New Pension Plan Ok'd By Council

In meetings on Friday, Pittsburgh City Council have preliminary and final approval to a pension bailout that they hope will avoid a state takeover of the city's pension plan. Their deadline for it to become official is midnight on December 31st. After the mayor vetoes the plan, City Council will meet to override the veto and it will become official.

Bill Peduto says this is the best plan of all of the plans that have been proposed. "There is no way to not put money in when we're being told that we have to get to fifty percent so we tried to find the least impact way of doing that. We have also provided the funding for that which is the parking rate increases," he said.

The Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority approved amendments to the city's 2011 budget and five-year spending plan that would allow parking tax money to be diverted to the pension bailout plan on Friday morning. $45 million from a trust fund was placed in the city's pension fund.

Council plans to put $735.7 million in parking tax revenue into the fund over 31 years.