Pittsburgh college students, smarting at Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's proposal to slap a 1 percent city tax on tuition, might want to take a state history course.

The Johnstown Flood of 1936 might save them some money.

Maybe that's a stretch, but a Democratic lawmaker from Easton does have a statewide plan that would make Ravenstahl's tuition tax unnecessary. Rep. Bob Freeman suggests taking the 18 percent tax on wine and liquor -- long called the "Johnstown Flood Tax" because it was implemented to meet the 1936 crisis -- and dedicate it to Pennsylvania's ongoing, slow-motion nightmare of city financing.

In this modern crisis, urban centers host the region's economic engines, but those engines are nonprofits that generate little in tax money. That's true not just in Pittsburgh, but in Easton and Johnstown and Meadville and Gettysburg.

"Just about every county is touched by this issue," Mr. Freeman said. "If you're a county seat or a college town, you're affected. It really touches all four corners of the state."

His bill has kicked for a couple of years around Harrisburg, where Freeman chairs the House Local Government Committee. The committee approved the bill overwhelmingly in the last legislative session, and it was backed by various associations representing counties, local governments and nonprofits. But Gov. Ed Rendell kicked it to the curb.

The governor hadn't much choice. As the former mayor of Philadelphia, Mr. Rendell was sympathetic, but right now that Johnstown Flood Tax money goes into the general fund. With the state budget imploding, there was no way to divert $240 million or more for a new program, whatever its merits.

Mr. Freeman intends to reintroduce a similar bill next year, but it will have no chance of success if the economy doesn't improve.

He will have good anecdotes, though. Get this one: In Gettysburg, where almost 80 percent of the property is tax-exempt, the mayor pays more local property tax on his home than Walmart just outside the borough does. Borough millage is high because so few pay it.

Rep. Don Walko, a Democrat from the North Side, tried to enact a revenue-sharing program more than a decade ago, but it died in the Senate after House approval in 1996. Mr. Walko, now finishing out his term after winning election as an Allegheny County common pleas judge, said the bill was backed by communities large and small. But former Republican Gov. Tom Ridge didn't want to commit that level of funding, even at a time when the state was relatively flush.

Right now, university presidents are understandably working to block Mayor Ravenstahl's tuition tax. Mr. Walko said he wished nonprofits, which often come to the state for funding requests, would put some of their lobbying clout behind a plan to help communities thick with untaxed property.

In the bedroom communities where this isn't a problem, it's hard to find much support. Even in Mr. Walko's own district, which stretches out of the city into neighboring suburbs, he hears questions like, "Why do you still live in the city? We're not going to send money to that waste dump."

But there's a reason these people are living outside Pittsburgh and not in, say, Clarion County. The city is where the lion's share of the jobs are, and nonprofits play a huge role in providing them here and throughout Pennsylvania. They just don't make for much of a tax base.

A 2005 report by Johns Hopkins University said one of every nine full-time workers in the state works for a nonprofit. That number might be higher in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, where so many are health-care workers, according to the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations.

Yarone Zober, Ravenstahl's chief of staff, said the mayor has spoken with Mr. Freeman about his bill and welcomes any relief to communities that host tax-exempt organizations. Mr. Zober said when the mayor met with university presidents a couple of weeks ago, he didn't specifically mention this bill, but told them, "We need your help. We need you to be lobbying in our behalf."

Mr. Freeman's bill would net Pittsburgh $24 million each year, the maximum any single community could get. The mayor is looking for $15 million somewhere, anywhere for the strapped pension fund and capital needs. The tuition tax would raise $16 million each year, with $1 million going to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

Don't bet on any of this happening. The state is broke and college students are wondering why the onus should fall on them. Me, I've always thought Pennsylvania could find the money by shrinking the statehouse by one seat every time another legislator gets convicted of a felony. That plan has never gone anywhere, but lawmakers' need for defense attorneys seems to be one thing we can count on.