Pennsylvania's planning code was amended recently to allow tax-base sharing between neighboring communities, but that innovation has flown beneath the public radar.

A handful of good government groups and planning agencies from southwestern Pennsylvania want to change that.

The drive starts Tuesday, when the Local Government Academy, Sustainable Pittsburgh, the Pennsylvania Planning Association and other groups will meet in Carnegie to discuss cost-sharing ideas, with Minnesota's tax sharing model high on the list.

Pennsylvania tax-base sharing amendments were part of a larger package of legislation, approved in 2000, that enables counties and municipalities to plan together for development and conservation, protecting farmland and encouraging investment in older boroughs.

For Tuesday's seminar, the groups have invited elected and appointed government officials from around the region. They'll hear from planning engineer Tom Luce, who has helped create a computer database that tracks the revenues and expenses of every municipality in Pennsylvania.

The database was commissioned several years ago by 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, an anti-sprawl planning group. Eventually, communities will be able to use it to see instantly how their expenses stack up against their neighbors'.

"People are really anxious to have some new tools. This is just one of them," said Joan Barlow, associate director of Sustainable Pittsburgh.

So far, no planning group in southwestern Pennsylvania has installed a wide-ranging tax-sharing system, but several communities have started down the road of inter-municipal cooperation. The best local example can be found at the still-booming Waterfront, the commercial strip of riverfront that runs through Homestead, West Homestead and Munhall.

In the Quaker Valley area, Sewickley officials are heading a research group investigating the benefits of cooperative planning among the 11 Ohio River communities, including Sewickley, Edgeworth and Leetsdale.

The workshop, which starts at 9 a.m., is to be held at the Carnegie municipal building on Glass Street. To register for the conference, call 412-237-3171, or visit .