Governor Rendell at a recent joint session of the PA legislature presented his proposal for the FY2010-2011 state budget.
The budget, as Rendell proposed, tops out at $29 billion, and relies on $2.7 billion in continued federal stimulus money. In particular, Rendell asked the General Assembly to to rewrite the state’s sales tax structure, reducing it [...]

Pennsylvania’s FY2010 state budget is only three months old. However, on the normal budget calendar, this is considered to be halfway through the year. According to Governor Rendell, revenues are far less than projected. In December, he announced the budget would be “frozen”, or trimmed by $162 million.  Last week, the details of the cuts [...]

The Philadelphia area non-profit community kicks off the New Year with good news.
Feather Houstoun, president of the William Penn Foundation, announced today that John C. Haas, the senior member of the Haas family, has directed $747 million to the Foundation, with instructions that it be used in perpetuity for the advancement of the Greater Philadelphia [...]

From the Mayor’s Office…
The City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, in partnership with the Department of Commerce announces a new grant program to support job creation in Philadelphia’s creative sector. Grants will be available to nonprofit and for profit creative businesses for facility projects linked to job creation such as [...]

In the current debate on health care reform, nonprofit employers run the risk of being excluded from reform package provisions that could ease the burden of high health care costs on employers and their workers.
Earlier in October, the Senate Finance Committee approved health care bills that do provide help to nonprofit employers. The Senate provision [...]

by The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance
After months of painful debate, Governor Ed Rendell signed two bills into law late Friday night – one on taxes, and one on spending – that would finally bring Pennsylvania its long-awaited FY10 state budget of $27.8 billion.
The budget plan, which reduces overall state spending by 1 percent from 2008-09 [...]

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives approved Bill no. 1531 by a vote of 103-98.  The bill replaces proposed taxes on arts, culture, and small games of chance with levies on smokeless tobacco, cigars, and natural-gas drillers. The budget now moves back to the Senate, where leadership has vowed to fight it.
Arts and cultural groups in [...]

Several hundred people turned out this Friday for a lunchtime rally and march along the Avenue of the Arts in center city Philadelphia, protesting the Pennsylvania state budget plan, which call for an eight-percent sales tax on tickets to certain arts and entertainment venues, museums, live stage shows and even zoos.
State senators Daylin Leach, Larry Farnese [...]

As details of  the $27.9 billion state spending plan became known late Friday in Harrisburg, word spread of the inclusion of the state sales tax to performing arts programs – dance, music, theater – and other cultural venues, such as museums and zoos, to generate about $100 million.
This initiative spearheaded by Republicans, who have remained [...]

While a state budget is still to-be-determined, Philadelphia’s arts and culture hangs in the balance of pending legislation in the General Assembly. If the city budget approved by Mayor Nutter and City Council cannot be satisfied by changes in pension payments and a temporary city sales tax increase by the General Assembly, the deficit will [...]