In another surprising turnabout on Pittsburgh's budget, City Council today not only voted to approve spending cuts in the Act 47 recovery plan, but did so in a unanimous 9-0 vote.

Council has long been fractured on the recovery proposal, largely because of its deep cuts to personnel spending, and this week was poised to vote the Act 47 plan down when Councilman Doug Shields unexpectedly announced his opposition to the plan.

After two days of lobbying from the state's economic development secretary and the chairman of the city's fiscal oversight board, Shields announced this morning that he would again support the recovery plan.

Shields first won a commitment from state officials that the city's refuse workers would be able to bid -- alongside private companies -- in a partial privatization of the city's garbage collection next year. The Act 47 plan called for 10 percent of the city's routes to be run by private garbage haulers in a privatization pilot program in 2005.

Shields and other council members said they were also worried the city could go bankrupt or not be able to meet payroll over the next several weeks if they did not approve the recovery plan.

Without the plan in place, the oversight board was poised to intercept all the new tax revenues approved by the state Nov. 21, including the new $52 occupation tax and the 0.55 percent business payroll tax. The Act 47 team could have also sanctioned the city, cutting it off from state funds.

The nine-member council has long voted along fractured 5-4 lines on the recovery proposal, but today, even the four council people who have long voted to reject the plan voted for it.

Longtime opponent Luke Ravenstahl led the way, saying it was clear the plan would be approved anyway and council had to "move forward with a unified voice." Another opponent, Twanda Carlisle, said she felt "like I'm falling on a sword, for the betterment of the city of Pittsburgh."

With the approval of the $33 million in spending cuts in the plan, city council and the Murphy administration are free to plug the new taxes into the $425 million budget for next year, meaning it will not have to charge increased property taxes to keep the budget balanced. Council has until the end of the year to approve that budget.

More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.