Oh, if the district only had more money to waste-er, spend. $21,000 per student just isn't enough.  Maybe another foundation funded effort will "stem the tide" as the superintendent described her job. One would have thought the previous superintendent had solved the academic problems.

 

Can it get any more ridiculous? Program after program, Promise scholarships and scores do not improve, enrollment declines, and some of the high schools have more security than an airport.  One would think common decency would take over the mindset of Pittsburghers with regard to public schools. But no, it does not happen. They are content to keep on with same old same old and crush any chance at a respectable life these kids should have.

 

Understanding that family life is important, too many kids are being raised by women who do not have the ability (or maybe even the interest) to enforce the discipline required to have learning occur.  But there is no excuse for denying options to parents who would like an alternative school where discipline is enforced and a chance of learning exists.   Kids can be taught in 7 hours a day if activities are focused and excuses are not permitted.

 

The disease that affects Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Harrisburg and other large school districts is progressive statism augmented to a lethal degree by political correctness and intellectual vapidity in our universities.  This school situation ought to be viewed as a moral failing, but to liberals moral failing means tax rates are too low and air quality regulations are not strict enough.  Yet more evidence of a societal unraveling.

 

 

 

County Council wants to hold a meeting next month to look at the real estate holdings of UPMC because, according to one Council member, "People have been asking a lot of questions about this [topic]" and "It's a good idea to have this meeting and air it out properly in front of everybody."

 

That's probably what the Councilman's brethren on City Council were feeling back in June when it held its own post-agenda hearing on the topic.  That hearing was peppered with a lot of language about living wages , transit cuts (they were pending at the time), and how non-profits impact the City budget.  It was stressed that the purpose of the hearing was not to single out any one entity.   It is a strong bet alot of these themes will come up again next month.

 

At the June meeting the City heard from officials from the County's chief fiscal office about how that office wanted to make sure that all exemptions were merited.  That has not changed-we even pointed out that where any non-profit has property that is not dedicated to a charitable purpose it ought to be taxed.  The officials presented their findings from a report by the County Controller which projected the amount of revenue taxing bodies could receive if all exempt properties were taxable, even though it is doubtful that any taxing body would tax the property holdings of another level of government. 

 

The officials also pointed out that the County's record keeping on parcels that are exempt-remember the County is in charge of property assessment for itself and the City, as well as all other municipalities and school districts in the County-exhibited "poorly maintained exemption data".  That has likely not changed either-in fact a newspaper series on the topic reported as far back as late September that the record keeping was shoddy.  The Councilman chairing the December hearing, when asked about how the County failed to do a mandatory review of exempt property once every three years (based on legislation sponsored by the Councilman) said that it "must have fell through the cracks" and that Council "would have to sit down with [the Executive] and talk about that". 

 

Will County Council use the forum to prod officials as to how the system has improved since then?

 

 

School closings, teacher contract concessions, and "difficult choices", many of them related to the loss of students to charter schools and a failure to rightsize operations.  Oh, and a $300 million borrowing just to keep the schools operating.  And that is with a School Reform Commission running the show for the Philadelphia School District.   This year the District will spend $2.5 billion on educating 146,000 K-12 students, and just under half of that budget comes from the state.

 

The fiscal situation in Philly is pointed out, not only for the implications it has on statewide taxpayers, but because one member of the state's second largest district, Pittsburgh, recently opined that "bigger must be better" and suggested that there be a merger of the 43 districts in Allegheny County since "We're working on an agrarian model that's so out of date it's not funny."  A consolidated Allegheny County district would have roughly the same enrollment as Philadelphia's school district, based on calculations of PA Department of Education data. 

 

Unless the state were to just consolidate the districts in Allegheny County, which is doubtful since school districts are not governed according to county borders, or the board member goes back to the Nordenberg report that suggested consolidating only the County and the City and leaving the other municipalities and the school districts in the County alone and amends it to gain some interest nearly five years later, the cast a wider net approach so we can spread financial problems over a larger area is a non-starter. 

 

There has been one merged district, Central Valley, in the last five years and that came as a voluntary arrangement.  It was upheld as a model when the previous gubernatorial administration pushed the idea of cutting the number of districts from 500 to 100 in order to reduce "back office" costs and improve educational offerings.  But our work found that the largest district in Allegheny County, Pittsburgh, had more "non-teachers" per 1000 students than a sample of other districts in the County, the exact opposite situation one would expect to see. 

 

Pennsylvania has largely trended the way the U.S. has with the number of school districts: much of the consolidation came in the 1950s and 1960s; by 1972, according to the Census of Local Governments, the significant drops in numbers of districts had stopped and this year the totals in PA and the country are slightly smaller than where they were nearly four decades ago. 

 

 

Take the fifty states and the District of Columbia and measure the strength of their teachers' union based on resources, political activity, state policies, and the perceived influence of power.  That's what a recent report by the Thomas Fordham Institute attempts to do.  One of the key areas they focus on is collective bargaining: what is the legal treatment in the state?  Are strikes legal? And can the union automatically deduct dues and collect agency fees from non-members?

 

With mandatory collective bargaining, no prohibition on teacher strikes, and permission to withhold and collect dues and fees, the Keystone state gets a ranking of fourth most powerful teachers' union in the report.  It was bested by Hawaii, Oregon, and Montana. 

 

In the top ten strongest states, all have mandatory collective bargaining and all permit automatic dues deductions or agency fee collections.  Two states-New York and New Jersey-prohibit teacher strikes and one, Washington, neither permits nor prohibits them. 

 

Now look at the states ranked at the bottom (having the unions with the least amount of power).  One state, Oklahoma, permits collective bargaining; in Florida it is mandatory, and in Arizona and Mississippi it is neither permitted nor prohibited.  Only Louisiana permits strikes and South Carolina is silent on the issue.  States in this group where collective bargaining is prohibited (Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Arkansas, and South Carolina) also prohibit any type of dues deduction or fee collection. 

 

As City officials prepare to make their case to the state that they have progressed to the point where they can shed Act 47 distressed status, just up the road at Pittsburgh Public Schools' headquarters they are asking whether the District is in such financially bad shape that it will be "bankrupt" in three years.  One board member asked "By 2015, are we broke, out of business?" to which a consultant replied, "correct".

 

That's a bit strong.  Districts cannot go bankrupt in Pennsylvania as they are not permitted to file by the state (only municipalities can).  But there are new provisions in state law under Act 141 that prescribe how the state, through the Department of Education, is to deal with school districts facing financial distress.  We wrote about the legislation before it was singed into law this past June. 

 

Act 141 applies to all districts in the state except for Philadelphia.  A district can fall into either "moderate" or "severe" distress and for a district deemed as such (the law says there cannot be more than nine at one time) the state will appoint a Chief Recovery Officer who will write a recovery plan.  The plan has to be approved by the district's board, and there are procedures for what happens if approval is delayed.  There are a variety of tools for getting a district back to sound financial footing from reopening of budgets, examining contracts, exploring charter schools, and other options.  Exit from financial recovery depends on the progress of the district and the determination of the Secretary. 

 

Is Pittsburgh headed here?  Who knows?  There might be other options on the table, but as the Superintendent noted "We believe there's a way forward. It may not be something we thought of before. It may not be something that comes to the mind readily. It may not be something that's easy to arrive at."

 

Back in 2007, Allegheny County commissioned a consultant to give ideas about what to do with the parks system.  Among other things, including creating a non-profit like the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, there was a belief that the County should be pushing for private sector involvement in the parks for "operation, maintenance, and renovation" and, in addition to tennis courts and swimming pools one facility for attention was the North Park boat house. 

 

There was a major dredging project at the lake that was completed this year.  A master plan for the lake area was published by the County in April that solicited public input on how to improve the overall area, including the boat house.  That report mentioned "alternative uses for the building could include a concessions area or park café with an outdoor dining terrace overlooking the lake, bike and boat rental facility, fishing/bait shop, and satellite nature center office.  The plan put the price tag for a "boathouse feasibility study" at $50,000. 

 

According to the County Parks department website, a project that is part of a larger non-profit organization already handles kayak rentals at the boat house and they plan more hours in 2013.  So that would appear not to be needed for study.  And this week County Council is expected to take up whether a private operator should operate and manage a full service restaurant at the boat house.  It is not clear if the feasibility study mentioned in the master plan from April has been completed: it does not appear on the Parks website.  But it appears that when the master plan mentioned a "park café" this is probably what was in mind.  If Council approves the proposal without the feasibility study in hand, and has a non-profit and a private entity entertaining folks at the facility, does the money still have to be spent? 

 

Call it "the week that was" in news items related to projects on the drawing board, soon to get off of the ground, or those that failed to live up to promises.  The common thread is that all of them somehow involve tax increment financing (TIF) as a funding tool.  TIF allows development on a specified parcel (or parcels) of property to move forward by an authority issuing bonds for certain aspects of the project and then allowing, with the agreement of the taxing bodies where the development is located, that a good portion of anticipated taxes on the new more valuable development to be funneled to repaying the bonds instead of fully to the taxing bodies' accounts.

 

We read of a failed development in North Versailles for townhomes and how the Mall at Robinson may not be throwing off enough money or produced enough corollary development (more retail?) to pay off debt; that the long-talked-about apartment village in Castle Shannon will go before Castle Shannon Borough and the Keystone Oaks School Board this month with one school official noting that the revenue split (75% for the bonds, 25% for the district) won't bring a lot of dollars to the District, but they will get a lot of earned income tax dollars from people who will occupy the apartments (unless, of course, those prospective residents are already ling in the District and will simply move to the new location); the empty lot in uptown Mt. Lebanon, where the first swing and miss at development with a TIF came about a decade ago and is now in the hands of a second developer; a multi-use development in Sewickley; and, not to be left out, the Market Square development in Downtown Pittsburgh.  We wrote an editorial in June about the resurgence of TIF in the area.

 

With these new developments, and a lot of ones already done over the years, are taxpayers getting significant benefits through the elimination of blight, the creation of new job opportunities, and increased tax value?  If those questions are to be answered, don't look to the Commonwealth: as we pointed out this year, the state hasn't produced an evaluation on TIF even though it was a requirement in the 1990 law that permitted its use. 

 

RAD money for PAT: designating the Port Authority as a regional asset would enable it for a $3 million piece of the proceeds from the share of the 1% sales tax set aside for regional assets like the zoo, libraries, parks, etc. and would combine with other sources from the County and the state.  Of course, making room for PAT in the RAD pool could mean some crowding out of other assets entirely or through a smaller or flat allotment.  A decline in sales tax proceeds could also precipitate complications.

 

We pointed out in a Brief this year that giving PAT a piece of RAD money would raise "is" and "should" questions (and we addressed the topic in earlier years, here and here).  There is nothing in the law that says transit is not a regional asset: we pointed that out and a legal opinion delivered to the RAD board echoed that.  Then would come the discussion about whether there was merit in giving PAT a monetary commitment.  It could open the door to having other public authorities showing up at RAD's door asking for money. 

 

Several representatives of Pittsburgh arts' groups communicated as much to the RAD board at a hearing yesterday.  "If this (funding for Port Authority) occurs, then where does it stop?" asked one leader.  Another said "Whether it's one year or 10 years, it presents an unprecedented challenge". Part of the reason could be that the predictions that there would be a $5 million surplus might look a bit different.  The RAD budget, and the decision on whether PAT will be a part of it, will come by the end of November. 

 

Almost everyone knows there is a pension crisis in the public sector, but very few can see how that affects them directly.  Sure, there have been municipalities across the country that have filed for municipal bankruptcy in order to reorganize, but none have sold off police cars or park benches as a result of a liquidation.  People in western Pennsylvania know that Pittsburgh has a low funded pension and that the money it takes to be put toward pensions and other legacy costs means fewer dollars for traditional public services.

 

But what does the pension crisis mean for the typical household?  A recent academic treatment of the topic examines what it would cost for pensions to be fully funded over the next thirty years assuming no policy changes to the nature of pensions.  The paper points out that most public sector pensions are defined benefit plans, where an employer promises the employee an amount at retirement based on age, length of service, and final salary calculations as opposed to defined contribution plans like a 401k or 403b where the employee saves for retirement often with a match from the employer.  The report notes that the longer it takes for states to reform pensions the liabilities keep accumulating. 

 

So the paper sets out to calculate the required increase per resident household to pay the existing liabilities off over a three decade period.  Or, as the authors of the paper posed the question in an editorial, "how much will your taxes have to increase?" The U.S. average for the fifty states is $1,385 per year, with Pennsylvania coming in slightly above that average at $1,550.  New York is the highest at $2,250, and Indiana is the lowest at $329.  The states nearby to southwestern Pennsylvania are quite different, with Ohio at $2,051 and West Virginia at $600. 

 

In a recent Brief we wrote about legislation that passed both houses of the General Assembly that, if signed by the Governor, would take language requiring Pittsburgh Police officers to be residents of the City out of state law.  The Governor signed that legislation last week, and is now known as Act 195 of 2012. 

 

The law does not mean present officers are free to move outside of the City or that those yet to be hired won't have to move into the City as a condition of employment.  It means that the residency issue will be decided by collective bargaining and not because it is embedded in state codes. 

 

What that looks like could take on any variety of forms.  As we pointed out in the Brief, Philadelphia requires new officers to reside in the City but those with five years experience or more can reside elsewhere.  A quick look at the websites for two of the state's larger cities, Erie and Lancaster, shows that officers have to live within a 15 mile radius or 20 mile radius, respectively without reference to years of service to the department.