Mayor William Peduto Issues Executive Order on City Spending

Published on June 23, 2014

Pittsburgh, PA - Mayor William Peduto’s office today issued an executive order outlining new controls on city spending.

Under the order the new Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will pre-approve most departmental expenditures; the Department of Finance will study all trust funds and petty cash accounts, and recommend their closure if necessary; OMB will pre-approve all personnel transactions; and OMB will use best practices to write financial policies on non-union overtime, departmental spending and cash management procedures.

With the city entering Act 47 oversight again, we need to make sure there are sufficient controls over the expenditures happening in our departments,” Chief of Staff Kevin Acklin said. “We inherited a city government of silos -- with departments and policies operating without sufficient central oversight -- and this is a step toward implementing the Mayor's goal of fiscal responsibility.

The order says in part:

Whereas, current city practice allows departments to expend funds up to $2,000 at a time without oversight from OMB, while the only public vetting of these expenditures comes when an invoice is forwarded to City Council and in most cases after a service has already been rendered, property or equipment has already been acquired, and a commitment to pay has already been made and

Whereas, the Mayor desires to empower the OMB, as the entity charged with the creation and oversight of the operating budget, capital budget, and special revenue funds to take on greater responsibility for tracking and maintaining compliance with approved budgets.

New policies based on Government Finance Officers Association best practices will be distributed within 10 days of the signing of the order.

A copy of the executive order(PDF, 57KB) is available.