A 2024 Policy Brief (Vol. 24, No. 8) discussed proposed K-12 state spending following a Commonwealth Court decision and the recommendations of the Basic Education Funding Commission. The approved fiscal year (FY) 2025-26 state budget increases spending from the basic education subsidy and the supplements through the Ready-to-Learn block grant.
Summary: Act 153 of 2012 allowed municipalities with a population greater than 10,000 to create a land bank to more efficiently combat blighted, vacant and abandoned property. In 2014, Pittsburgh City Council passed an ordinance establishing the Pittsburgh Land Bank (PLB) to do just that.
However, the PLB remained unproductive for nearly a decade, failing to make its first sale until 2023. Steady progress has been made since. And an intergovernmental cooperation agreement (ICA) between the PLB and the three taxing bodies – Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS), Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh – set to be signed on Nov. 19 would grant the PLB new powers and access to sheriff’s sales. Even so, there is still much work to be done to effectively address the city’s unproductive property problems.
Allegheny County, the City of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Public Schools signed an intergovernmental cooperation agreement (ICA) on Nov. 19 designed to breathe new life into the long moribund Pittsburgh Land Bank (PLB).
And while the agreement grants the land bank broad new powers, including access to sheriff’s sales, a researcher at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy says there’s still much work to be done to effectively address the city’s “unproductive property” problems.
“The PLB has potential to more efficiently process existing blighted, vacant and abandoned properties,” says Alex Sodini (in Policy Brief Vol. 25, No. 38). “But it must be used in a manner which truly benefits the city and ensures taxpayers are getting the most bang for their buck.”
There’s no doubt that Pennsylvania will have to up its game to meet the massive increase in electricity generation required to power the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution now a full step in the front door.
How best to do that, however, remains the paramount question, says Frank Gamrat, executive director of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.
“But time is running out as the demand for artificial intelligence in computing is growing rapidly,” he stresses (in Policy Brief Vol. 25, No. 34).
