Update on Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and his “Fair Share Tax” plan to force students to pay the equivalent of 1 percent of their tuition just for living in the Pennsylvania city: It’s not happening. The mayor gave up on the, well, inventive plan when, according to an article in Inside Higher Ed:
Three of the city’s largest nonprofits — Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh and insurer Highmark — have committed to give “their largest individual contributions to the city of Pittsburgh,” Ravenstahl said, and other gifts may may follow from some of the city’s other nonprofits. No specific pledges were made by the other 8 universities in the city.
Neither the schools nor the city would disclose how much money they had to contribute to the city to prevent the student tax. The mayor proposed the tax because Pittsburgh couldn’t otherwise generate the $15 million a year it legally owed to pay the pensions of retired city employees.
