A quarter of the 21st century has now passed with the 2025 economic performance in the historical data files. This Brief looks at the growth, or lack of growth, in private-sector employment for the nation, Pittsburgh and nine other metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) of the same general size as the eight-county Pittsburgh MSA. The Dallas MSA was also reviewed, although it is much larger than Pittsburgh and the other MSAs in the study group.
Summary: On Jan. 12, the controller for Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) – who also serves as the city controller – delivered a presentation to the school board based on a special report released in October. The report highlighted deficiencies in the request-for-proposals (RFP) and competitive bidding procedures in awarding contracts, potentially costing the district millions of dollars. Given the district’s ongoing financial woes, compounded by the board failing to pass a much-needed school consolidation plan in November, any and all avenues to find cost savings must be seriously explored.
Pittsburgh Public Schools, facing a multimillion-dollar deficit that will force it to draw down precious emergency money from its reserve fund, could find partial relief by overhauling its contracting processes, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused a major decline in public transportation usage in 2020 as huge numbers of commuters worked from home instead of traveling to a workplace.
That work-from-home culture has persisted and continues to be realized in languishing passenger counts, not only for Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) but for other transit agencies around the country, say researchers at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.
But a troubling ancillary metric surfaced as ridership lags became chronic, say Jake Haulk, president-emeritus of the Pittsburgh think tank, and Frank Gamrat, its executive director (in Policy Brief Vol. 26, No.5).
