PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh police Chief Larry Scirotto says he will take a $20,000 pay cut to accommodate the salary of a new deputy chief that will lead the department when Chief Scirotto is refereeing 60 to 65 NCAA basketball games this season.

Chief Scirotto told Post-Gazette news partner KDKA-TV that he offered to take the pay cut and Mayor Ed Gainey took him up on the offer, saying the mayor "thought it might help put the residents we serve at ease while also compensating Assistant Chief [Christopher] Ragland in his new role [as deputy chief]."

The chief, reached directly by the Post-Gazette, declined requests for comment and directed questions to Gainey's office. Mayoral spokeswoman Olga George, when reached by phone earlier this week, said the mayor's communications staff would not respond to a list of detailed questions from the PG. She cited an ongoing labor dispute involving a number of employees at the newspaper.

Per the mayor's preliminary budget, the chief was set to make $187,254 in 2025, a slight bump from the $185,400 this year. He was hired in 2023 with a budgeted salary of just under $160,000.

Some in city government were under the impression that Chief Scirotto would not continue officiating while he sits at the helm of Pittsburgh's police bureau.

"We had a conversation about this, and at this time, he will not being doing that," Gainey said May 3, 2023, as he introduced Chief Scirotto as his pick for top cop.

Two weeks later during city council's public interviews with Chief Scirotto, Councilman Anthony Coghill asked him to confirm his commitment to putting that job to the side.

"I know that you have committed to not pursue that profession while you're here as a Pittsburgh police chief, correct?" Coghill asked.

Chief Scirotto replied: "Correct."

But Gainey and Chief Scirotto have both indicated that the plan was always to revisit the NCAA gig once the chief had settled in and made changes, both to the department and to the city's crime statistics.

"That was my intention in that very moment," Chief Scirotto told WTAE-TV regarding his answer to Coghill last year. "The mayor and I have had very clear conversations. There was no ambiguity about [whether it would change] if this department looked different, if this city was in a different state, if we were safer."

A post-agenda, or information-gathering meeting, is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in City-Council Chambers. It was called by Coghill, who said council should hear from the chief before they approve his 2025 salary.

The chief announced last week he would return to college basketball officiating, something he'd actually done days earlier when he worked an exhibition game in Marquette, Mich., between Michigan State and Northern Michigan.

He told local NPR affiliate WESA that that game was on the up and up.

"There are no secrets, and there never have been," he told the station Wednesday. "And there never will be. I'm very clear with my schedule, the mayor and the director of public safety know the days I'm away.

"They also know who will be in charge when I am away," he said.

That person will be Assistant Chief Ragland, who will receive the new title of deputy chief — a position that was eliminated from the city budget several years ago.

The chief's $20,000 pay cut will go toward boosting Chief Ragland's $146,000 assistant chief salary in his new role.

"No one in this city should be concerned about their safety with Deputy Chief Ragland in charge," Chief Scirotto told WESA in regard to what might happen if he's on the court while a crisis unfolds in Pittsburgh.

The chief said he will use his nine weeks of accrued vacation time and normal days off — Friday, Saturday and Sunday — to make time for officiating and the travel involved.

"It's not as if I'm going or need to go find other time to do this," he told the radio station. "It's a time that has been given to me by contract."

Gainey, in a statement last week following his chief's announcement, said Chief Scirotto "approached us about possibility needing to step down from his role in order to pursue this part-time refereeing gig ..."

The chief told WESA he did not give the mayor an ultimatum; rather, if officiating would make him "a distraction to the bureau" — or meant he "couldn't perform in the manner in which we both expect for the bureau" — he'd have retired.

He also said his return to officiating will help facilitate a new youth program he plans to launch in partnership with the HEAR Foundation called Refs and Rooks. The idea, he said, will be for officers and young people to train together as referees and become certified by the program's end.

"They're going to the training together. They'll grow together. They'll learn together. They'll referee together," he told the radio station. "How cool is that relationship going to be to watch them develop together for something that can be a career in either space, whether it's policing or officiating?"

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