More Movement on the Non-profit Taxation Front + a Bonus Video

Another development in the battle to get non-profits to carry their weight from State Senator Wayne Fontana who

...said today that he will introduce legislation allowing municipalities to charge tax-exempt institutions a fee based on their property holdings.

Mr. Fontana said it would allow municipalities to negotiate voluntary payments with universities, hospital systems and other large institutions that aren't subject to property taxes. If that failed, the municipalities could charge them a services fee based on their buildings' square footage. A tax-exempt institution's first 50,000 square feet of floor space would be exempt, but any space above that would be assessed at $100 per 1,000 square feet.

"It's my opinion that they have a financial obligation to the city or the municipality for the services that they get," Mr. Fontana said. "They have vast amounts of real estate that they have accumulated."

The Penn State University Park campus has 19.7 million gross square feet which comes out to a fee of $1,965,000. Eleven years ago Graham claimed that

...Penn State has voluntarily agreed to provide the State College Area School District and 5 local municipalities more than $1 million per year in lieu of taxes.

I'm looking for a more official and up-to-date number on Penn State's in-lieu-of-tax payment, but it doesn't seem, from this,  as if this proposal by Sen. Fontana would be such a good deal for the Centre Region.


Technorati Tags: Penn State, tax-exempt, in-lieu-of-taxes, Pennsylvania

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A Zig While We Were All Waiting For the Zag

A new development in the battle between Pittsburgh government and the city's nonprofits occurred earlier this week. Forget about taxing tuition or a fee for county services this is big news.

Legislation quietly introduced Tuesday in Pittsburgh City Council gives the city's nine lawmakers veto power over almost all new construction by big tax-exempt institutions -- effective immediately.

Can you imagine the State College Borough Council telling Graham and the boys in Old Main they can't build any new toys until they begin to pony up some more bucks? Wow!

A hat tip to the Pittsburgh Comet which has the inside baseball details on this move. It's a good read.


Technorati Tags: Penn State, nonprofits, Pittsburgh, in-lieu-of-taxes, building permits

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Pittsburgh Tuition Tax Proposal is Still Alive

The despite the  reported demise of a proposal by Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to tax college tuition it is in fact alive and well

Tuition tax battle lines began to emerge on Pittsburgh City Council today, as Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's Philadelphia legal gun laid out the case for the levy and encountered a conflicted council.
[...]
"When you tax post-secondary education, you are taxing something that is extra, that is beyond the basic requirement," said [Joseph C. Bright, former chief counsel to the state Department of Revenue who was brought in by the administration to add heft to its argument that a 1 percent levy on tuition is legal.]. "Is college essential in an economic sense? ... Not in the same sense" as education through high school.

Mr. Bright said the city is "going to win" a likely court fight over the tax, since state law gives municipalities broad power to tax "privileges," and nowhere excludes higher education. He said a tuition tax isn't a sales tax -- state legislation is needed to levy those -- nor is it preempted by a statutory ban on taxing admissions fees charged by nonprofit organizations.

"Tuition is not an admission fee, plain and simple," said Mr. Bright.

The problem this is tax is intended to address is one that the Centre Region faces as well.

"Property that was [previously] taxed was bought up by nonprofits, so that they could increase and be larger and larger," said Councilwoman Darlene Harris. Now there is no tax revenue from those properties. "Our residents are just struggling. I know I get complaints all the time that this isn't fixed and that isn't fixed. They're looking at the buildings that we have, and we can't [fix] it" because the city lacks money.

In other news from the nonprofit front,

Pittsburgh City Council today gave its initial approval to legislation to study the value of property held by tax-exempt institutions, estimate the cost of protecting and serving college and university students and then enter into negotiations for voluntary payments in lieu of taxes.

The 'Burgh may pave the way for the Centre Region.


Technorati Tags: Penn State, Pittsburgh, nonprofits, tuition tax

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A Big Win For Team USAS, A Bigger Win For Workers

The New York Times reports this evening on some big news on the anti-sweatshop front.

The anti-sweatshop movement at dozens of American universities, from Georgetown to U.C.L.A., has had plenty of idealism and energy, but not many victories.

Until now.

The often raucous student movement announced on Tuesday that it had achieved its biggest victory by far. Its pressure tactics persuaded one of the nation’s leading sportswear companies, Russell Athletic, to agree to rehire 1,200 workers in Honduras who lost their jobs when Russell closed their factory soon after the workers had unionized.

From the time Russell shut the factory last January, the anti-sweatshop coalition orchestrated a nationwide campaign against the company. Most important, the coalition, United Students Against Sweatshops, persuaded the administrations of Boston College, Columbia, Harvard, New York University, Stanford, Michigan, North Carolina and 89 other colleges and universities to sever or suspend their licensing agreements with Russell. The agreements — some yielding more than $1 million in sales — allowed Russell to put university logos on T-shirts, sweatshirts and fleeces.

This might explain today's meeting between Graham and USAS that Onward State reported on yesterday. Graham likes to associate himself with a winner, afterall.

Technorati Tags: United Students Against Sweatshops, Penn State, Spanier, Russell

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Helping Penn State Live Up to Its Mission

The Collegian had a story earlier this week on Seth Williams' victory in his race for Philly DA. I'm very happy about that win and I'm sure that Seth will be an extremely good, progressive district attorney. But from some of the quotes in the story, it appears that he's lost touch with what Penn State has become since his days at Penn State when he fought valiantly to make the University a more inclusive place.

Williams, Class of 1989, said he owes his new job to a simple principle he learned from his father, one he used at Penn State and has stuck to ever since: "Unless you're willing to be part of the solution, you forfeit your right to complain."

[...]

At Penn State, Williams quickly showed his willingness to be part of the solution. He joined the Alphi Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., became president of Penn State's Black Caucus and was later elected president of the Undergraduate Student Government (USG).

But it wasn't always easy.

After Williams was elected president of USG, the Ku Klux Klan posted racist slurs about him around campus. He even received death threats.

The incidents never changed how much he loves the university, he said.

[...]

In 1989, Williams' senior year, protests erupted over the unwelcoming atmosphere for black students at Penn State.

Sit-ins were conducted at the Telecommunications Building until then-President Bryce Jordan promised to raise black attendance at Penn State to 8 percent.

Williams said the protests taught him to find similarities between people, rather than pointing out their differences. Finding common ground was what got him elected as district attorney, he said.

[...]

Williams said Penn State is a great university because it provides education for the middle class of Pennsylvania. He spent his time here making sure Penn State provided education for everybody, regardless of skin color or ethnicity."Penn State's mission is to provide an affordable and quality education for the working class," he said. "I wanted to help Penn State live up to its mission."

Twenty years ago Seth wanted a promise of a student body with 8% black representation. Today the student body is only 4% black. Seth believes that the University is great because it provides an education for Pennsylvania's middle class. But at what cost?  The debt load of graduation seniors averages $26, 800 and the total need based loans which parents take out-this is excluded from the student debt calculation-is  $57,615,173. That number is up from zero at the beginning of the decade.

Then there is the question of the most needy students.  At about the time (1992) that Seth graduated, 22.2% of Penn State University Park students had Pell Grants compared to 27.7% of students overall in Pennsylvania. Penn State's number had dropped to 18% in 2004 while the Pennsylvania number grew to 33.6% according to study done by the Education Trust (Dead link fixed here.). Today only  15% of  University Park students have  Pell Grants.

There is more on Penn State's abandonment of its mission in this University Faculty Senate report on Access and Affordability from a few years back.

I don't write this to be critical of Seth, because, as should be clear from his victory, he has been busy with other things and he is to be forgiven for losing touch his Alma Mater.  And while I don't think that his dream job-"As Williams prepares to take office in January, he said the only other job he would want is president of Penn State."-will open up anytime soon, I do think that there is a role that he can play right now to help Penn State "live up to its mission."

He could  field a progressive slate of alumni candidates for Board of Trustees election next year. Ideally I would love to see him be a part of that slate, but I understand that he will have a lot on his plate for the next few years. However, with his political connections I'm sure he could find a group of alumni  who will help Penn State "live up to its mission."  

It is  time for Seth to help finish the job he began two decades ago.

Technorati Tags: Seth Williams, Penn State

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A "Fee"-ture Story

I wrote a few days ago that Allegheny County was having second thoughts about imposing a fee on tax-exempt organizations. The Allegheny County Council made it official today.

Nonprofits will not have to pay new fees after Allegheny County Council backed off its essential services fee proposal Tuesday.

Council voted unanimously not to override County Executive Dan Onorato's veto of the plan, despite the fact members had passed it without opposition Nov. 4. Citing anger over UPMC's decision to close its Braddock hospital, they had agreed to collect about $13 million annually from large nonprofit property owners for the public safety and works services they receive.

The bill is essentially a tax and therefore illegal by state law to levy on nonprofits, council solicitor Jack Cambest told council before its vote....

But

...[s]everal council members said they plan to keep searching, possibly with Pittsburgh officials, for a legal way to get money from the region's growing nonprofit community.

So it a good idea for the folks in here in Centre County to keep an eye things down there around the 'Burgh.

One particular thing that bears watching is a proposal by Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to tax college tuition, which appears to have support of the City Council.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, in-lieu-of-taxes, tax-exempt, Pittsburgh

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Someone Needs to Explain the Concept of Transparency to These Guys

A few years ago the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) teamed up to put together the Voluntary System of Accountability which is provides a uniform template for colleges and universities to report information for prospective students and their families. The template is called the College Portrait.

Two years ago, when the program was in its infancy, Provost Rodney Erickson told the University Faculty Senate that

The point for us is that this will be a considerable amount of work; it’s not something that the faculty, at this point, need to worry about. Most of this, I would say probably between 90 and 95 percent of the information that’s on the Voluntary System of Accountability, is already on our public accountability page, or elsewhere on our Web site in some form. It deals with student characteristics; progress to graduation and graduation rates cost; and attendance of financial aid, admission, degrees, area of study, student housing, campus safety, future plans of baccalaureate graduates, and things like that.

We’re already well equipped to respond. I think the larger issue, however, is that the system will require in three to four years evidence documented, evidence of learning outcomes. While we are using

He didn't seem too enthusiastic about the whole thing.  And shortly thereafter, the Collegian reported  that Penn State wouldn't participate in the program.

Though Pennsylvania's 14 state-owned universities announced their participation in the VSA last week, Penn State, like the state's three other state-related universities, has not signed on to the project.

So I was rather surprised when I discovered that Penn State had quietly signed on the the VSA. That's where the Pell Grant data in my last post came from. There was no announcement on The Penn State Propaganda Portal. The only mention of VSA there, which came this past January, was rather oblique.

Dowhower presented examples of available data for University Park students as compared with four other Big Ten institutions, as derived from USA Today, one of two public accountability vehicles. Data included scores for active and collaborative learning as well as for enriching educational experiences. In addition, she offered examples from the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA), a voluntary initiative for four-year public colleges and universities to communicate common information on the undergraduate student experience.

You really have to dig to find any acknowledgment by Old Main that Penn State is participating in the program. It comes  on page 9 (pdf page 15) of the most recent University-wide strategic plan

In 2008, Penn State agreed to participate in the Voluntary System of Accountability.This is a compact among most of the nation’s public  universities to provide additional Web site information about graduation rates, costs of attendance, descriptors of the educational services available, and assessment of student engagement and learning outcomes.

The only other mention is on the University's Assessment of Student Learning Web site which links to the VSA home page, but not to Penn State's College Portrait. 

What is it with Old Main and transparency? They do their damnedest to hide things even as they make them public.   And there is nothing earth shattering in the Penn State's current College Portrait. The truth is the the bulk of the information in the current report can be found if you dig around the Penn State Web site just as Erickson told the UFS. However, the  assessment of learning outcomes bit isn't in the current portrait, that comes latter, for all schools not just Penn State, after the data is collected. When it does arrive,  it may very well be a bombshell and perhaps Penn State is preparing for that day by not drawing any attention to their participation in VSA now.




Technorati Tags: Penn State, Voluntary System of Accountablity, College Portrait, Transparency

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By the Numbers

I've finally found the number I've been looking for and it's exactly the number I guessed it would be.

I've written a bit about the problems with the Washington Monthly University Rankings. (Here, here and here.) A big problem is that they report an almost certainly inflated percentage of Pell Grant recipients at Penn State University Park . The number which they give, 25%,  is the system-wide number.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the correct number for this academic years. All of the federal databases either report old numbers for University Park or system-wide numbers. The historically the percentage of Pell Grant recipients at the main campus has hovered around 15%. The most recent year for which this data is available is 2006. 

Well, as luck would have it, I've discovered a place where Penn State has reported the actual number for University Park for the 2007-2008  academic year. Not quite the most up-to-date number, but it moves the ball a bit closer to the goal line.  And the number is.........15%.

I'll have another post up shortly about the source of this most recent number.

Technorati Tags: Washington Monthly University Rankings, Penn State, Pell Grant Percentage

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Oh Graham, Oh Graham, How Deep Are Thy Pockets?

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, comes the following news.

Penn State mailed out second-semester tuition bills today with rates unchanged from the fall even as state funding remains in legislative limbo.

It would seem to me that Old Main must have been hoarding quite a bit the tuition increases from recent years.


Technorati Tags: Penn State, Pennsylvania budget, tuition

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Fee.... Fie Fo, Fum

This morning the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that

Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato on Friday vetoed a bill that would impose a fee on nonprofit groups, saying the bill County Council passed is illegal and exposes the county to a lawsuit it would have little chance of winning.

"While the bill ostensibly imposes a 'fee' for general county services, it appears to be an attempt to circumvent commonwealth law and impose real estate taxes on otherwise exempt real property in a non-uniform matter," Onorato wrote in a letter to council.

County Council President Rich Fitzgerald said he's not sure whether his colleagues will vote to override Onorato's veto. Council on Wednesday passed the bill to collect fees for "essential services" such as public safety and public works from hospitals, universities and other nonprofit groups. It exempted churches, K-12 schools, food banks, shelters and certain other nonprofit groups.

[...]

Onorato wrote that the county fee would violate the state's Home Rule Charter and Charter Law by expanding the county's taxing powers.

In the letter, he said that he is "making headway" with state officials to get nonprofit contributions. Evanto said Onorato hopes to get $4 million by 2011 for county services.

This story is worth watching for us in Centre County. Forty percent of Pittsburgh's real-estate is owned by tax-exempt organizations which puts a big strain on the city and county budget. Sound familiar?  If this is resolved in favor of the local governments, then State College Borough and Centre County government would be in a position of getting more funding from Penn State.

BTW, this is not the first I've written about the non-profit situation in Pittsburgh and the implications for our region.

Technorati Tags: in-lieu-of-taxes, Pittsburgh, State College, Penn State, Centre County, non-profits, University of Pitttsburgh

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Six Degrees of ....

...Glenn Beck's Colon.

This is John Stewart at his very, very best.

Technorati Tags: Daily Show, John Stewart, Glenn Beck

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We Have Your Students and Unless We Receive the Money...Well You Don't Want to Know...

Spring semester tuition bills are set to go out soon and the Penn State and the other state-related universities still haven't received their appropriations from the state. Will tuition go up come January? That's what the presidents of the state-related universities suggested in a letter to House Speaker Keith McCall (D-Carbon). I guess the answer will come in the mail very shortly.
Technorati Tags: Pennsylvania Budget, Penn State, Tuition, Spanier

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