Time-sensitive plan stuck in neutral as Senate won’t assign it to a committee
By Ella Adams, State House News Service
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s third attempt at a property tax burden shift can’t even get an audience on Beacon Hill.
“We can’t even have a hearing on the bill because it hasn’t been admitted to the Senate,” Boston Rep. Rob Consalvo, the petition’s sponsor, told the News Service. “We can’t even have a discussion, and the clock is ticking – it’s been since March that we’ve been waiting.”
Wu on Wednesday revamped her pleas for Beacon Hill to pass a proposal that would temporarily shift some of Boston’s property tax burden from residential onto commercial property owners.
In a letter to business leaders, she wrote that the city is projecting that the average single family homeowner in Boston will see a 13% increase in property taxes next year and urged them to “publicly reaffirm support for the previously agreed-upon compromise legislation.”
Next year’s tax increase will translate to $780 for the average homeowner, Wu said.
Wu said the city is still waiting for review and approval of fiscal 2026 property values by the state Department of Revenue, but that it also projects that overall residential property values will increase by 2% and overall commercial values will decrease by 6% when adjusted for new growth.
Property tax bills will be mailed to taxpayers on Jan. 1, 2026, Wu wrote in her letter.
The House referred Wu’s proposal (HD 4422) to the Committee on Revenue in March. Its future lies in the hands of the Senate, which can concur with the House’s committee referral or assign the bill to a different committee. Until there’s agreement on a committee referral, the bill can’t be assigned a number or have a public hearing.
It’s unclear why the Senate won’t let the bill enter the legislative pipeline like thousands of others.
“The Senate President will discuss this bill with members, as she does with all pieces of legislation,” Gray Milkowski, a spokesperson for Senate President Karen Spilka, said in a statement. “The Senate remains committed to working with stakeholders across Massachusetts to find solutions to increase housing affordability and drive down costs for residents and families.”
Wu’s announcement reignited a battle that she lost twice in 2024. The Boston City Council and House of Representatives passed two different versions of Wu’s proposal last year, but it died both times in the Senate.
After some opposition, business groups backed a redrafted version of the proposal in October that would have set a 9% increase on residents and lowered the shift’s impact on commercial property. They rescinded their support in December in light of new data about the city’s property values.
“Let’s at least have a hearing — let’s admit it to the Senate, let’s have a thoughtful discussion, let’s debate it. We can’t even do that,” Consalvo added. “I’ve received literally hundreds of calls from constituents. This is what people are asking for.”
Wu’s third attempt at the proposal is an expanded version of her last one.
Consalvo called it “a better and improved” version. In addition to temporarily shifting the property tax burden, Consalvo said the proposal would also expand the Chapter 41C senior tax relief program and give the city the authority to pull from surplus funds in order to issue rebates to residents on their fiscal 2025 taxes.
Like in last year’s version, the proposal would also create an abatement fund to provide relief to small businesses and double the number of small businesses exempt from the city’s personal property tax, he said.
“I didn’t know it was coming,” NAIOP Massachusetts Executive Director Tamara Small told the News Service of the letter. “We were not given a heads-up in any way about a briefing, or data or anything else at all. I started getting calls from reporters last night, and that was the first I had heard of it.”
Wu sent the letter to Small, Boston Municipal Research Bureau President and CEO Steve Poftak, Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce CEO Jim Rooney and Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Doug Howgate.
“We do not believe that now is a time to increase the burden on a struggling sector that would do irreparable harm, frankly, to business growth and development in the city of Boston. It’s the wrong time. It’s the wrong strategy. There are other mechanisms that she can use to address the fiscal concerns the city has,” Small said, speaking on behalf of NAIOP.
She suggested the city use its own resources to lower the tax burden faced by vulnerable residents and “take a look at some of the recent anti-growth policies” put in place in Boston over the last four years. Small also pointed to 2024 residential property tax valuations, which she said ended up increasing by around 10.4% and not 33% like the mayor and her administration originally suggested.
“At this time, NAIOP is not going to come to a — we’re not going to have a conversation about this. Because, again, it’s the wrong strategy. It’s essentially like if you got a decrease in pay and then were taxed at a higher income tax bracket,” Small added. “Why you would be increasing the burden of a struggling sector is the worst possible strategy to do, unless the goal is to ensure we have more vacant space and fewer businesses in Boston.”
When the proposal came before the Senate one year ago, South Boston Sen. Nick Collins delayed action multiple times and argued that the Senate shouldn’t act until after DOR valuations were certified.
Senate President Pro Tempore Will Brownsberger also said last December that Boston should move forward without the tax shift. On Wednesday, the Senate’s number-three Democrat suggested his opinion hasn’t changed.
“I understand where the mayor is coming from and I share her desire to lower property taxes for the people most in need of lowering property taxes. I think there’s more than one way to do that. And I think we have to think about it, not just from a local perspective but from a statewide perspective, and what it would mean to go down that road that the proposal would take us down,” Brownsberger said.
“It would basically upend a tax limitation that has been in place for the better part of 50 years and result in tax changes all across the state,” Brownsberger continued. If Beacon Hill makes an exception for Boston, Brownsberger said, other cities and towns will likely want to join in, “and that’s not a good thing.”
“This is something we were already starting to hear when we started to go down that road last fall. Municipalities were reaching out,” Brownsberger said.
Wu maintained in her letter Wednesday that final property valuations “landed squarely within the range of estimates presented throughout the process” of negotiations last year.
“After that compromise was abandoned by your groups and the State Senate, Boston residents were left facing a significant tax increase, while the commercial share of the tax burden has never been lower,” she wrote.
Collins (shown above) would not answer questions from media on Wednesday when asked about the mayor’s proposal, but in a statement wrote that “Unfortunately, the City has committed to raising property taxes on everyone during a time of financial strain. At the same time, the City is once again withholding critical valuation data from policymakers and the public.”
“We are asking the City to release the data. I strongly support providing tax relief for homeowners but oppose the City’s effort to circumvent Prop 2½, which would remove the people’s right to vote on local tax increases. That is wrong and I will continue to support and defend people’s right to vote,” Collins said.
Collins added that the Senate has already proposed “measures that deliver meaningful relief to homeowners without jeopardizing our economy. These include rebates and other targeted relief designed to help seniors and our most vulnerable.”
The Boston Municipal Research Bureau said in a statement that it “appreciates the letter from the Mayor’s Office and will carefully analyze the data presented.”
The bureau said it’s monitoring the upcoming City Council hearing on tax classification “and awaiting the state Department of Revenue’s certification of the data. At this point, we will not be commenting further on this matter until we have had the chance to further review all available information.”
Neither Rooney nor Howgate were available for comment on Wednesday.
Ella Adams is a State House reporter for the State House News Service and State Affairs Massachusetts. Reach her at eadams@stateaffairs.com.
