Students approach City Council about tuition tax

Local university students and Pittsburgh officials gathered at a City Council meeting Friday to… Local university students and Pittsburgh officials gathered at a City Council meeting Friday to discuss possible alternatives to the Fair Share Tax.

The meeting, called by City Councilmen Bill Peduto, came as one of the first opportunities for local college students to publicly voice their opinions of the controversial tax.

City Councilmen Rev. Ricky Burgess, who represents East Liberty and Garfield, summed up the objective of the meeting. He told the approximately 50 local college students in attendance that Pittsburgh’s various universities have a serious financial decision to make in the coming year.

“Students and universities in Pittsburgh have a choice,” Burgess said. “The Fair Share tax is one choice. It is a choice that no one wants — neither this council or the mayor. The other choice is to do what the City Council is proposing. We want the universities to voluntarily contribute their fair share.”

According to Burgess, it is the universities in the area that are not contributing enough to the city — not individual students. For this reason, the council is asking all universities in the area to begin making annual donations to the city.

“If the local nonprofit universities start contributing to the city, we will not pass this tax,” Burgess said. “It is up to the universities to stand up and take care of their students. Harvard gives to the city of Boston. MIT gives to Cambridge. Yale gives to New Haven. If it‘s good enough for Harvard, it‘s good enough for the University of Pittsburgh.”

Burgess explained that both the mayor and the City Council are willing to stop pursuing the tax if local universities agree to donate their “fair share” of money to the city of Pittsburgh. He said that, because local universities are structured as nonprofit organizations, they do not pay as much per year in taxes as he thinks they should.

Not all of the council members agreed. Tensions ran high as the meeting progressed, with members of the council squaring off about the Fair Share issue.

Councilman Patrick Dowd expressed frustration about the tax.

“Really what we have is a hostage scenario,” he said. “We have the students with a tax facing them, and we’re telling them that they are going to have to fork over $15 million unless their nonprofit universities pay it for them. I’m not a hostage taker. I don’t know how that whole thing works, but I do know that we have a problem here.”

Dowd challenged the council to come up with a better alternative to the Fair Share Tax.

“Pittsburgh has a long and gloried history nationally for doing innovative and creative work with education,” Dowd said. “How can we legitimately carve out a certain segment of this education population and tax them? How can we make the decision of who to tax?”

The meeting began with a round-table discussion between council members and other city officials. After several rounds of back and forth discussion among the council members, local college students were invited to join the discussion.

Daniel Jimenez, president of Pitt’s Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, spoke for several minutes before the council. He outlined his own economic situation, describing how the tax will put an unfair burden on college students.

“There are over 20,000 graduate students in Pittsburgh seeking PhD’s, MD’s, JD’s and masters’ degrees,” Jimenez said. “One of the main reasons people attend graduate school in Pittsburgh is the affordability of housing. This tax could very easily jepordize that affordability.”

Jimenez, like many others opposing the tax, claimed that students can not afford to pay any more money in taxes.

“Graduate tuition within the school of Arts & Sciences costs $16,402,” he said. “Is it fair to ask me to pay another $164 to attend school when I already live and work in Pittsburgh? That’s my electricity bill. That’s my heating bill. That’s half of my food budget for a month.”

Students will have another chance to address the council during a public meeting scheduled for Nov. 30.