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City of Pittsburgh losing out on money from scrap metal

The city of Pittsburgh has old trash cans, hot water heaters and other pieces of discarded metal sitting in a dumpster at its Public Works Department that will be sold for scrap. But critics say the city could be getting more money for all that metal.

"This town was built on metal. There are plenty of dealers. Why do we only have one bidder, and why at such a low price?" said Michael Lamb, controller for the city of Pittsburgh.

Target 11 obtained a copy of the city's contract, and it shows the city receives $9 per ton of metal. Last year, the city generated 71 tons of scrap metal, bringing in $573. Target 11 compared that with Allegheny County, which sold 90 tons of scrap metal, and brought in $35,000.

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"[That] is troublesome on two fronts. One, we only have one bidder, so we have a noncompetitive bid situation. But the second, we have the ability to piggyback on the county's contract, so we could go ahead and call the county's vendor, and get the better price, and we should be doing that," said Lamb.

Target 11 examined the numbers from the past five years, and found the differences were startling. Allegheny County brought in $232,000 from scrap metal sales compared with only $29,000 the city brought in. Target 11's Rick Earle sat down with Pittsburgh's chief operations officer, Guy Costa, and asked whether that means the city is just giving the scrap away. Costa said that's not what's happening.

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"We went through a process and we have a contract in place. The vendor is living up to his end, and we are living up to our end. But unfortunately, the market is down right now," said Costa.

Pittsburgh's controller has raised questions about scrap metal in the past. When the parking authority did away with the old metal meters that used to line city streets, the controller couldn't account for all of them. Lamb said another city department used scrap metal funds from a renovation project to throw a party. Lamb said this latest example is just more evidence that the system needs to be fixed. He suggested the city should be weighing and tracking all scrap metal, and said they should be getting a higher price for the sale as well.

"At the end of the day, it's not a huge amount of money. It's not making or breaking the city budget, but it's important," said Lamb. "It's public money. We have to show a certain level of care for public funds and this money that the public is entitled to."

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