‘Damned if they’ll be shortchanged;’ Mass. studies equity of payments towns get for state-owned land
A Civilian Conservation Corps interpretative panel sits at the picnic area near Damon Pond in Brimfield State Forest. The state is rethinking the level of payments it provides to towns that are home to untaxed state land. (Jim Kinney/ The Republican)The Republican
How much is cleaner air worth? What's the dollar value of flood control? Local food? How about the value of hiking and hunting and boating?
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.
A rider pedals past the Knightville Dam in Huntington during the Great River Ride. (Westfield News file)The Westfield News
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 .
