PITTSBURGH -- City Council voted unanimously Thursday to approve a financial recovery plan for Pittsburgh.

Discussion

Talk About Pittsburgh's Money Crunch

"I am pleased that all nine members of the City Council joined together and acted decisively," Gov. Ed Rendell said Thursday. "We can now all look forward to restoring Pittsburgh's fiscal health and providing it with reliable sources of funding."

Had council rejected the recovery plan, it risked losing additional taxes vital to next year's city budget.

"We needed to both change the tax structure as well as the expenditures of how we do business in the city of Pitsburgh. Today, we did that," Mayor Tom Murphy said. "We did it in a way that I don't think many people believed we could."

Councilman Doug Shields, a former supporter of the plan, flipped his position on Tuesday. That prompted council President Gene Ricciardi to delay a vote on it because an unofficial tally showed a 5-4 majority against.

Contentious debate and bickering marked a subsequent council meeting, but the discussion also changed five council members' minds and produced a 9-0 vote in favor of the plan Thursday morning.

Shields said he was only trying to improve the plan. Among the changes he secured was enabling trash workers to bid in a partial privatization of the city's garbage collection in 2005. Under the recovery plan, 10 percent of garbage routes are to be privatized.

The changes approved by council were designed to save $33 million by increasing fees for pool passes, excavation work, yard debris drop-off and burglar and fire alarm permits. The plan also calls for the sale of the city's asphalt plant, merging the department of engineering and construction with the public works department, privatizing the city's vehicle maintenance garage and billing for emergency medical services.

The plan includes the following changes:

City pools will charge $60 for a family pass.

Schenley Park will charge $4 for adults to skate and $3 for children.

The city dump will charge $20 per pickup truck full of yard debris.

Adult softball players will pay $16 per hour to use city fields, or $20 if they need lights. Children will still play for free.

Employees would lose the Election Day holiday and would no longer be able to bank unused sick days, which were paid upon retirement.

Vacation time would be capped at 20 days instead of 25, and tuition reimbursement would drop to 50 percent from 80 percent.

City employees also would have a two-year pay freeze and would be required to contribute more toward their health insurance.

The plan was drawn up by a state-appointed panel after Pittsburgh was declared financially distressed under the Act 47 law in December 2003.