PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh’s mayor is reacting to an investigation into city finances as the district attorney says there are millions of taxpayer dollars unaccounted for under the previous administration.
Mayor Corey O’Connor told Chief Investigator Rick Earle that he’s not focused on the District Attorney Stephen Zappala’s investigation, but he is concerned about the day-to-day operations of running the city.
He says he doesn’t know exactly what the DA is looking for, but he says his administration has fully cooperated and will turn over whatever the DA asks for.
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Earle: He did raise the suspicion of hundreds of thousands of dollars missing....are you concerned about that?
O’Connor: I mean, we’re concerned with the budget every day, and you know.
Earle: Specifically with the last administration and what he’s alleging?
O’Connor: Yeah, I mean we can’t tell you what he’s alleging. Obviously it was sealed, but you know when the DA or any authority sends us a subpoena, we follow it. We got him the information he was looking for.
O’Connor addressed the DA’s comments made last week about that ongoing investigation into the previous administration.
The DA says the city recently turned over 7,000 documents all related to that sealed search warrant issued back in March.
“It’s an extensive investigation and it also involves different agencies aside from mine,” Zappala said.
The DA, who previously said the FBI was interested in the case, has said he’s investigating city contracts and financial dealings, including millions of dollars in COVID relief funds doled out during the previous administration. He said money for certain programs, involving youths and seniors, never made it to them.
“You’re talking millions of dollars from different accounts, different contracts, different schemes,” Zappala said.
Earle: That’s unaccounted for?
Zappala: We can’t find work product right now.
O’Connor says his administration will continue to cooperate, but he’s focused on the budget deficit.
“You know the DA is doing what he’s doing, looking at records, but for us, we’re looking at what it takes to manage each department each and every day, and we have a preliminary budget coming in next month or so, so you know we’re going to have conversations about where their budgets were in the past and what’s realistic,” O’Connor said.
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