Ravenstahl Caves on Tuition Tax

From this mornings Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, via The Pittsburgh Comet,

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has asked city council to shelve his proposed tuition tax, saying instead that a broad-based "New Pittsburgh Coalition" will work to solve the city's pension problem.

The mayor is willing to cancel the tuition tax vote that could have occurred today in spite of the fact that he can't claim to have landed the $15 million-a-year needed to right the pension fund, nor the $5 million compromise demand he made earlier this month. "This is a leap of faith for all of us," he conceded, but if successful, it will bring the needed funds -- hopefully in time for the 2011 budget, when the city will otherwise face a dire fiscal situation.

Ravenstahl, it appears, has played his hand very poorly. I think most observers saw the tuition tax as means to leverage more money out of the city's universities. Ravenstahl should not  have caved on the tax without a binding commitment from those schools to pony more money in lieu of taxes.


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