City of Pittsburgh

Recovery Plan 

State and Local Fiscal Recovery 

Funds

2021 Report

Note: The Recovery Plan Performance Report will provide the public and Treasury information on the 

projects that recipients are undertaking with program funding and how they are planning to ensure 

program outcomes are achieved in an effective, efficient, and equitable manner. While this template

includes the minimum requirements for the Recovery Plan, each recipient is encouraged to add 

information to the plan that they feel is appropriate to provide information to their constituents on efforts 

they are taking to respond to the pandemic and promote an equitable economic recovery. 

Each jurisdiction may determine the general form and content of the Recovery Plan, as long as it 

meets the reporting requirements, and recipients are encouraged to tailor this template to best meet 

their needs. Use of infographics, tables, charts, pictures, case studies, and other explanatory elements 

are encouraged.
City of Pittsburgh 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 1

Notes on using this template

All States and territories, and metropolitan cities and counties with a population that exceeds 250,000 

residents that are recipients of State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) awards are required to 

produce a Recovery Plan Performance Report (the “Recovery Plan”). The Recovery Plan provides

information on the recipient’s projects and how they plan to ensure program outcomes are achieved in an 

effective and equitable manner. It will include key performance indicators identified by the recipient and 

some mandatory indicators identified by Treasury. Each annual Recovery Plan must be posted on the 

public-facing website of the recipient by or on the same date that the recipient submits the report to 

Treasury. 

The initial Recovery Plan will cover the period from the date of award to July 31, 2021 and must be 

submitted to Treasury by August 31, 2021. Thereafter, the Recovery Plan will cover a 12-month period and 

recipients will be required to submit the report to Treasury within 30 days after the end of the 12-month 

period (by July 31). 

Annual Report Period Covered Due Date

1 Award Date – July 31, 2021 August 31, 2021

2 July 1, 2021 – June 30, 2022 July 31, 2022

3 July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023 July 31, 2023

4 July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2024 July 31, 2024

5 July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025 July 31, 2025

6 July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026 July 31, 2026

7 July 1, 2026 – December 31, 2026 March 31, 2027

Instructions:

This document is meant as a suggested template for applicable SLFRF recipients to assist them in 

submitting their Recovery Plan. Recipients should consult the SLFRF Guidance on Recipient 

Compliance and Reporting Responsibilities (Reporting Guidance) located at 

https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/SLFRF-Compliance-and-Reporting-Guidance.pdf for detailed 

guidance on the submission of this report.

Treasury encourages Recipients to tailor this report to best meet their needs in terms of format and 

content. Treasury recommends the use of infographics, tables, charts, pictures, case studies, and other 

explanatory elements in describing their programs.

Text in italics represents the requirements from the Reporting Guidance and is meant to serve as a 

reference as recipients prepare their Recovery Plan. This instructions page and the text in italics should 

be removed before the final transmitted report is published and submitted to Treasury. 

Additional information around Expenditure Categories is located in Appendix 1 of the Reporting 

Guidance. 

For More Information

More information about the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund program and associated reporting 

requirements are located at www.treasury.gov/SLFRP .

Questions on reporting, eligible uses, or other general topics should be directed to SLFRP@treasury.gov.
City of Pittsburgh 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 2

City of Pittsburgh

2021 Recovery Plan

Table of Contents

General Overview........................................................................................................................3

Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................3

Uses of Funds ...........................................................................................................................3

Promoting Equitable Outcomes.................................................................................................4

Community Engagement...........................................................................................................5

Labor Practices .........................................................................................................................5

Use of Evidence ........................................................................................................................5

Table of Expenses by Expenditure Category ............................................................................6

Project Inventory.........................................................................................................................8

Example Project .......................................................................................................................9

Additional Projects.....................................................................................................................9

Ineligible Activities: Tax Offset Provision .............................................................................10
City of Pittsburgh 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 3

GENERAL OVERVIEW

Executive Summary 

The City of Pittsburgh has created and adopted a four-year plan for deployment of the American 

Rescue Plan funding. The plan infuses funds to restore core city services, complete 

construction and tech upgrades to existing community recreation centers, fleet improvements 

for alternative fuel vehicles, projects to improve mobility for constituents, projects to enhance 

economic development in our “Avenues of Hope” initiative, lead remediation, and a mixture of 

housing initiatives that include protecting affordable housing and a homeownership utilities 

programs.

Uses of Funds

The City of Pittsburgh should be able to utilize the revenue replacement category for the entire 

SLFRF allocation. Restoring core service levels for the City of Pittsburgh is critical due to the 

many cuts that were necessary to pass a budget. The city eliminated over 100 vacant positions, 

cut non-personnel expenditure categories, and anticipated an additional cut of 600 plus 

occupied positions for the 2021 annual budget. Relief funds are being used to restore the 

majority of the vacant positions and the majority of the non-personnel cuts. The entirety of the 

anticipated workforce reduction will be reinstated which ensures that we will continue to offer 

services to the residents of the City of Pittsburgh.

Numerous construction projects are planned to make great strides toward improving the equity 

of all residents and include improving existing recreation centers byoffering free WiFi to 

residents, some projects will improve mobility such as step repairs, signal improvements, 

building a pedestrian bridge, and implementing a city-wide LED streetlight conversion. The 

intended outcome is to reduce the digital divide in each area of the city along with offering safe 

and reliable mobility options for residents to utilize.

Fleet improvements will allow us to swap out existing vehicles with newer, alternative fuel 

vehicles. This will allow us to continue our existing progress to achieve our climate action goals 

of maintaining a fossil fuel free fleet by 2030. Relief funding is slated to purchase a total of 78 

vehicles and the necessary infrastructure for support over the next two years. This will include 

electric bucket trucks, electric pickup trucks, electric recycling packers, and CNG refuse 

packers.

Creating more housing options and remediating blight is imperative to creating more 

opportunities for residents and to improve neighborhoods all across the city. This will allow us to 

create more affordable home ownership options and keep housing affordable in perpetuity. For 

low and moderate income homeowners, the city will be able to provide grant funding to help 

homeowners purchase additions to make their home more eco-friendly and lower their utility 

bills. There is also funding to expand local community land trusts’ ability to operate and funding 

to stabilize existing affordable housing. The need for secure and high quality housing is at an 

all-time high and this relief funding will help to address this critical demand.
City of Pittsburgh 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 4

Promoting equitable outcomes

Increasing equity, in particular racial equity, is the primary lens that the City of Pittsburgh uses 

to ensure that all our program, policies and practices that we create and implement work 

positively affect those most historically impacted by unequal systems. In Pittsburgh, for almost 

all indicators of success and well-being, Black residents fall behind their White counterparts

from educational attainment, health outcomes and wealth accumulation. 

After the release of the “Pittsburgh Study” from the City’s Gender Equity Commission which 

detailed using national and local data that our cite. In 2018, the City of Pittsburgh partnered with 

Government Alliance of Racial Equity (GARE) to help assess how to change internal processes 

for more equitable outcomes and help create rubrics to identify how we can continue to make 

the city more equitable. Using SLFRF funding GARE will work with the City to specifically 

address how this critical funding can go toward creating a more livable city for everyone.

In addition, the Pittsburgh City Council created a special Task Force that would use a racial 

equity lens on the funding process from community engagement to allocation.

To ensure everyone is aware of new or extended services that will be funding through the 

SLFRF, the City intends to continue to make this granting process as transparent as possible 

with community meetings, information available on our city website, engagement through our 

constituent affairs effort and partnership with our City Council. 

There are not differences in levels of access to benefits. For all the programs that the City has 

created with this funding, they target those affected most by the pandemic and subsequent 

health and economic impacts. The City is committed to monitoring and refining our programs to 

ensure there are no unintended barriers to access and that the intentioned impacts are made. 

As programs commence, the City will work with communities to make sure all assistance 

programs are accessible to all. 

The intended outcomes of our program is to specifically address those most impacted by 

COVID-19 with a targeted eye on diminishing racial disparities in Pittsburgh. Through the 

proposed programming, the City aims to address both immediate effects of COVID but also 

work towards our long-term goals of increased equity.

As stated, racial equity has been and continues to be a stated goal of the City of Pittsburgh, and 

the funding provided from the SLFRF will assist in our ability to reach these goals. Through the 

programs created, the City aims to prioritize investments in community and economic 

development projects in Black neighborhoods and fund public infrastructure for greater 

economic good. Especially for a city like Pittsburgh that has seen a lot of divestment in our 

public infrastructure, this adversely affects Black and low income neighborhoods. By investing in 

lead water service line replacements, neighborhood recreation centers and quality-of-life 

investments in historically divested neighborhoods, the City is directly funding work to diminish 

racial disparities between residents. 

Land maintenance and homeownership are important to building equity in Pittsburgh. As a city 

we have over 15,000 vacant parcels that could be used to address the affordable housing crisis 

and extreme blight seen in low income neighborhoods. The funding plan directs funding to 
City of Pittsburgh 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 5

community land trusts, safeguarding already existing affordable housing, creating grand dollars 

for residents to purchase land and rehab homes, and expanding our land maintenance efforts to 

create a work force development program.

To address inequalities in policing and the nationwide calls to create systems that ensure better 

outcomes for Black residents when interacting with law enforcement, there is funding to create 

an alternative response model that center a public health approach to public safety. This service 

will provide social services to residents in distress and diminish the need for interaction with law 

enforcement officials, by creating drop off centers in neighborhoods of need staffed by social 

workers and healthcare professionals. 

All children and young people need safe and high quality spaces to play, especially in low 

income and Black communities where there are few options or the care is privatized or 

inaccessible. Recreation centers are critical in these neighborhoods and provide free out of 

school time care and instruction for all. By improving these spaces and the services offered, we 

can provide better and free programs to residents.

Many Pittsburgh households still have water service lines contaminated by lead and have lead 

in the paint due to the older housing stock and infrastructure. This disproportionately affects

Black residents, especially Black youth who are very susceptible to lead poisoning due to their 

age. Funding given to the city’s water and sewer authority is going to expedite their ability to 

replace contaminated service lines and avoid any rate increases that would affect low income 

residents. 

Funding will also be placed into investing in Black main street corridors to rebuild Black 

business districts across the city, through a place-based and people first strategy that would 

allow Black and minority owned small business to relocate and grow in these historic corridors. 

Lastly, the City will be piloting its first guaranteed basic income program that would target Black 

women at or below the poverty level to receive a monthly unrestricted stipend. This program 

would be the first in the country to specially target Black women as the recipients of this funding.

While funding has always been a constraint for equity based policy making but the City of 

Pittsburgh has invested in putting historically divested communities first and pushing for 

equitable outcomes in policy and programming. Through our partnership with GARE we are 

working to improve our processes internally to train staff on how to include more equitable goals 

in their policy crafting and in their outputs that directly affect communities. 

The majority of the funding is aimed at projects that allow for investments in Black majority 

neighborhoods or allow for low income and Black residents to directly benefit from opportunity 

rich neighborhoods in the city. 

Community Engagement 

The City of Pittsburgh’s City Council held multiple cable casted post-agenda meetings 

discussing ARP funds, proposed uses, ideas, and restrictions. These meetings were heavily 

attended by the public where citizens received three minutes of uninterrupted time to voice their 

opinions about a proposed plan. The Mayor’s Office Administration and budget office also 

attended a separate post agenda and were available for City Council members to ask questions 
City of Pittsburgh 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 6

and request more information about the proposed ARP plan. City Council eventually passed a 

four year plan as a blueprint on how ARP funds will be spent for the City of Pittsburgh. This plan 

will be re-visited each year and has the ability to be amended at any time. Most recently, City 

Council has been conducting individual meetings within communities to allow more feedback 

from constituents and community-based organizations. These efforts allow a platform for the 

needs of different communities to be heard and considered for the plan moving forward.

Labor Practices

The City of Pittsburgh currently has both prevailing wage and project labor agreement 

ordinances in city code. §164.34 of city code states each City department planning to enter into 

a contract on behalf of the City for a Public Works project with an estimated construction cost of 

five hundred thousand dollars or more shall refer the project for a Project Labor Agreement 

(PLA) to determine if the particular project would be appropriate for a PLA. §161.38 of city code.

It also states that building service and food employees shall be paid at least the prevailing wage 

according to their job classification performed pursuant to a city service contract. The prevailing 

wages are updated annually by the City of Pittsburgh’s Controller’s Office and has a process 

established if a party files a complaint.

Use of Evidence 

Metrics for success will be determined by agencies and entities that administer the funding. For 

example, programs at Urban Redevelopment Authority will have robust report requirements to 

stakeholders and the public on their advancement of their project and how many residents have 

been able to access the funding or service. Along with making sure these numbers are 

transparent, it allows for these entities to recognize where they can better direct awareness 

campaigns or address any unintended consequences of the program. This level of evaluation 

should be replicated by all entities that receive SLFRF funding and will be a required 

component.

Table of Expenses by Expenditure Category

Category Cumulative

expenditures to 

date ($)

Amount spent 

since last 

Recovery Plan

1 Expenditure Category: Public Health

1.1 COVID-19 Vaccination $0 $0

1.2 COVID-19 Testing $0 $0

1.3 COVID-19 Contact Tracing $0 $0

1.4 Prevention in Congregate Settings (Nursing 

Homes, Prisons/Jails, Dense Work Sites, 

Schools, etc.)

$0 $0

1.5 Personal Protective Equipment $0 $0

1.6 Medical Expenses (including Alternative Care 

Facilities)

$0 $0
City of Pittsburgh 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 7

Category Cumulative

expenditures to 

date ($)

Amount spent 

since last 

Recovery Plan

1.7 Capital Investments or Physical Plant Changes 

to Public Facilities that respond to the COVID19 public health emergency

$0 $0

1.8 Other COVID-19 Public Health Expenses 

(including Communications, Enforcement, 

Isolation/Quarantine)

$0 $0

1.9 Payroll Costs for Public Health, Safety, and 

Other Public Sector Staff Responding to 

COVID-19

$0 $0

1.10 Mental Health Services $0 $0

1.11 Substance Use Services $0 $0

1.12 Other Public Health Services $0 $0

2 Expenditure Category: Negative Economic 

Impacts

2.1 Household Assistance: Food Programs $0 $0

2.2 Household Assistance: Rent, Mortgage, and 

Utility Aid 

$0 $0

2.3 Household Assistance: Cash Transfers $0 $0

2.4 Household Assistance: Internet Access 

Programs

$0 $0

2.5 Household Assistance: Eviction Prevention $0 $0

2.6 Unemployment Benefits or Cash Assistance to 

Unemployed Workers

$0 $0

2.7 Job Training Assistance (e.g., Sectoral jobtraining, Subsidized Employment, Employment 

Supports or Incentives)

$0 $0

2.8 Contributions to UI Trust Funds* $0 $0

2.9 Small Business Economic Assistance (General) $0 $0

2.10 Aid to nonprofit organizations $0 $0

2.11 Aid to Tourism, Travel, or Hospitality $0 $0

2.12 Aid to Other Impacted Industries $0 $0

2.13 Other Economic Support $0 $0

2.14 Rehiring Public Sector Staff $0 $0

3 Expenditure Category: Services to 

Disproportionately Impacted Communities

3.1 Education Assistance: Early Learning $0 $0

3.2 Education Assistance: Aid to High-Poverty 

Districts

$0 $0

3.3 Education Assistance: Academic Services $0 $0

3.4 Education Assistance: Social, Emotional, and 

Mental Health Services 

$0 $0

3.5 Education Assistance: Other $0 $0

3.6 Healthy Childhood Environments: Child Care $0 $0
City of Pittsburgh 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 8

Category Cumulative

expenditures to 

date ($)

Amount spent 

since last 

Recovery Plan

3.7 Healthy Childhood Environments: Home Visiting $0 $0

3.8 Healthy Childhood Environments: Services to 

Foster Youth or Families Involved in Child 

Welfare System 

$0 $0

3.9. Healthy Childhood Environments: Other $0 $0

3.10 Housing Support: Affordable Housing $0 $0

3.11 Housing Support: Services for Unhoused 

persons 

$0 $0

3.12 Housing Support: Other Housing Assistance $0 $0

3.13 Social Determinants of Health: Other $0 $0

3.14 Social Determinants of Health: Community 

Health Workers or Benefits Navigators 

$0 $0

3.15 Social Determinants of Health: Lead 

Remediation

$0 $0

3.16 Social Determinants of Health: Community 

Violence Interventions 

$0 $0

4 Expenditure Category: Premium Pay

4.1 Public Sector Employees $0 $0

4.2 Private Sector: Grants to other employers $0 $0

5 Expenditure Category: Infrastructure

5.1 Clean Water: Centralized wastewater treatment $0 $0

5.2 Clean Water: Centralized wastewater collection 

and conveyance

$0 $0

5.3 Clean Water: Decentralized wastewater $0 $0

5.4 Clean Water: Combined sewer overflows $0 $0

5.5 Clean Water: Other sewer infrastructure $0 $0

5.6 Clean Water: Stormwater $0 $0

5.7 Clean Water: Energy conservation $0 $0

5.8 Clean Water: Water conservation $0 $0

5.9 Clean Water: Nonpoint source $0 $0

5.10 Drinking water: Treatment $0 $0

5.11 Drinking water: Transmission & distribution $0 $0

5.12 Drinking water: Transmission & distribution: 

lead remediation

$0 $0

5.13 Drinking water: Source $0 $0

5.14 Drinking water: Storage $0 $0

5.15 Drinking water: Other water infrastructure $0 $0

5.16 Broadband: “Last Mile” projects $0 $0

5.17 Broadband: Other projects $0 $0

6 Expenditure Category: Revenue Replacement

6.1 Provision of Government Services $0 $0
City of Pittsburgh 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 9

Category Cumulative

expenditures to 

date ($)

Amount spent 

since last 

Recovery Plan

7 Administrative and Other

7.1 Administrative Expenses $0 $0

7.2 Evaluation and data analysis $0 $0

7.3 Transfers to Other Units of Government $0 $0

7.4 Transfers to Nonentitlement Units 

(States and Territories only)

$0 $0

See Section C(7) on page 27 of the Reporting Guidance for additional information.

Project Inventory 

Performance Report