The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board issued a statement lauding calendar 2025 as a record year for the commonwealth’s gaming industry for the fifth-consecutive year. The 17 casinos dotting the state collected $6.78 billion dollars, besting 2024 by over $650 million or nearly 11 percent.
The release further states that the tax revenues generated by the casinos, and the games being played, generated $2.87 billion. This tops the $2.55 billion in tax revenues generated in 2024 by 12.4 percent.
For the second year in a row, Allegheny County’s taxable assessed value decreased from the prior year. Commercial building value continues to decrease, much of that due to successful assessment appeals. There are legislative, judicial and advisory actions under consideration or in effect that could force a reassessment that the county’s elected officials have been unwilling to undertake.
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).
