Two years of the Pittsburgh Water board, in five charts

Every resolution the board voted, October 2023 to September 2025, coded from the official minutes. Figures reproduce from the archived data with python 03-harness/build.py. Reporting by Brian Nuckols for Public Source.

228 decisions, not one dissent

Resolutions accumulate to 228 over 24 meetings; the count of no votes never leaves zero.

Resolutions voted (cumulative)No votes (cumulative)
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The board asked 40 questions the meeting after the story ran

Board questions per meeting held near an average of 5.5 for two years, then jumped to about seven times that at the first meeting after the investigation published.

Questions per meetingFirst post-publication meeting24-month average (5.5)
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$871 million authorized along the way

Cumulative spending the board approved across the same 24 meetings, in millions of dollars.

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100% unanimous, against 69% at the peer boards

Pittsburgh Water was unanimous on every vote where all members voted. At two peer water boards, sampled at random over the same window, 20 of 29 votes were unanimous.

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Who did the asking

Of 131 questions counted across the two years, the chair asked more than a third; one member asked one.

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Source: Pittsburgh Water board minutes (24 meetings, Oct 2023–Sep 2025), coded by the reporter; peer minutes from the Niagara Falls Water Board and North Harris County Regional Water Authority. Data and reproduction harness: this repository. No figure here uses the coin-flip probability the published story correctly cut.