensive view of how arrests, traffic stops, use-of-force encounters and other incidents are distributed across neighborhoods and demographics.

The auditors commended the department for requiring officers to participate in annual “continuous education training” on use of force and de-escalation and urged the department to continue the practice. The audit noted that the bureau is in the process of improving data analysis by adopting new IT systems by Inform RMS and IAPro, replacing “ineffective software” developed by B-Three Solutions. That firm was the subject of a 2018 PublicSource series that focused on concerns with its implementation. 

The auditors warned that one police accountability tool, body-worn cameras, may not be living up to their potential as a labor dispute has put the brakes on compliance checks for the devices. 

The camera program requires officers to turn on their cameras before certain encounters with civilians and the footage is retained for months or even years depending on the outcome. But a complaint lodged by the police officers’ union has halted compliance checks meant to ensure that officers are turning on the cameras at the appropriate times. The auditors recommend that the department come to an agreement with the union so compliance checks can resume. 

Marijuana

The auditors found stark disparities in marijuana-related enforcement in 2020, and attributed that to an ambiguous, two-track enforcement system in place since 2016.

Since the city decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana six years ago, the police bureau has given officers the option of charging offenders with a non-criminal city fine of as little as $25, or with the criminal state offense which can lead to jail time. 

Of those hit with the state-level criminal charge for marijuana possession in 2020, 85% were Black, according to the audit. 

“That shows there’s a need to change,” Controller Michael Lamb said. “That shows an inequity.”

The auditors wrote that the department issued an informal notice to its officers at the start of 2021 to default to using the city non-criminal citation unless other law enforcement issues are present, but left discretion to the officers. “To reduce racial disparities in the administration of the marijuana decriminalization ordinance, [the bureau] should issue a formal policy providing guidance on when officers should follow the city code’s decriminalization ordinance as opposed to the state offense,” the auditors wrote.

Traffic stops

The auditors urged a move to “encounter-free traffic enforcement” to reduce the risk of minor violations leading to violent encounters between police and stopped motorists, most of whom tend to be Black. 

Pittsburgh City Council passed a law late last year banning traffic stops for minor violations like a singular broken tail light or an expired registration. But city councilors and members of the public raised questions about whether the move is allowed under state law and how minor violations will be addressed without traffic stops.

In his response to the audit, Stangrecki wrote that “The Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission has notified the Bureau of Police that our accreditation status is in jeopardy for restricting the enforcement of certain traffic violations.” Accreditation is an optional way for police agencies to evaluate and improve their practices.

Hiring

The bureau’s use of polygraph tests in its hiring process was a point of disagreement between Stangrecki and the auditors, who recommended the bureau stop using the tests. 

The audit notes that polygraph tests have been “disputed by the scientific community” and that most employers are prohibited from using them in hiring under a 1998 law. Stangrecki countered by writing that the polygraph is the only way to measure a candidate’s “core values such as integrity and honesty.”

As an alternative, the auditors suggested creation of a community member panel to assess candidates. Stangrecki wrote that the bureau would not be opposed to incorporating the idea. 

The auditors made two recommendations around screening for involvement in hate groups and paramilitary groups. They called for a clear policy banning officer involvement in such groups and a clear plan for instances in which affiliations are found, including termination.

In November, the city announced that its Office of Municipal Investigations was reviewing a police lieutenant with ties to the far-right paramilitary group The Oath Keepers.

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

Keeping local government accountable to you is our job at PublicSource. Civic Briefs is an ongoing series to share more important news and information with you in real time.

The post Update: Pittsburgh Police Chief Schubert to retire after audit, transition report question progress on disparities appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

As Pittsburgh leaders plot the city’s financial future and prepare for the eventual end of federal stimulus money, analysts at the independent Pittsburgh Budget and Policy Center on Thursday urged officials to consider increasing taxes on wealthier residents and tapping nonprofits such as UPMC.  

“There’s a path that Pittsburgh can take towards fair taxation,” said Nthando Thandiwe, one of the researchers, during a Thursday press conference. He said the added revenue could “really address some of the structural inequities in the city, making investments in affordable housing, the creation of good jobs, health and community services that can really transform a city.”

The Budget and Policy Center’s stated mission is to provide “independent, credible analysis” on fiscal policy, with a focus on the impact of policies on working individuals and families.

In a report released Thursday, titled ‘Fair Taxation for Pittsburgh,’ the researchers noted that while the city taxes earned income at 1% for all residents regardless of their income level, the fact that the city does not tax “unearned income” like capital gains means that the wealthy pay a lower share of their overall income than others. 

While the Pennsylvania constitution prohibits cities from taxing wealthier individuals at a higher rate, the researchers said that it would be legal to enact a separate tax on passive income sources like capital gains, dividends, interest and rent, which could effectively raise the income tax on the wealthy.

The report lays out proposed tax rates of 3% to 6% on “income from wealth” that would generate between $21 million and $57 million for the city.

The report says that such a tax on income from wealth would draw half its revenue from the top 1% of the population — and more than 75% from the richest fifth of the population.

An infusion from such a tax could help replace a portion of what the city is now receiving from the federal American Rescue Plan Act — a source that will expire after 2024. The city budget was kept afloat last year by that federal infusion, but city leaders will need to find a way to replace it soon.

The other solution put forth by the Budget and Policy Center analysts was to obtain revenue from tax-exempt nonprofits like UPMC. UPMC and other nonprofits such as Highmark and the University of Pittsburgh own large amounts of valuable land in the city, but their nonprofit status exempts them from paying property taxes. If not exempt, the report authors estimated that UPMC would pay roughly $50 million annually in property taxes to the city — money that would more than offset the phase-out of American Rescue Plan funds.  

The city, of course, has long wanted to receive more money from the healthcare giant, but has continually failed to do so. Former Mayor Luke Ravenstahl tried suing UPMC to end its tax-exempt status, but his successor, former Mayor Bill Peduto, pulled the lawsuit and tried a gentler approach, coaxing nonprofits to willfully donate to a technically independent nonprofit that would funnel the money to city projects. That initiative stalled when Peduto was voted out of office in 2021.

Mayor Ed Gainey frequently vowed to make UPMC pay their “fair share” on the campaign trail but has yet to announce a plan to do it. Thursday’s report outlines two options — a lawsuit like the one Ravenstahl pursued, and establishing a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program with UPMC. 

UPMC already has PILOT agreements with four other Pennsylvania municipalities, the report notes, in which they pay from 40% to 55% of what they would be paying if not exempt from property taxes. In Pittsburgh’s case, that number would land roughly between $20 million and $27.5 million annually.

Gainey’s press secretary Maria Montaño said Thursday that Gainey has been meeting with nonprofit leaders to try to find a “solution” and that he does not yet have a comment on the income tax proposals in the report.

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

Keeping local government accountable to you is our job at PublicSource. Civic Briefs is an ongoing series to share more important news and information with you in real time.

The post Budget researchers to Pittsburgh: Tax the rich, and UPMC appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Pittsburgh’s revenue fell 2.5% short of expectations in 2021, and some key revenue streams were far below budget, according to a year-end financial disclosure prepared by the city’s finance department. But expenditures came in under budget too, resulting in a balanced budget with some federal help.

“I wouldn’t say it was surprising,” said Mayor Ed Gainey’s press secretary, Maria Montaño. “Thanks to the American Rescue Plan Act, it really helped us” keep a balanced budget. “We do expect the revenues to recover this year, depending on the course of the pandemic.”

City Controller Michael Lamb said he too was unsurprised by the results, citing the pandemic’s persistent drag on the economy. “We had the continuation of the pandemic and in some places continuations of shutdowns. We were hoping to be back stronger in the fourth quarter than we were.”

Lamb cautioned that the numbers are unaudited and could be adjusted before they are final. 

The parking tax was one of the city’s biggest fiscal disappointments of 2021: It brought in 42% less money than it was projected to in the 2021 budget, a shortfall of almost $23 million. 

Lamb said he grew skeptical of the former administration’s parking tax revenue projection when the city was far off its target midway through 2021. 

“We raised an issue with the reasonableness of the projection they had with regard to parking tax, which we just thought was an unreasonable number,” Lamb said. “They projected a number above $50 million and we knew it would be much closer to $30 million.”

The final number in the report is about $32 million.

The city’s 2022 budget, which was drafted under former Mayor Bill Peduto and passed by city council in December, projects $57 million in parking tax revenue in 2022 — 78% more than that levy brought in 2021. 

The city’s total revenue projection for 2022, $658.8 million, is about 8% higher than what the city projected for 2021 — but 11% higher than what the city actually generated in 2021.

Montaño said the mayor’s office is “pretty confident” in projections laid out in the 2022 budget, and has no plans to alter them, though she said the pandemic and other global crises can change things quickly. 

Lamb says he expects the city to miss its parking tax target again, though likely by a narrower margin, because workers are still not commuting to Pittsburgh as they did before the pandemic. 

He said the city’s budget overall will be buoyed by federal American Rescue Plan Act [ARPA] funds as it was in 2021. The operating budget received some $33 million in ARPA dollars in 2021 and is projected to get at least that in 2022. Without that sum in 2021 the city would have had a budget deficit of more than $10 million, according to the unaudited accounting. 

Other revenue streams that finished below projections include:

• The $52 Local Service Tax on people who work in the city (19% short)
• Fines and Forfeitures (58% short)
• Charges for Services provided to residents and to other municipalities (12% short).

Those combined to fall more than $11 million below expectations. 

The impact of disappointing revenue streams was blunted somewhat by those that did a bit better than projected: Real Estate Tax revenue came in 2% high, Deed Transfer Tax revenue 22% high (for an added $11 million) and Payroll Preparation Tax revenue 6% high. 

The revenue shortfalls were also offset by lower-than-expected expenses.

The city’s expenditures came in at $573 million, about $40 million below the city’s initial projection. The city spent less than expected on nearly every expenditure category, from employee benefits (7% less) to professional and technical services (37%) to supplies (20%). 

Lamb said the savings could be attributed to staffing levels being lower than the budget allows, due to the pandemic and other factors. For example, the city did not have a new police recruiting class in 2021. 

Montaño said some departments are still scaling back up to previous levels, but this year “we should see a little bit more of a return to previous years.”

Gainey, who took office in January, has not proposed significant changes to the 2022 budget or announced plans to do so. Montaño said the administration may look to amend the budget “later in the spring” after the mayor’s transition committees report back to him with recommendations.

Lamb said he took issue with some of the Peduto administration’s revenue projections going back to the early days of the pandemic but he has yet to talk with Gainey administration officials about it. He said he expects to discuss the projections this summer when the 2023 budget begins to take shape. 

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

Keeping local government accountable to you is our job at PublicSource. Civic Briefs is an ongoing series to share more important news and information with you in real time.

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The $2 trillion COVID-19 relief bill passed by Congress last March injected an unforeseen and unprecedented amount of money into Allegheny County communities. The plan includes more than $300 million each for the Pittsburgh city government and the Allegheny County government.

But throughout the county — and mostly out of the headlines — is $130 million more from the American Rescue Plan Act [ARPA], in the form of smaller amounts given to most of the county’s 130 municipalities. The sums, ranging from just under $8,000 to more than $24 million represent a relatively large opportunity for these smaller boroughs and townships.

“For the bulk of these municipalities, it’s a really good shot in the arm because it’s basically money they weren’t expecting,” said George Dougherty, the director of the public policy and management program at the University of Pittsburgh.

PublicSource spoke to officials from seven municipalities in Allegheny County to learn what the infusion has meant for them so far.

“It’s huge for us,” said Penn Hills Municipal Manager Scott Andrejchak. “We’re able to do a lot of projects that we didn’t really know how we were going to fund.” 

ARPA money, including the $17.1 million marked for Penn Hills, must be spent by 2024. The Treasury Department gave broad guidelines for how the money can be spent, which include replacing lost revenue, public health needs, premium pay for essential workers and infrastructure projects. 

While every city and county regularly receives state and federal funding, the ARPA sums are historic in their scale. 

Penn Hills’ allocation is 30% of the size of the municipality’s entire 2021 budget and amounts to more money than the city budgeted for police, EMS, public works and libraries combined in 2021. 

The township created a plan to spend its money on a mix of sewer and stormwater projects, parks facilities, shoring up its police and EMS budgets and a host of other things. 

Though former Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto was criticized in 2021 for allocating a lot of ARPA money to capital projects rather than items more closely tied to COVID-19 impacts like rental assistance and food aid, a number of smaller municipalities are spending the money in a similar fashion. 

Hampton Township Manager Chris Lochner, who has almost $2 million in ARPA funds on hand, said the township plans to use the whole sum for capital projects — road paving, community center improvements and a restroom facility in a park. 

Bridgeville, which received just over $500,000, is spending almost all of its allocation on one stormwater infrastructure project. Borough Manager Joe Kauer said the project would not have been possible without ARPA.

Dougherty said many smaller municipalities were able to spend the money on infrastructure projects because their budgets were not hit as hard by the pandemic as many once feared.

Shaler Borough Manager Tim Rogers said his team has already spent most of the first half of the money (the second half arrives in summer 2022) on sewer rehabilitation and installation. 

Other municipal leaders were less sure about Congress’ intent for the money. Baldwin Borough Manager Bob Firek said Baldwin is still trying to figure out how to spend it and is “waiting for some more guidance” from the federal government.

“The guidelines are broad and murky,” Firek said. “We don’t want to use it and then have to give it back because we used it improperly.”

West Mifflin Borough Manager Brian Kamauf added, “I’d love to build a playground or something, but I’m not sure how that ties into COVID.”

Carnegie Borough Manager Stephen Beuter said his team is developing plans to use the money for infrastructure upgrades, but they too were thrown off by the Treasury’s instructions.

“It’s not extremely clear,” Beuter said. “We reached out to neighboring communities to get some ideas of the kinds of things they are using it for. But it’s definitely needed going through the pandemic, and we hope to use it as fast as possible.”

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

Keeping local government accountable to you is our job at PublicSource. Civic Briefs is an ongoing series to share more important news and information with you in real time.

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Pittsburgh City Council held a public hearing on the potential annexation of Wilkinsburg Tuesday night, its first hearing on the subject since a judge instructed the council to vote on whether to move it forward within three months. About 50 Pittsburgh and Wilkinsburg residents registered to speak, and the majority told council they oppose the annexation and the path its proponents have taken so far. 

“This annexation would put more money in the pockets of the haves and would hurt those of the have-nots,” said Angel Gober, executive director of OnePA and the chair of Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s transition team.

The push to annex the borough of 14,000 into the city is driven by the Wilkinsburg Community Development Corporation [WCDC], a group unaffiliated with the government that is tasked with attracting business to Wilkinsburg. The group collected signatures for a petition and, following a 1903 law that guides annexation processes, presented it to a judge late last year.

The judge ruled that city council must vote for or against the annexation process by April 5 — leaving no option for the council to ignore the issue altogether. If the nine-member body votes in favor, annexation goes on the ballot for Wilkinsburg voters to make a final decision. If they vote against, the matter is closed.

The WCDC contends that annexation is the only way for the borough to lower its property tax rates and stop its population decline. Opponents of the annexation push say the move would benefit wealthier homeowners but not renters. The majority of Wilkinsburg residents are renters.

Dozens of speakers opposed the idea of annexation Tuesday night, saying the move could have negative consequences for public school students both in the city and the borough. (If Wilkinsburg is annexed, Wilkinsburg’s school district would be absorbed by Pittsburgh’s district.)

“We will not support an annexation process that actively harms the school district and would hurt children in Pittsburgh and Wilkinsburg,” said Moira Kaleida, a former Pittsburgh school board member. 

Others pointed out that Pittsburgh is struggling to bus all of its students to school this year and adding Wilkinsburg would exacerbate that challenge. Beyond the school districts, some speakers said Pittsburgh needs to solve public safety and infrastructure issues in its own districts before adding more neighborhoods.

“Until you take care of your issues, you should not even think of taking care of someone else’s issues,” said Wilkinsburg resident Stephanie Cook.

Council members have voiced skepticism of the annexation, with most saying they need more detailed information on potential financial impacts and that they are uncomfortable with the process that has been used, which does not give an official say to Wilkinsburg’s council or to Pittsburgh voters. 

Three Wilkinsburg school board members — Ed Donovan, Monica Garcia and Vanessa Buffry — urged council to approve the petition and allow Wilkinsburg voters to decide the issue. Buffry was a member of the WCDC’s merger analysis committee last year. 

“We need to give an opportunity for the residents to show whether they are in support of this or not by being able to vote on it,” Garcia said, “and I’m tired of waiting for change.”

City Council will hold a post-agenda meeting soon to hear from experts on the potential financial impact of annexation, and may hold more public hearings. 

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org and on Twitter @chwolfson.

Keeping local government accountable to you is our job at PublicSource. Civic Briefs is an ongoing series to share more important news and information with you in real time.

The post Pittsburgh council hears public testimony mostly opposed to Wilkinsburg annexation appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.