Blog
Say No to Student Taxes
Posted by Carol Coletta on November 16, 2009 |
Pittsburgh Councilman and CEOs for Cities member Bill Peduto fired back at Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's plans to tax the city's college students to fill budget gaps. While the mayor is looking for new revenue, Councilman Peduto says this is not the place to get it. Here are his comments released this morning.
Missing the Mark - Taxing Students
Last week, Mayor Ravenstahl announced his 2010 Budget. The news centered on his plan to create a new tax to require all college/trade school/ theology (?) students to pay 1% of their gross tuition to the city. There are some serious problems to this idea. First, it is illegal. Pennsylvania municipalities do not have the authority to create new taxes - only the state legislature can approve such actions.
Second, it misses the mark. If the problem - throughout Pennsylvania, not just Pittsburgh - is that a limited number of older, host municipalities have a limited tax base because of lost revenue from hosting non-profits, then how is that solved by targeting students? The answer is - it's not.
Third, it sends the wrong message to those we are trying to lure/keep here to build a…
Let’s Play the Budget Game
Posted by Sheila Redick on May 14, 2009 |
The Washington Post is inviting readers to put on their mayor's hat and grapple with balancing the Capital City's budget in the midst of a $591 million budget shortfall with an interactive city budgeting tool. Do you increase taxes? If so, where? Where can you cut spending? Can you balance the budget within $50 million? Try it here.
Philadelphia to investigate tax structure
Posted by Bridget Marquis on March 27, 2009 |
Mayor Michael Nutter has formed a Task Force on Tax Policy and Economic Competitiveness to analyze the City of Philadelphia's tax structure and its impact on business development as well as the cost of real estate development in the city. CEOs for Cities network partner Paul Levy, CEO of Center City District, will serve as part of the team charged with creating an action plan outlining steps to overhaul the current tax structure. We're eager to find out what Philadelphia discovers through this process and will share findings as they become public.
Take the Philly Budget Challenge
Posted by Carol Coletta on March 24, 2009 |
This is perfect fun for the wonks among us. Take the Philly budget challenge from the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, and see if you can outsmart Mayor Michael Nutter on where to cut and where to tax. Here's the link.
What’s at Stake with Regionalism
Posted by on July 03, 2008 |
Here is the smartest analysis I've seen of "regionalism" and the way costs are divided over multiple municipalities, a city and a county. It's from our colleague and member, Tom Jones, in Memphis.
The Memphis City Council brought the issue of who pays for what to a head when they cut $70 million from the budget of Memphis City Schools. The City of Memphis never had any obligation to fund schools. That's a Shelby County responsibility. And that means Memphis taxpayers paid twice -- once as city taxpayers and again as county taxpayers.
School funding is the tip of the iceberg. As Tom points out, there are plenty of other examples of city taxpayers paying twice... in fact, as Tom puts it, paying for their own neighborhoods' demise.
Tom's blog, Smart City Memphis, is consistently one of the smartest around on local issues.