State Sen. Nick Collins is back for another round in his fight over Boston tax policy with Mayor Michelle Wu. The South Boston lawmaker’s move comes as he faces a Wu-backed challenger on the campaign trail.
The Senate on Thursday unanimously adopted a Collins property tax proposal into a larger economic development bill.
The proposal would increase property tax exemptions and raise the limits on income and asset eligibility for older homeowners. It also gives cities and towns the option to tap surpluses for rebates to homeowners who received a residential exemption in the previous fiscal year.
Income eligibility limits for a single applicant would rise from $26,687 to $57,900. For married couples, it would jump from $40,031 to $66,200.
In a letter to Wu sent Thursday, Collins said the city could use its budget surplus to pay for his proposal.
“During the Senate’s review of the City’s finances, we learned that Boston’s budget surplus was not the $552 million initially reported, but closer to $1.7 billion. That surplus was built up by the tax dollars of Bostonians, and it presents an opportunity to provide meaningful relief,” Collins wrote.
In a statement, Wu said Collins remains an “obstacle” and “disconnected from the facts” of the city budget.
“This is not what the City asked our Boston Senators to fight for, and we have been clear that reserves are for a financial crisis, not to give tax rebates out during an election year without any plan for what comes next,” Wu said, arguing that Boston homeowners would have collectively saved more than $150 million in property taxes over the last two years if her proposal hadn’t been blocked by senators. (In an interview last month with political analyst Jon Keller, Wu noted that South Boston residents specifically would have saved $8 million last year.)
Lawmakers in the House, where Wu has allies in Majority Leader Michael Moran and Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz, twice passed a separate proposal backed by the mayor and the Boston City Council. That proposal would have temporarily shifted more of the city’s tax burden to commercial property owners to offset a spike in residential tax bills.
Collins, joined by Belmont state Sen. William Brownsberger, blocked the proposal in the Senate.
Months later, Collins is running for reelection, and up against Latoya Gayle, an education activist who lives in Dorchester, has received support from Wu and City Hall staffers. Brownsberger also has a challenger: Daniel Lander, a former senior Wu adviser. All are Democrats running in the Sept. 1 primary.
The Collins proposal mirrors his previous proposal that also cleared the Senate in January, but has not been taken up by House lawmakers.
In his letter to Wu this week, Collins asked her to support his proposal.
“I am reaching out to ask you to put any personal differences you have with me aside and join us in supporting common-sense legislation that would provide meaningful tax relief for Boston homeowners, particularly our older adults,” he wrote.
The Senate’s $575 million economic development bill – which includes a grab bag of other proposals, ranging from reining in cryptocurrency kiosks to regulation of electric bikes and scooters – will soon be in the hands of House and Senate negotiators to hammer out a compromise bill.
