There's an excellent chance the next generation of Pittsburghers won't grow up to be as dumb as the current ruling class appeared to be for the better part of a week.

The Pittsburgh Promise is back on track and will provide $5,000 grants for college tuition to city high school graduates beginning next spring.

The ugly spat between City Council and UPMC is over. Everyone is playing nice again. There's no more tussling over credits for a city tax that doesn't exist and isn't likely to exist anytime soon.

Before we leave that dustup in the rearview mirror, we ought to step back and see what got everyone so riled.

The city's largest employers, the hospitals and universities, are largely exempt from what small businesses have to pay city hall. As nonprofits, they don't pay property or payroll taxes. What's weird is that people didn't seem to care much about that until UPMC -- which stands for either the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center or a Uniquely Prosperous Mega Corporation, depending upon whom is speaking -- pledged up to $100 million to The Promise.

UPMC figured that was enough. So it asked that, if new taxes are imposed in the next 10 years, it could get credit for what it would pay to the Promise. The reaction against that idea was so swift and furious that, early last week, UPMC said it didn't need the tax credits.

The arguments were as fierce as the premise was unlikely. References during the debate about what the city would get if UPMC paid property taxes were a bit like that old "Saturday Night Live'' sketch that asked, "What if Napoleon had a B-52 at the Battle of Waterloo?" Nonprofit hospitals don't pay property taxes. Not here, and not anywhere else in America. Some cities get "Payments In Lieu Of Taxes,'' but few of these PILOTs have flown straight for very long.

Pittsburgh used to get more in PILOTs but, in 1997, the state Legislature unanimously approved something called Act 55. That law still protects nonprofits from legal challenges, and so we now have this voluntary system that shields them from even having to say how much (or how little) they kick in.

Is it possible to overturn this law that works in nonprofits' favor? In theory, yes, but there's no movement to do so in Harrisburg. If a serious bill ever came up, nearly every hospital, university, foundation and charitable farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in Pennsylvania would line up to keep things pretty much as they are.

Spokesmen for organizations such as the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations and the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania argue that Act 55 reduces costly lawsuits by making the rules clear and uniform. The hospital association points out that Pennsylvania is the only large state without public hospitals, and so they must act as the safety net for the poor and uninsured. The association of nonprofits says about one out of every nine workers in Pennsylvania is employed by a nonprofit, and they make about 11 percent of the state's total wages.

Applying a single tax to such a diverse group not only would be difficult, it would spark court fights.

So what do you do when the hospitals and universities are regional economic engines, but Pennsylvania's fractured governmental system makes it tough on whoever hosts them?

State Rep. Bob Freeman, a Democrat from Easton, has introduced a bill that would redirect state money to compensate communities with high levels of tax-exempt property. It would take money generated from the current 18 percent tax on wine and liquor, which now goes into the general fund, and spread it among communities from Meadville to Gettysburg with high levels of tax-exempt property.

Pittsburgh would get the maximum $24 million each year, more than five times what the city's dozens of nonprofits currently contribute combined. Spokesmen for the hospital and nonprofit associations say they like Rep. Freeman's bill.

Such a redirection of money would amount to less than 1 percent of the state budget. Rep. Freeman thinks that with Ed Rendell -- a former Philadelphia mayor -- in the governor's mansion, there should be an unusually receptive ear. But before we begin that conversation, let's finish this one.

Now that UPMC has pledged up to $100 million to the Promise over 10 years, who's next? The health giant says it will put up a buck for each $1.50 everyone else contributes.

Well, let's see. The University of Pittsburgh's endowment is around $2 billion and Carnegie Mellon University's is about $1 billion. The city hosts those non-profits, too.

One-tenth of 1 percent of $1 billion is $1 million. I'm just saying.