Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said the long-overdue system to merge the payroll operations of the city and Allegheny County will be in place by the end of the year.
The lack of an operational system prompted the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, which has financial oversight of the city, to withhold millions of dollars in slot machine revenues.
Peduto told 90.5 WESA’s Essential Pittsburgh Host Paul Guggenheimer on Wednesday that when he took office a year and a half ago the firm contracted to build an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system tasked with providing a merged payroll system was already two years beyond deadline and $1 million over budget on what was designed to be a $250,000 deal.
“So we asked for meetings with this company to say, ‘How can you be a million dollars over budget on 250,000?’” Peduto said. “Their response is, ‘We need $250,000 more and we need eight months to complete the contract.’ So we canceled the contract.”
Since that meeting the city re-bid the deal and signed a new $250,000 contract with another company that expects to have the ERP and associated payroll system in place by the end of the year. Since the city has a new contract and an expected delivery date, Peduto has taken the stance that the $20 million in gaming revenue should be released. He filed suit last week to make that happen.
“You (the ICA) have a mandate, we (the City) have a mandate," Peduto said. "We have fulfilled ours, you have broken the law on yours. Now we’ll have a judge just come in and clear this mess up.”
The mayor questioned how the first contract was bid, saying there was never any city council oversight and the firm chosen seems to have never performed this type of work before.
“We’re not playing these games anymore," he said. "We’ll go to a judge, we’ll go into court, we’ll do discovery and they can answer for how the contracts and contractors were selected.”
ICA representatives could not be reached for comment.
