Pittsburgh Gets Money to Complete Projects...From Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh City Council on Wednesday passed a bill that they say will free up money for capital projects that must be completed this year. The money has been locked into accounts that were designated for different projects that have since been completed. At Wednesday's City Council meeting, they voted to free up money from projects from 1995-1999 and from 2009's G-20 Summit. While they know they have about $700,000 leftover in that account, the city isn't sure how much is in all of its other accounts.

"We've become so accustomed to this process of just allowing those accounts to sit there until such time that you would need it for something else, sort of like picking up the cushions sort of like picking up the cushions from your couch and finding all of the pennies, nickels and dimes to be able to do something else. So really what we want to do is strip away from that bad practice of accounting and budgeting and put in good practices. So we really won't know until we're done," said councilman Bill Peduto who introduced the legislation.

The money will go towards playground maintenance, fixing roads and the like.

Peduto says its important to clean out the city's books before it switches over to a new accounting system later this year.