The House on Monday approved the City of Boston’s request to temporarily reconfigure the way it splits property taxes between commercial and residential taxpayers.
Norwell Rep. David DeCoste slowed the bill’s advancement on Thursday and Friday but was not in the House chamber when Democrats put the bill up for a vote at the immediate outset of their 11 a.m. session and moved the legislation on to the Senate.
The Senate met briefly Monday but adjourned until Wednesday without acting on the bill, which reflects compromise language reached in October between Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and leaders of four business groups. A spokesperson for Senate President Karen Spilka said she intends to surface the bill Monday, Dec. 2 to give senators and the Wu administration more time to “continue conversations.”
Wu and the Boston City Council have pushed for the bill’s passage to mitigate the extent of coming increases in residential property taxes, while critics of the bill say the city should pull back on spending and be more mindful of tax impacts on commercial real estate owners and the struggles that sector faces due to post-pandemic changes.
Last week, Wu said she needs the tax shift legislation to be “signed by the governor within the next two weeks” as the city prepares its January 2025 tax bills, and her office has forecast a nearly $500 increase in property taxes for the average homeowner without action.
House Democrats were able to advance the bill during an informal session where there’s no quorum and any legislator can stall a bill’s progress.
House Republican Leader Bradley Jones Jr. was briefly in the chamber during Monday’s session, which also featured Republican Reps. Steven Howitt and Donald Wong and Democrat Boston Reps. William MacGregor, Rob Consalvo, Jay Livingstone, and Dan Ryan.
Jones was not available to speak with the News Service before deadline.
“I’m just very grateful we were able to pass that today,” Consalvo told reporters after session on Monday.
The Boston Democrat filed the home rule petition on behalf of Wu’s administration twice.
“It’s a hugely important issue for the city of Boston, hugely important for my constituents, we’re literally receiving hundreds of phone calls. So just glad we were able to get it done, and now it’s off to the Senate, and hopeful that they’ll move on it expeditiously,” he said.
Consalvo said he spoke with DeCoste over the weekend on the phone, and had a “very cordial conversation.”
“At the end of the day this is, like I said, for our constituents in Boston so important, and it’s something that it has, to make sure we’re keeping our property taxes as low as possible in the city, given this quirk that’s happening this year,” he said.
Mass. Senior Action, a local advocacy group, came to the State House Monday to urge representatives to pass the bill. They have been involved with advocating for the tax redistribution for months.
“We had been downstairs as folks were coming into the chambers to send them a strong message that [impending residential rate hikes] is something that will harm a lot of people, and particularly seniors on fixed incomes, and to urge passage of the bill,” said Executive Director Carolyn Villers.
Amir Shahsavari, vice president of the Small Property Owners Association, criticized the House vote.
“We are sorry to see the House pass this bill and hope the Senate will resist it, as it harms, small businesses and commercial owners,” Shahsavari said. “It’s like throwing ice water on the city’s economy. We do not support Mayor Wu’s bill as any tax should not be considered without budget cuts.”
Republican Sen. Ryan Fattman, who was present in the Senate chamber during Monday’s session, would not say whether Republicans in that branch planned to further delay the bill, but expressed “concerns.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot of concerns. A lot of people have reached out. Actually, surprisingly, some of my constituents who have business interests in Boston. You know, Boston’s a little bit unique in that it’s not your typical home rule petition. It affects a lot of people.”
Sen. Nick Collins of South Boston, a Democrat, was on hand for Monday’s sparsely attended Monday session.
Asked by reporters if he and Collins talked about their mutual concerns about Wu’s tax plan on Monday, Fattman replied that “there’s a lot of concerns out there.”
“I asked him what his thoughts are, and he was like, you know, there’s just a lot of concerns out there, and I’m going to try to do my research in the next few days. Eat some turkey and stew on it,” Fattman said.
Members of Mass. Senior Action crowded the hallway hoping to catch Collins on his way out of the Senate suite after Monday’s session. Villers said some of the activists were his constituents and had been trying to connect with him about the tax bill for around a month.
Fattman said that if he were “a betting person” he would guess the Senate will not take up the bill before Thanksgiving. He made that remark a couple of hours before Spilka announced plans to bring the bill up in the Senate on Monday, Dec. 2.
The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance said the bill’s passage will harm Boston’s “already struggling downtown, deter investment, and erode Boston’s competitiveness at a time when commercial real estate vacancies are already alarmingly high.”
“Instead of standing up for the hard-working entrepreneurs and small business owners who are the backbone of our capital city, House leadership allowed this reckless bill to sail through,” said spokesman Paul Craney. “House Minority Leader Brad Jones was at this morning’s session and had the power to stop this tax hike bill but declined to act. His decision not to take a stand for a fiscally responsible solution that would include spending cuts instead of putting taxpayers on the hook for a spending problem is tantamount to an endorsement of the policy.”
Jones on Monday afternoon said the bill was an improvement over its prior draft, which nearly every Republican voted against in a 133-24 roll call on July 30. The earlier version, Jones told the News Service, was “more aggressive,” “more extreme,” and had “more opposition.”
The North Reading Republican said he was “comfortable” with the bill advancing, given its overwhelming support from the municipal government in Boston and its temporary nature.
“So between the fact that it’s a home rule bill, overwhelmingly supported by the legislative authority for the community making the request, it wasn’t precedent-setting — meant for me, personally, that I was comfortable with it. And I think that is sort of a view that most members of my caucus have shared, or have shared with me,” Jones said. He added, “It expires, it was sun-setted. So this would be something that if people wanted to continue to do, for instance if the City of Boston wanted to extend it, then they’d have to file additional home rule legislation.”
The Massachusetts Republican Party last week applauded DeCoste’s efforts to slow the bill, releasing a statement saying his “leadership is a call to action for fiscal responsibility and a rejection of policies that threaten to cripple the city’s economic future.”
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