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Proposed property-tax surcharge would add $23 to average tax bill, proponents say
By adamg on Wed, 03/30/2016 - 8:45am
WGBH reports on a City Council hearing yesterday to add a surcharge to property-tax bills to pay for open space, parks and affordable housing in Boston. If approved by the council and the mayor, the Community Preservation Act proposal would then go before voters. The state would kick in matching funds if voters approve the measure.
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Comments
$23 extra annually, not on
$23 extra annually, not on each quarterly property tax bill. Important distinction.
The City finally caught up
The City finally caught up resdidential assessments to more closely match market rate conditions. Meaning on top of the building boom and extra taxes that brings in, existing residential tax revenue has gone through the roof.
So why are they asking for more money? And why is the public not asking what they are doing with the additional revenue they are already receiving?
That is a great question. You
That is a great question. You would think the city would be swimming in money right now yet they are cutting school programs. It doesn't add up.
Contracts
Because they can't reduce employment obligations because the city loses at arbitration all the time and can't/don't reduce staffing. So our commitment to employee benefits (including healthcare, pensions, etc...) isn't reduces and rises faster than the budget.
I'd love to think that's it's really because we're, I don't know, spending too much money on street sweeping or something but there are structural budget problems which are very hard to fix.
Cutting?
This is the largest school budget in the city's history. Its not the city's fault BPS is doing a piss-poor job managing their costs.
And one more thing...
For the smallest student population in decades if not a century.
Including the money that was
Including the money that was collected by the City for selling all those municipal parking spaces to Zip Car.
Residential tax revenue
That's not true, is it? Isn't total tax revenue limited by Proposition 2½, so that if total assessments on existing property go up by more than 2.5% the tax rate must be adjusted downward?
The residential tax rate has gone down for three consecutive years now, from 1.314% in 2013 to 1.100% in 2016, and in the same time span the residential exemption has continued to increase, as well.
So, yes, the building boom brings in new taxes, but taxes on existing properties can't really go up much in a short time span, even if assessments do.
Look at How Suburbs Use CPA Unfairly
The Community Preservation Act gives municipalities discretion in how to allocate the tax surcharge across 1) open space preservation 2) historic preservation and 3) affordable housing. If this passes, Boston voters will be taxing themselves to provide even more of the affordable housing that suburbs fail to provide. Newton, for example, falls below the state threshold that 10% of a municipality's housing stock be subsidized in order for the town to be exempt from 40B (the state's anti-snob zoning law). Since the introduction of the Community Preservation Act, many leafy green suburbs have used the money primarily as a way to keep their greenfields from being converted to housing, while Boston digs deeper into its own pockets to do the responsible thing for the region as a whole. This is a serious flaw and inequity in the way CPA was written to get it enacted by the legislature. And this is why the measure should be rejected by Boston voters. Affordable housing requires a regional solution, and most suburbs aren't doing their fair share!
But, like you said....
But, like you said:
So, the funds are being used in a fair and legal way. The law does not prioritize how the funds should be spent.
caught up? WTF are you
caught up? WTF are you smoking?
Prop 2 1/2 means you cannot catch up. They may have reassessed everyone and now assessed values are somewhat closer to market prices, but they didn't "catch up". South Boston had large tax increases to go with their even larger increase in assessed values while my neighbors and I all had our property taxes actually go down because our assessed values went up a very small amount.
Good on Tito
Sam Tyler, cmon man. What is good for the goose....
Its BS. They'll complain
Its BS. They'll complain within 5 years that they need more $$ again. Don't fall for it.
Who is 'they?' The voters
Who is 'they?' The voters make the ultimate decision whether to do this or not on the ballot. Councilors just vote to put the question itself on the ballot as a procedural matter.
Open space?
Is that similar or the same as green space?
As for affordable housing, if housing is being sold and rented at the going high rates, I suppose housing is 'affordable' for many people, otherwise the cost if a home, condo, and rents would be lower. Affordable housing is code for subsidized housing reserved generally for essentially poor, not working or middle class, people. Boston, Cambridge, etc. is well on it's way to being inhabited mostly by people living in subsidized housing, sec. 8, public housing, and wealthy people, same as places like S.F., parts of NYC (Manhattan, parts of Brooklyn).
For the longest time, in America, urban cores (cities, especially big cities) were the sole reserve for 'poor' people, ghettos. Many other parts of the world, including most of western Europe, the opposite has always been the case; the ghettos and poor public housing has always been in outlying, suburban neighborhoods, while the inner city was mostly housing for the well off. Parts of the US, like the Boston area, are now emulating this. Inner city poor areas are rapidly shrinking, poor and middle class, especially families, are being pushed out to outlying suburbs, even cities and towns 30,40 plus miles from the city, where affordable housing, along with srction 8, etc. is being greatly expanded.
You're on the right track, anon
Since markk left, we've been looking for someone to fill the void of "most militantly ignorant poster on UHub." You've got the inside track, anon, you just need to register an account for yourself. That way we'll at least be able to track your progress over time; any old fool can lob a "I refuse to learn the difference between affordable and Section 8 housing" turd into the punchbowl, (bonus points for the "if someone is able to afford it, it must be affordable" aside--I appreciate the attempt at being the Amelia Bedelia of political rhetoric) but we're going to need to see strong evidence of growth if you want to claim the title. Next time, maybe open with a thinly-veiled barb about minorities, and then see if you can segue it into a car-vs-bike-vs-pedestrian deathmatch.
I believe in you, anon.
all my efforts..
are in vain...
I am curious what aspect of
I am curious what aspect of the above post you disagree with. If the city wants to take dollars from home owners in order to support 'affordable' housing those dollars have yes subsidized housing.
His point on Europe is also fairly accurate. Our cities, particularly Boston are shifting to a wealthier population moving in and the poorer being forced out by costs.
We've been
looking for someone to fill the void of "most militantly ignorant poster on UHub"...
Holy crap batman, ummm I mean Erik G, from my short time here, I'd have to say there are a plethora of candidates.
'UHub to stay informed, UHub comment section to become deformed'
Affordable housing is code
Which is why Cambridge has affordable housing for 4-person families making $118,200 (or 1-person households making $82,800); that is quite clearly a poor person without a job.
We will need to create a position of
Community Preservation Director, presumably preserving a job for a recently defeated city councilor unable to win the Register of Deeds hiding spot.
Don't forget
That Director will need a staff, maybe 3-4 underlings to start. Ideally they'll eventually become political consultants and start their own "agency"...then hire those close to the Mayor or a councilor.
CPA in the suburb my mother
CPA in the suburb my mother lived in was run by existing structures.
BTW CPA was originally for open space, affordable housing and historic preservation. Did the latter get dropped deliberately and if so, why?
No, historic preservation is
No, historic preservation is part of it. A number of people from local historic preservation orgs testified in support at the hearing.
ugh
taxes!! i HATE taxes.
Are these the same proponents...
Please excuse me if I don't believe them without an evaluation by outside public policy experts / watchdogs.
Lock-box
"Lockbox" vs "Fuzzy Math". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acYeR1oGYbo
Nothing says more
Nothing says more affordability like more money coming out of the pockets of the middle class.
Here's the city's budget for 2016
Link: http://www.cityofboston.gov/images_documents/02%20Summary%20Budget_tcm3-..."
that's the summary budget - more details at www.cityofboston.gov.budget all the way back to 2006 (with actuals to 2003).
Look at table 1 on page 10. Draw your attention to fixed costs - they are still relatively small but are the number one driver of budget increases increasing almost 15% in 3 years. Pensions and debt payments among the fastest growing.
What should be about a $3 billion budget next year amounts to $4500 for every man, woman and child in the city - and remember - that's just the operating budget. There are all kinds of other things under city jurisdiction not included - Boston housing (huge), external funds, the BRA (ugghh), capital budgets and more add enormously to this. But apparently it's not enough.
most nonprofits who develop
most nonprofits who develop affordable housing are trying to develop housing for moderate and middle income populations
if we don't do something to house the middle class in this city it's all going to be wealthy and poor people and nobody in between
and if we don't do something to ensure that we keep open space we'll all get cranky, and we won't have any trees to clean our air
the CPA is designed to help with these problems
seriously, you're bitching about $23 a year?
wow
i wonder if theyd complain
if the $23 was dedicate to moving poor minorities out of sight and out of mind of the city
lolol
I think it's a bandaid and a bit of a fig leaf though
Look, I'll happily pay $23 (or would it be $66? for a $400k house?) to improve some of these area. That's fine.
However, I'd rather spend the political capital and communal will to have some real civic discussion of the looming problems in the city's fiscal future. If our obligations to city employees, specifically health care and retirement health care, continue to rise (which they will) and employees continue to get COLA type raises and a bit above (which they will) and BPS consumes more money due to various reasons (let's avoid the details for this post), there will not be enough money to cover this and $23/yr per home owner isn't going to remotely touch that.
I'd love to see some equivalent of the GAO layout the next 10 years for the city so corrections can be in advance vs. waiting for the bills to pile up. I want the city to spend money to improve the lives of the residents here and to support important local business sectors and increase development and all that. I am not a believer in the Sam Brownback / Scott Walker school of governance, but active government has to be a responsible government.
If I'm being a total Chicken Little here, please enlighten me. Boston is far from being doomed to become Detroit but I'd like to see our leaders work to solve these problems instead of wasting time on this penny ante stuff.
A bif problem with forecasting the fiscal future of the city
Is that revenue rely too much on the largess of the Commonwealth.
Yes, an economist could forecast that property values will probably increase by x%, health care and pension costs will perhaps rise by y% and most likely wages will go up by z%, but the state is well known to close budget gaps but squeezing aid to cities and towns.
not any more
State aid is less than 15% of the budget. A 10% cut in state aid would be huge and property tax increases alone would swamp that cut. Belts would tighten but the city would still be quite fiscally sound.
Regarding COLA raises: I can
Regarding COLA raises: I can talk about my late father's city pension. The COLA raises came rarely, and they were always entirely eaten up by health insurance premium increases - which always came soon after. My father's pension was much lower at death in real dollars than when he retired. And no, he didn't have one of those gold-plated political hack pensions. As I remember, it was about 23K per year.
Good info
I'm not saying we need to come at this from the viewpoint of somehow clawing back unfunded pensions or on the flip side, paying for unanticipated health insurance premiums. We just need to have some clarity about what exact we will be owning for the next say, 10-20 years, what our projected tax income will be and then resolve whatever the issues are.
So as mentioned in other threads by other posters, can we afford defined benefit vs. defined contribution pensions? I'd say that's clearly a no. Can we further pool healthcare insurance groups instead of dealing with different entities for different groups of employees? Etc... There's a ton of work that needs to be done on this topic but it seems like the administration would rather give money to GE or get the race to come to town.
You mean
Relatives of the said nonprofit's bigshits who just happen to be moderate and middle income?
I don't get it
The people flooding our city with luxury buildings most of us can't afford get tax cuts and sweetheart land deals.
GE gets the tax cuts, free rent, and a new bridge.
Meanwhile, individual homeowners are actually supporting the idea of paying more (yes, it's a small amount, we're talking principles here). I get the open space and parks part, that makes complete sense. But it's pretty convenient that the affordable housing part was slid in there as well, all while while the developers getting these big breaks are not only avoiding building middle class and low-income housing, but forcing people out of the stock the city does have at an alarming rate.
World class, baby.
world class
ive decided that i like neither those that use this phrase seriously nor those that use it with irony
K.
and?
and what
do you want me to lay out specifically the exact ways i feel disdain for you? or will the general knowledge that i think it is a stupid phrase and that i look down on those that use it suffice?
I was simply
looking for a reason to care. Carry on.
Property Taxes
At what point does this sort of thing end? I will be voting against this and I will encourage others to do the same.
I am a lifelong resident of this city. Over the years it has become more difficult to remain here. This does nothing to help people like me in this situation. Things such as this start with noble intentions, but end up changing along the way. Affordable? What is going allow me to remain here if the city just keeps looking for more from me? It starts at $23 and a few years from the start of this, the increases will begin.
Another thing is the state contributing 'matching funds.' Where does that come from? It comes from taxes that people like me pay to the state. A double hit.
When is enough enough?
Undoubtedly the vast majority
Undoubtedly the vast majority of the money will go to the affordable housing nonprofits. They have a powerful lobbying machine. Parks and historic preservation don't.
Audit!
I would love to see an audit that compares the amount pledged by devolpers for affordable housing off-site to actual affordable housing built. How much of this tax will actually go to affordable housing actually being built in Boston (actually!)?