‘Damned if they'll be shortchanged;' Mass. studies equity of payments towns get for state-owned land
It's in the billions, but for generations, the state's been paying Western Massachusetts cities and towns a pittance in PILOTs – payments in lieu of taxes – that compensate for hosting state parks and forest lands that aren't on the tax rolls, but nonetheless impose costs on communities.
'We have the land out here. Our communities want to steward it,' state Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, said in an interview Monday. 'They'll be damned if they'll be shortchanged.'
Last week, Gov. Maura T. Healey announced that a new commission will work on the issue of payments in lieu of taxes for state-owned land. The panel is expected to advise Healey on potential reforms to the PILOT program that could include the economic benefit for conservation and the value added by helping the state reach its carbon-reduction goals.
'We are calling it ecosystem services,' said state Rep. Natalie M. Blais, D-Deerfield.
Comerford and Blais introduced legislation in 2023 and again this year to change the formula based on the recommendations of a 2020 report by former state Auditor Suzanne M. Bump.
Blais and Comerford welcomed Healey's move, saying in interviews Monday that it follows up on legislative changes they've advocated for years.
The PILOT issues cropped up for decades, with calls for change gaining steam with Bump's report on how the formula for determining PILOTs puts rural communities in Western Massachusetts at a disadvantage compared to towns in affluent areas.
Since Bump's report, the state has been budgeting more money to make PILOT payments. But who gets how much of that fund is still determined by the market value of area real estate.
In the Pioneer Valley and Berkshires, where property values go up more slowly or not at all, this means towns get less money.
The average PILOT on state-owned land paid by the Commonwealth to a town in Hampden County was $59 an acre as of 2024. In Berkshire County it was $33 an acre and in Hampshire County, $61. In Worcester County, the average was $85 an acre.
But the numbers go up as one heads east. In Suffolk County, which includes Boston, the payment was more than $5,000 an acre, Blais and Comerford said, based on state statistics.
In the town of Warwick, in Franklin County, the PILOT amount was $13 an acre for each of 11,870 acres.
That's half of Warwick's landmass, Blais said.
Hosting public lands costs towns, said Donald F. Humason, town administrator in Chester and a former mayor of Westfield who also served as a Republican state senator and state representative.
'We still have to provide fire protection and police protection for the parkland within our town,' Humason said. 'We have to respond if there are trees down. Our municipal services are used, but it's not paid for.'
In May the Chester Volunteer Fire Department tracked down two lost hikers near Sanderson Brook Falls, a popular recreation spot in the Chester-Blandford State Forest.
Chester also gets a similarly small payment from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as compensation for the presence of the Knightville and Littleville dam properties partially in the town.
Massachusetts freely promotes outdoor recreation as a positive, which it is, Humason said. 'We end up being the hosts.'
Blais and Comerford cited towns that turn down land conservation projects because they can't afford the lost revenue when privately owned land goes off the tax rolls. That's a problem because there are a number of large-scale preservation efforts underway, including the Kestrel Land Trust buying timber property from W. D. Cowls.
Comerford said meeting the state's climate and environmental goals will require contributions from Western Massachusetts and its land resources.
'Natural habitat, carbon sequestration, outdoor travel,' Comerford said, ticking off assets in the region. 'You name it, Western Mass. is holding it down for the Commonwealth.'
Read the original article on MassLive.
Solve the daily Crossword
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
6th Republican-led state sends National Guard troops to DC
The number of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., increased again on Tuesday as a sixth Republican-led state sent some of its soldiers to the nation's capital as part of the president's activation to fight what he claims is rising crime in the city. Tennessee sent 160 troops to the nation's capital on Tuesday, bringing the total number of troops ordered to the city to 2,021. About 900 members, which include members of the military police, have actually mobilized as of Tuesday afternoon and many of those members are unarmed. Aside from members of the D.C. National Guard, five other states previously sent their military members to serve in Trump's mobilization: Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia and Mississippi. Guard troops are now helping law enforcement at 10 Metro stations, in addition to keeping a small presence along the National Mall, according to officials in charge of the operation, which they are now calling "D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force." MORE: Sen. Van Hollen says an armed National Guard in DC would be 'troubling' Stations include L'Enfant Plaza, Gallery Place, Metro Center and Union Station. Officials previously said Guard personnel are not arresting people, only helping to detain individuals briefly if necessary before handing them off to law enforcement. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced later in the day there have been a total of 465 arrests since Trump launched federal law enforcement in Washington on Aug. 7. There were 52 arrests Monday night, according to Leavitt. Information about potential charges from those arrests has not been revealed. "Four more homeless encampments were also removed during yesterday's reporting period. To date, a total of 48 homeless encampments have been cleared in Washington, D.C., by multi-agency teams," she added. When asked by a reporter how long residents in the city should expect the National Guard to remain deployed in the district, Levitt said that they don't have a "timeline" to share. ABC News' Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
Boston Globe
19 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Veterans' voices shape a report on the Afghanistan War's lessons and impact
Advertisement 'What can we learn from the Afghanistan War?' asked an Aug. 12 discussion session with four of the commission's 16 members. What they got was two straight hours of dozens of veterans' personal stories — not one glowingly positive, and most saturated in frustration and disappointment. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'I think the best way to describe that experience was awful,' said Marine veteran Brittany Dymond, who served in Afghanistan in 2012. Navy veteran Florence Welch said the 2021 withdrawal made her ashamed she ever served there. 'It turned us into a Vietnam, a Vietnam that none of us worked for,' she said. Members of Congress, some driven by having served in the war, created the independent commission several months after the withdrawal, after an assessment by the Democratic administration of then-president Joe Biden faulted the actions of President Donald Trump's first administration for constraining US options. A Republican review, in turn, blamed Biden. Views of the events remain divided, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered yet another review this spring. Advertisement The commission wants to understand the bigger picture of a conflict that spanned four presidential administrations and cost more than 2,400 American lives, said cochair Dr. Colin Jackson. 'So we're interested in looking hard at the end of US engagement in Afghanistan, but we're equally interested in understanding the beginning, the middle, and the end,' he said in an interview in Columbus. Cochair Shamila Chaudhary said the panel is also exploring more sweeping questions. 'So our work is not just about what the US did in Afghanistan but what the US should be doing in any country where it deems it has a national security interest,' she said. 'And not just should it be there, but how it should behave, what values does it guide itself by, and how does it engage with individuals who are very different from themselves.' Jackson said one of the commission's priorities is making sure the final report, due in August 2026, isn't 'unrecognizable to any veteran of the Afghanistan conflict.' 'The nature of the report should be representative of every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine experience,' he said. Dymond told commissioners a big problem was the mission. 'You cannot exert a democratic agenda, which is our foreign policy, you cannot do that on a culture of people who are not bought into your ideology,' she said. 'What else do we expect the outcome to be? And so we had two decades of service members lost and maimed because we're trying to change an ideology that they didn't ask for.' Advertisement The experience left eight-year Army veteran Steve Orf demoralized. He said he didn't go there 'to beat a bad guy.' 'Those of us who served generally wanted to believe that we were helping to improve the world, and we carried with us the hopes, values, and principles of the United States — values and principles that also seem to have been casualties of this war," he told commissioners. 'For many of us, faith with our leaders is broken and trust in our country is broken.' Tuesday's report identifies emerging themes of the review to include strategic drift, interagency incoherence, and whether the war inside Afghanistan and the counterterrorism war beyond were pursuing the same aims or at cross purposes. It also details difficulties the commission has encountered getting key documents. According to the report, the Biden administration initially denied the commission's requests for White House materials on the implementation of the February 2020 peace agreement Trump signed with the Taliban, called the Doha Agreement, and on the handling of the withdrawal, citing executive confidentiality concerns. The transition to Trump's second term brought further delays and complications, but since the commission has pressed the urgency of its mission with the new administration, critical intelligence and documents have now begun to flow, the report says.
Boston Globe
19 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Trump offers assurances that US troops won't be sent to help defend Ukraine
The Republican president, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders held hours of talks at the White House on Monday aimed at bringing an end to Russia's war against Ukraine. While answering questions from journalists, Trump did not rule out sending U.S. troops to participate in a European-led effort to defend Ukraine as part of security guarantees sought by Zelenskyy. Trump said after his meeting in Alaska last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Putin was open to the idea of security guarantees for Ukraine. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up But asked Tuesday on Fox News Channel's 'Fox & Friends' what assurances he could provide going forward and beyond his term that American troops would not be part of defending Ukraine's border, Trump said, 'Well, you have my assurance, and I'm president.' Advertisement Trump would have no control over the U.S. military after his term ends in January 2029. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later on Tuesday emphasized that 'U.S. boots will not be on the ground' as part of any potential peacekeeping mission. The president also said in the interview that he is optimistic that a deal can be reached to end the Russian invasion, but he underscored that Ukraine will have to set aside its hope of getting back Crimea, which was seized by Russian forces in 2014, and its long-held aspirations of joining the NATO military alliance. Advertisement 'Both of those things are impossible,' Trump said. Putin, as part of any potential deal to pull his forces out of Ukraine, is looking for the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as recognition of Crimea as Russian territory. Trump on Monday said that he was arranging for direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy. But the Kremlin has not yet said whether Putin, who has resisted previous calls by Trump and others for direct negotiations on ending the war, is committed to a face-to-face meeting with the Ukrainian leader. Asked whether Putin has promised Trump that he'll meet directly with the Ukrainian leader, Leavitt responded affirmatively. 'He has,' Leavitt said of Putin. Trump, early on Monday during talks with Zelenskyy and European leaders, said that he was pressing for three-way talks among Zelenskyy, Putin and himself. But after speaking to Putin later in the day, Trump said that he was arranging first for a face-to-face between Zelenskyy and Putin and that three-way talks would follow if necessary. 'It was an idea that evolved in the course of the president's conversations with both President Putin, President Zelensky and the European leaders yesterday,' Leavitt explained. But when discussing a phone call held after the meeting between Trump and the Russian leader, Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov gave no indication that either a bilateral or a trilateral meeting with Ukraine had been agreed. Trump said he believed Putin's course of action would become clear in the coming weeks. Advertisement 'I think Putin is tired of it,' Trump said. 'I think they're all tired of it. But you never know. We're going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks. That I can tell you.'
