Students don’t want to pay ‘Fair Share’

City councilman Rev. Ricky Burgess proposed at a special meeting Friday that the city takes… City councilman Rev. Ricky Burgess proposed at a special meeting Friday that the city takes pressure off its university students by making Pittsburgh universities pay their “fair share.”

Local university students and Pittsburgh officials gathered at a City Council meeting, called by city councilman Bill Peduto, to discuss possible alternatives to the Fair Share Tax.

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 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 nor 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 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 more 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 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 talk among the council members, two 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 would put an unfair burden on college students.

“There are over 20,000 graduate students in Pittsburgh seeking PhDs, MDs, JDs and master’s degrees,” Jimenez said. “One of the main reasons people attend graduate school in Pittsburgh is the affordability of housing. This tax could very easily jeopardize that affordability.”

Jimenez, like many others opposing the tax, claimed that students cannot 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.”

Amanda Cole, a senior at Carnegie Mellon, also spoke before the council.

“We already pay our fair share,” Cole said. “We participate in community service. We shop and pay for food.”

Cole went on to describe what she called the council’s misconception of college students.

“Students are already paying much of their tuition,” Cole said. “There is this misconception that it is all parents out of state sending money in. In reality, students are paying much of the way.”

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