Controller, mayor settle suit over budget cuts

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The city controller and the mayor have settled a lawsuit by the controller, who had claimed that proposed budget cuts were too deep and would prevent him from doing his job as a fiscal watchdog.
In the lawsuit, filed in January, Controller Tom Flaherty said a proposed 23 percent budget cut violated a 1992 order by county Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. that set his staff level at 74 employees.
Flaherty has since lost employees, but the settlement allows him to retain his current staff of 63 for the rest of the year, David J. Armstrong, the controller's attorney, said Monday.
The settlement also sets the controller's 2006 budget, but Armstrong did not immediately provide that figure, and includes a mechanism under which future budget disputes would go back to Wettick.
Mayor Tom Murphy did not immediately comment Monday.
The controller is the city's auditor and performs yearly financial reports, oversees bidding and contracts, and writes checks to employees and contractors.
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