I will address the budget with investment and a vision for the future, not with quick fix spending.
CITY IN CRISIS
Wise management is crucial to the survival of any business and it is even more important to the success of a city like Pittsburgh. For too long this city has lived outside of its means and mortgaged our children's futures to pay for its excesses. That way of doing business won't work anymore--we have a looming budget shortfall and a profound pension crisis. Right now we can only pay cents on the dollar for the pension money we owe.
NO MAGIC BULLET
There is no magic solution for our current crisis. I wont sugarcoat the problem, nor will I make false promises during this campaign. I will not try to fool you with creative accounting during my administration. We WILL attack this problem strategically though, and in a method that will solve both the budget crisis and the pension shortfall in the long term.
OPEN, TRANSPARENT, AND FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE
As Mayor, the responsibility will ultimately lie with me and I promise to:
- Attack the budgetary crisis in an open and fair manner. This will include public discussion, public oversight, and an explanation from me concerning all major decisions. I guarantee that the process will be run right + the City cannot afford more of the same.
- Identify, hire and retain subject matter experts to manage the process. This is a significant issue and requires the very best in professional experience to solve. All firms and individuals will be interviewed and hired in an open and fair process. We will no longer make hiring decisions based upon campaign contributions nor political favors--the City cannot afford more of the same.
- Manage City finances in a fiscally responsible manner. We will live within our means, and avoid issuing new debt to pay our day-to-day bills. Strategic infrastructure projects will be funded in the manner most appropriate for the project and decisions about professional services for those projects will be merit based, not based upon campaign contributions and favors--the City cannot afford more of the same.
- Approach the pension crisis in a manner which balances our twin commitments--both to pay what we owe to those who served our City faithfully, and to offer our citizens a financially secure City to call home. I will pursue every manner of funding our pension requirements, I will approach those options with an open mind, we will establish a fair and open process for determining the best method to solve the pension crisis, and we will implement that plan fairly, openly and with significant public oversight. The process will be designed to benefit the City and those that the City owes not big campaign contributors and political friends--the city cannot afford more of the same.
PROTECTING PUBLIC COFFERS
Fixing our budget is just one step in this process. We will have to live within our means from this point forward. I will manage the City as if I were managing a small business in which every citizen is a shareholder. This includes:
- A fair open bidding process that is not politically motivated and delivers the best combination of price and quality to the City
- Strategic investment in technology that will lower our costs while guaranteeing equal or better City services.
- Fair wages and treatment for all City workers along with the elimination of politics in City hiring decisions.
BUDGETING FOR THE PEOPLE, NOT THE POLITICIANS
The everyday men and women in this City Know what the problem is--the problem is that we have a budget written by politicians for politicians. I'm here as a businessman who has studied law, not as another talking head. Under a Franco Dok Harris administration the people of this city will have the opportunity to come together and have actual input into the City's budget, and we will openly explain how we spend YOUR money.
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