Freshman rockstar Helena Herring makes the case for Yale to pay its share to New Haven: Yale only pays $4 million a year in taxes to the city of New Haven because it is a non-profit institution, and as such, is almost completely tax exempt. This exception is over 100 years old. To compensate cities with large non-profits for the taxes that they lose, the state has a Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) program. According to a report published by the Connecticut Center for a New Economy, this program is supposed to reimburse cities for 77 percent of the money lost. However, because of budgetary shortfalls, the state no longer has the money to pay such a large percentage. For example, in 2001 Yale's property was valued around one billion dollars. Under taxable ownership, that property would have been taxed $37.3 million. However, the PILOT program only paid New Haven $23.8 million, or 63.9 percent of the money that Yale is exempt from paying. This created a shortage of over $11.5 million in the city's budget. Yale could easily afford to make up the difference that the state cannot afford to pay. The University has an $11 billion endowment that could help solve this problem. One day's interest alone is millions of dollars. A few days of Yale's unearned incremental income could make up the difference in the budget and pay for much-needed city services. For added perspective, New Haven has a debt of $3.7 million, mere pocket change for the University but a staggering number that forces the city to choose which services to cut and which jobs to save. The city is in dire need. Two hundred public employers were laid off last year because the city could not afford to pay them. Ten of Connecticut's 28 "priority schools," ranked as such because of poor performance, are in New Haven. The city is doing all it can to improve performance, but it is hard to do so on a deficit. Asking Yale to pay its fair share of the tax burden is not even a groundbreaking or original idea...