City Council
Mayor’s proposed budget would end the Stop the Violence trust fund.
Mayor Corey O’Connor’s proposed 2027 budget would eliminate the Stop the Violence Trust Fund and the Housing Opportunity Fund. Personnel, programming and other costs would be moved into the general fund. Doing so could allow the money to be used for other purposes if needed. Any unspent funds would be added to the reserve.
Written by Amy Whipple
One spending proposal in Mayor Corey O’Connor’s 2027 budget would eliminate the Stop the Violence (STV) trust fund.
City Council Budget Director Kiersten Walmsley said during council’s Nov. 10 budget hearing that the proposal does not eliminate what the money supports.
The 2027 budget proposes nearly $10.6 million in violence prevention spending, including personnel and programming. Walmsley said the city anticipates emptying the $12 million trust fund into the general fund to cover the costs.
Council President R. Daniel Lavelle of the Upper Hill District said the city could, in theory, take about $20 million more from its reserves to fully fund both STV and the Housing Opportunity Fund which was also deleted in the mayor’s proposed budget. That would drain the reserve fund earlier, he said, but it would do so “while still funding the things that we think are important.”
Walmsley said the rationale for moving the money to the operating budget is so that it better reflects all city spending.
Council Member Barb Warwick of Greenfield asked why the money can’t stay in the trust funds but still be accounted for in the budget.
“We made a commitment as a city that we were going to invest in violence prevention. We made a commitment as a city that we are going to invest in affordable housing,” she said. “Instead of doing that, we’re saying, ‘Oh, don’t worry, we’re still going to do that, but we’re going to take away the mechanism that requires us to do it.”
Walmsley said that moving the money to the general fund allows it to be used “for other things if it comes up” and that any unspent dollars go to the reserve fund at the end of the year.
However, eliminating the trust funds might not be easy because they were created through legislation and changes would likely have to be made the same way.
“That's not something that we get to do kind of quietly in the night through a budget process,” Warwick said. “That’s something that we have to vote on out loud and in public.”
Connections to this story
- Elected officials:
- R. Daniel LavelleBarbara Warwick
- Local issues:
- Where the Stop the Violence money goesPaying for affordable housingStopping violence before it startsPittsburgh's yearly budget fights
- Topics:
- Budget & TaxesHousing & Land UsePublic Safety & EMSPublic Safety & EMSBudget & TaxesHousing & Land UsePublic Safety & EMSPublic HealthBudget & Taxes
- Governments:
- City Council
- Public meetings:
- Committee on Hearings and Policy · November 10, 2026
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