Funding

Pension funds are probably not among the top five worries for most nonprofit hospital executives, but a Standard & Poor's report this week showed a negative trend that could be trouble for financially struggling hospitals. The pension funds in the S&P study had, on average, 69.4 percent of the money they needed to meet their future pension obligations in fiscal 2012, down from 72.6 percent the year before and down from 90 percent in 2007. Most of last year's drop was caused by a decline in the rate used to adjust future obligations for the expected growth in investment values, the S&P said.

NEWTOWN, Conn. - Residents have rejected a budget that included money for extra school security in the aftermath of the December school shootings, with town leaders suggesting the spending and required tax increases were a hard sell. Voters on Tuesday turned down the $72 million school budget by 2,476-1,994 and rejected the $39 million town government budget by 2,273-2,207. The budgets represented an increase of more than 5 percent next fiscal year. First Selectwoman Patricia Llodra said the killings of 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School had an impact on the vote, the first since the massacre.

New Jersey is lagging in its efforts to promote clean energy and energy efficiency programs because of repeated raids on funding for the projects, according to environmentalists and industry advocates. Those concerns were underscored again Tuesday when the state Board of Public Utilities disclosed that it learned late last week that the Christie administration was planning to divert an additional $10 million in clean-energy funds to plug a gap in next year's state budget. That brings to more than $160 million the amount that may be appropriated from the program in the next fiscal year alone.

BERNARD HOPKINS will tell you how the statue of Joe Frazier ought to look, before you even ask. "Crouched," Hopkins rasped, "ready to launch that left hook! His left hook! I tell people that Joe Frazier invented that left hook, that people came from all over the world to watch him train, to talk to him, to learn now to throw that left hook. " Hopkins talks that way, sprinkled with italics and exclamation points. He has earned the right to voice his opinion. Not that that ever stopped him before.

A recent traffic jam in Harrisburg was created by the type of pileup Pennsylvania motorists don't mind a bit. State lawmakers, other public officials, and business, labor, transit, and recreation-trails advocates collided in their support of a long-awaited state transportation funding plan. The blueprint, which is generating bipartisan support, includes $2.5 billion a year to fix highways, bridges, and mass transit systems around the state. It appears that Pennsylvania is finally ready to address its long-deferred transportation needs.

WHILE MAYOR Nutter was at Yale University on Monday talking about gun violence, his anticrime efforts back in Philly took a beating from the city's top prosecutor. At a City Council hearing, District Attorney Seth Williams lambasted Nutter's proposed budget for the D.A.'s office of about $32 million, similar to the current year's funding. Williams said a flatlined budget would, in effect, be a cut for him because he's taken on new responsibilities and costs in recent years. "What we do is simply not valued by the mayor," said Williams, who is asking for $2.8 million more.

Poverty isn't just one thing. It's hunger, and it's falling behind on the rent, and it's the inability to pay the electric bill, among 100 other difficulties. Poverty fighters are realizing that the entangled nature of poverty - think of hopelessly entwined plant roots underground - makes it hard to attack just one problem without addressing the others. This holistic approach helps the 30-year-old Utility Emergency Services Fund run, with financial backing from federal block-grant money distributed by the city, along with funding from sources such as United Way and the Philadelphia Foundation.

Every lifetime should have at least one: The great teacher, the one who inspired, the one who changed your life. For decades of students in Delaware County, Robert Malkovsky - Mr. Mal, or just Mal - was such a teacher. Six-foot-four with a booming voice and a big laugh, he was a gentle giant who ignited a fire for physics in his students. He explained the incomprehensible. He would quietly foot the bills for prom dresses. He made all kids feel as though they were worth listening to. And so Mal's death - so unexpected because he appeared to have won his long battle with pancreatic cancer - was devastating news to those who knew him, as though a light had gone out for them.

It was a rare sight. Not long ago, a woman stood at the entrance to the Kimmel Center before a sold-out Philadelphia Orchestra concert, holding a sign: "Need one ticket. " A few weeks earlier, a couple called the box office the day after a performance of The Rite of Spring and made a $10,000 gift. Points of contact like these represent the kind of passion the orchestra must stoke if it is to survive, yet they remain all too infrequent. More than nine months out of bankruptcy, it's still a struggle to get past living hand-to-mouth.

The Philadelphia firefighters union on Wednesday announced the establishment of the Capt. Michael Goodwin Memorial Fund to honor the firefighter who died April 6 in the line of duty. "We vowed to Mike's family, as we have to all families who have lost a loved one in the line of duty, that we will always stand by them and take care of them. This is the first formal step in that ongoing process," said Bill Gault, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 22. Goodwin, 53, died battling an intense blaze at a fabrics warehouse in South Philadelphia.