Pittsburgh auditors estimate Mayor Bill Peduto spent about $283,000 remodeling staff offices after his 2014 inauguration but said they could not determine an exact amount because the administration would not provide requested data, according to a report Wednesday from the controller's office.
Peduto Chief of Staff Kevin Acklin objected to the estimate in a written response and said auditors erroneously calculated labor costs.
He said it was physically impossible for city employees to have worked the 7,736 hours on the project noted in the report. The audit said the Department of Public Works provided the total hours worked. Acklin wrote that DPW record-keeping is not accurate, and the administration is working to improve it.
“The report includes claims that city laborers worked 1,734 hours on painting the mayor's office, a number that is not physically possible,” Peduto spokesman Tim McNulty said. “That roughly translates into 10.5 months of painting. It also claims that carpenters spent 4,928 hours working on the mayor's office. If this were the case, the work would still be ongoing as this is approximately 2.5 years of work.”
He said the actual cost is limited to the cost of material.
Controller Michael Lamb said his office stands by the audit.
“We think the calculations (of labor costs) are accurate,” he said. “We went by the information that was provided to us.”
According to the report, work included $43,477 for material and $239,679 in labor costs based on reported hours worked by city painters, carpenters, heating and air-conditioning technicians, electricians, truck drivers and laborers. It did not provide a total number of employees who worked on the project.
Auditors were forced to make a “conservative estimate” of labor costs because the administration failed for 10 months to provide the actual costs, the report said. Auditors used budgeted hourly rates for city employees, plus overtime, noting that some employees worked seven days per week on the renovations.
“The mayor's office produced documentation for the controller, pointing out these errors and showing a significant increase in facilities spending citywide — especially on public safety and parks facilities — over the last three years, as Mayor Peduto has prioritized repairing our city facilities after decades of neglect,” McNulty said in response.
The report found that improvements included a $10,078 donation of IKEA furniture, including a kitchenette, hand-woven rug, lights, chairs and a coffee table and love seat. Auditors noted that Pittsburgh lacks official procedures for reporting donations to the city and that could lead to misconceptions that donations are property of the mayor or other city employees.
In 2014, Acklin criticized former Mayor Luke Ravenstahl for taking a trophy when he left office commemorating the Steelers' 2006 Super Bowl victory that Waterford Crystal donated to the city. Ravenstahl later returned the trophy.
In his letter, Acklin specifies that the IKEA furniture was a gift to the city and that it would remain permanently in City Hall.
“(IKEA furniture) was totally for the benefit of city employees,” McNulty said. “It's totally apples and oranges.”
The audit examined mayor's office finances from 2013 through 2015.
Auditors noted that the budget for the mayor's office increased from $994,146 in 2013 under the Ravenstahl administration to $1,125,924 after Peduto took office in 2014, but decreased by 5.8 percent in 2015.
They praised Peduto for creating an office that finds and obtains grants, noting that the city received $43.5 million in grants from numerous sources in 2014 and 2015, and for making city financial information available to the public online.
Bob Bauder is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-765-2312 or bbauder@tribweb.com.
