The Morning Call: Will Pennsylvanians finally be able to buy fireworks in Pennsylvania?
Pssst, buddy, you from Pennsylvania? I just drove up from South of the Border. Want to buy some fireworks?
For decades, such illicit fireworks sales are how your uncle got his bottle rockets, Roman candles and aerial repeaters to light up the Fourth of July. But those bootleg transactions could come to a grand finale in Pennsylvania if a Senate bill becomes law.
A revenue bill the state Senate passed Thursday would permit Pennsylvanians to buy consumer-grade fireworks at Pennsylvania stores. The bill would expand a 2004 law that permits in-state fireworks sales, but only to those who don’t live in the state, leading to a plethora of stores such as Phantom Fireworks in Williams Township and other border communities.
The bill, should it become law, carries personal risk and responsibility for individuals, said Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
A consultant’s report may have some reasonable ideas, but it would appear to fall far short of what is needed to revive the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Battling enrollment declines and revenue problems, the system was supposed to undergo a stem-to-stern evaluation by the Colorado-based National Center for Higher Education Management Systems. However, the study left open the thorniest questions about campus restructuring, focusing more on problems with the system’s governance structure.
A lack of a clear path forward isn’t the system’s only new challenge. Chancellor Frank Brogan has announced his retirement as of Sept. 1, creating a leadership void that could hamper whatever turnaround effort is mounted.
Mr. Brogan had said the months-long, $400,000 study would be conducted with “no preconceptions and no limits,” meaning the 14 member universities might be identified for closure or consolidation. However, the consultants recommended neither, saying a merger “is a recipe for escalating strife and added short-term costs.” NCHEMS proposed greater cooperation among the universities, but it provided few ideas apart from “sharing of services and academic programs” and “regional and statewide consolidation of administrative and support operations to achieve greater economies and cost savings.”
Similarly, the report recommended “immediate action” to restructure the most financially challenged schools but provided little guidance on how to do that and gave few hints as to what the system would look like after the reconfiguring occurred. Since 2010, enrollment at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, a historically black institution, has fallen by more than half. How would it be restructured while keeping its historic mission intact? No specific recommendations were provided for Cheney or any school, and there was no analysis of why some institutions do better than others.
The Patriot News: Different years’ data demonstrates effects of assessments on total tax burden
The median assessed value of property in 36 of Lackawanna County’s 40 municipalities dropped between 2014 and 2017, affecting overall tax burdens in some communities, a Sunday Times analysis found.
A property’s assessed value determines how much a property owner must pay in municipal, school and county real estate taxes. When the median assessed value of property declines, it can create a smaller tax burden for property owners.
There are several reasons why median assessments may be shrinking.
from Watchdog.org
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