Pittsburgh Mayor Eyes New Funding Pact With Big Nonprofits

Pittsburgh has a “50-50″ chance of striking a long-term deal with major nonprofit institutions by the end of the year to provide a larger and steadier contribution to municipal coffers, Mayor Bill Peduto told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Kevin Acklin, the mayor’s chief of staff, said City Hall is looking for an agreement of at least 10 years providing up to $24-million a year from universities and big health-care organizations.

Pittsburgh has long sought to beef up payments in lieu of taxes from nonprofits that own large parcels of city real estate. In the past decade the voluntary payments, negotiated every two or three years, have varied widely from year to year, with a low of $800,000 in 2005 and a high of $9-million in 2006. The latest talks were bolstered by the mayor’s decision in July to drop a lawsuit initiated by his predecessor that sought to tax the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the city’s biggest employer.