Weekly Transcript Round-Up for 12/06/24: Council talks equity, homeless LBGTQ+ youth, & Austin, TX's FALLING rents; School Cmte talks bus drivers contract; Mayor Wu's Tax Shift Proposal in Limbo
This past week has been dominated by one issue: the fate of Mayor Wu’s tax shift proposal. Until this past Wednesday night, the entire conversation about the tax shift proposal was using estimates - first from a Boston Municipal Research Bureau report and then from Boston’s Assessing Department. On Wednesday the final, state-certified property valuations were released. The problem that the tax shift now faces is that the new, state-certified numbers do not show that homeowners are facing the “dramatic increase” that Mayor Wu warned about - this is from Mayor Wu’s Beacon Hill on 11/20/24, she is Speaker 2 and begins at the 00:54 mark in the transcript. Instead, as the Boston Globe wrote: “Without it [the tax shift proposal], the typical bill would jump 10.5 percent — not far from the average increase of 9 percent over the last five years.”
It is fair to say that the earlier estimate from the Wu administration appeared to show things in Boston were even worse than BPI - which first quantified the impact of falling office values on Boston’s budget - and others thought. Here is BPI’s Executive Director Greg Maynard describing that - he used the same language in testimony before the City Council’s Ways & Means Committee on October 17 and before the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Revenue on November 20:
The 7% decline is close to half of the total [$1.5 billion] decline in commercial property value that BPI’s report expected. BPI expected that the total fall in commercial property values would be 25% in real terms over five years. This 7% nominal decline in value is closer to 10% in real terms. Put in plain language: Boston’s commercial property value is dropping much faster than BPI predicted back in February.
The fact that the state-certified numbers are much more in line with what BPI expected to see this year does not mean Boston has escaped a budget crisis - the City is still on track to face the $1.5 billion short fall in commercial property tax revenue. However, this week’s events do raise really serious questions about the credibilty of the Wu administration when it comes to budget numbers. Assessing Commissioner Nick Ariniello told the Council on Tuesday the state-certified numbers are “roughly in line” with the fall estimates and that just is not true.
Keep reading to see the statements, the letter, the speeches, and the next steps on Mayor Wu’s tax shift proposal.
Before getting to that, Boston has continued to work on other issues:
On Monday, the Council’s Government Operations Committee held a hearing on Council Vice-President, Ways & Means Chair, and District 3 Councilor Brian Worrell’s RISE ordinance. Read more about that in the Globe & Herald and check out the transcript here.
Also on Monday, the Council’s Public Health, Homelessness & Recovery Committee held a hearing on Docket #0998, regarding Boston LGBTQ plus youth community spaces and their public benefits - check out the transcript here.
On Tuesday, the Council’s Planning, Development & Transportation held a hearing on Docket #1561, to explore how changes to planning, development, zoning, and land use policies in Austin, Texas have increased housing production and affordability, and the potential to apply similar policies to Boston. MassLive has written two articles on this, one on Austin vs Boston and another on the hearing itself, plus check out the transcript here.
On Wednesday, the Boston School Committee held a meeting where they discussed the tentative agreement that had been struck between BPS and the bus drivers union. For more on the meeting, listen to the Shah Family Foundation’s Last Night at School Committee, and check out the transcript here.
On Thursday, the Council’s Ways & Means Committee held a hearing on Docket #1131, to review capital planning, budgeting, and project management practices in the capital program of the City of Boston - check out the transcript here.
Also on Thursday, the Council’s Public Safety Committee held a hearing on Docket #1208, to review the usage of security cameras in Boston Public Schools - check out the transcript here.
Today, Friday, December 6, 2024, there are two important meetings - the first is a working session (public but un-televised or recorded meetings) of the Public Safety Committee regarding City Council nominations to the Civilian Review Board and the Internal Affairs Oversight Panel.
Also today is a meeting of the “Committee of the Whole,” which was called after several precincts across Boston ran out of ballot on election day in November. As a reminder, Secretary of State William Galvin is also investigating why Boston ran out of ballots, and has threatened to put the City’s Election Department into receivership, something that has happened several times in the last two decades.
According to Boston’s public notice archives, the last time the Council held a “Committee of the Whole” meeting was on October 21, 2021 to discuss the discovery of Emerald Ash Borer in Boston. Just THREE current Councilors were in office when that meeting occurred: CAL Julia Mejia; District 2 Councilor Ed Flynn; and District 9 Councilor Liz Breadon. Check out this chart to see Council turnover across the last five terms:
MAYOR WU’S TAX SHIFT PROPOSAL IN LIMBO
Boston’s City Council needs to approve the City’s tax rates and classification soon so that property tax bills can be sent out by the end of the year, and that has focused attention on Mayor Wu’s tax shift proposal. After negotiating a deal with four business & policy groups in October the tax shift proposal was approved by the City Council, sent to the State House where it was blocked for two days by State Rep David DeCoste (D-Norwell) before being approved on November 25, and then sent to the Senate.
This week the State Senate took up the bill in its informal session on Monday December 3, and began the most eventful week in the life of a proposal that has already seen quite a bit of action this year. Here is what has happened so far:
On Monday State Senator Nick Collins tabled the legislation, saying that he wanted to wait for state-certified property valuations, which he expected to be produced at a City Council hearing on Tuesday, before taking action. Here is the speech:
On Tuesday at the Council’s Ways & Mean Committee hearing, Assessing Commissioner Nick Ariniello said that the information Senator Collins was seeking was not yet available. Commissioner Ariniello said the state-certified numbers were “roughly in line” with an earlier estimate produced by the Wu administration, and which they had cited extensively to the press, in hearings before the Council & on Beacon Hill, and at City-sponsored town hall meetings. Check out that clip here - Ariniello is Speaker 14 and begins at the 2:24:46 mark in the transcript:
On Wednesday at the Council’s regular meeting, Ways & Means Chair Brian Worrell told his colleagues that he wanted to vote on tax classification “regardless of whether the [State] Senate passes the home of petition or not,” at the Council’s last regular meeting on December 11, 2024 - Councilor Worrell is Speaker 12 and begins speaking at the 59:05 mark in the transcript.
On Wednesday night, the Wu administration announced that the state had certified the City’s FY25 property valuations. The state-certified numbers differed significantly from the estimate produced by the Wu administration - instead of a 4% rise in residential values, there was 3% rise, and instead of a 7% drop in commercial values, there was a 5% drop. This meant that the shift in property taxes from commercial to residential property owners was significantly lower than the administration’s estimate, which meant homeowners were not facing a 28% increase in their property tax bills, but a 21% increase. Check out BPI’s statement responding to the state-certified numbers.
On Thursday morning, Mayor Wu sent a letter to State Senators which summarized the state-certified property valuations and made the case for passing her tax shift proposal despite the difference compared to her administration’s earlier estimates.
Later on Thursday morning at the State Senate’s informal session, State Senator Nick Collins again tabled the Mayor’s tax shift proposal, this time citing the gap between Boston's earlier tax estimates and the state-certified property valuations. Collins said the new numbers showed that Boston homeowners no longer faced the enormous property tax hike that Mayor Wu and others feared. Watch his speech & then Senator Peter Durant (R - Spencer) seconding Collins’ action:
On Thursday afternoon, the four business & policy groups that had negotiated with Mayor Wu to create the current tax shift proposal withdrew their support for the measure, saying the City’s earlier estimate “materially differ” from the state-certified property valuations. Read the whole statement:
On Thursday night, Mayor Wu released another statement, providing some context for why there was such a large gap between the administration’s estimate this fall and the state-certified numbers before summarizing the points made in the letter that she sent to State Senators earlier that day:
What happens next? While there is unlikely to be more official action until the State Senate’s next informal session on Monday, December 9, 2024, outside observers are weighing in. Boston Globe columnist Larry Edelman wrote in his Thursday column: “there is a good chance her bill dies in the Senate.”
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