State senator makes case for alternative legislation amid Boston property tax debate

As Boston homeowners stare down a 13% tax hike next year, one local senator opposed to Mayor Wu’s push home rule petition to shift the burden to commercial property is making a case for his own take on tax relief.

“The Mayor’s position on circumventing Prop 2 1/2 and eliminating the people’s right to vote is unacceptable,”  Sen. Nick Collins said Sunday. “The Senate’s legislation would provide real relief to homeowners without burdening small business owners or putting our economy at risk.”

The legislation in question, S.1935 sponsored by Collins and S.1933 sponsored by Sen. William Brownsberger, aims to allow any municipality to create a “tax shock prevention credit” in years when residential property taxes rise by more than 10% in the third quarter.

The bills have taken a step forward in recent weeks amid a renewed debate over Boston’s rising property taxes, when after months of waiting on a hearing in the Joint Committee on Revenue, they moved to a public hearing in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

The movement comes as Mayor Michelle Wu’s own effort to provide tax relief to homeowners has stalled in the Senate for the second year. The city’s legislation would adjust property taxes to shift the burden more towards commercial landlords rather than homeowners, working around 45-year-old Prop 2 ½ law capping such shifts.

Though the House has passed the legislation, Senate leadership chose this year to not assign it to a committee.

Collins and Brownsberger have been obstacles to the home rule petition legislation, leading opposition to the mayor’s push.

Brownsberger hosted a discussion on the property tax debate in Allston/Brighton last Monday night, where a split group of residents expressed discontent with the rising property taxes, the mayor’s role in the city’s growing budget and the senator for stalling the home rule petition.

Collins’s bill would allow municipalities to issue rebates out of surplus funds to taxpayers who received the residential exemption in the prior fiscal year.

Brownsberger’s would allow municipalities to “phase in a tax increase smoothly for vulnerable taxpayers” through the quarters of the year and provide targeted relief to populations like low-income residents, seniors and more.

“The Senate bills are focused on providing relief to residential property owners to mitigate municipal property tax increases on homeowners by leveraging the city’s substantial taxpayer reserves,” a Senate memo on the bills reads. “The goal of the Senate bills is to provide municipalities with the tools to provide real relief for residential taxpayers without harming small businesses or putting the economy at risk.”

Asked if the House has interest in taking up the bills last week, House Speaker Ron Mariano deflected to the chair of Way and Means, joking the topic “may cause me to jump.”

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House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz said it was “a little early in the process to say whether they’re workable or not,” noting he would like to see Wu’s home rule petition get into a committee “after waiting for nine months.”

“It seems that there’s an ability to move quickly when there’s a desire to, and unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case on the mayor’s home rule,” Michlewitz said.

State House News service contributed to this report.

Mayor Michelle Wu (Libby O’Neill/Boston Herald, File)

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