[00:00:00] Joe Selvaggi: This is Hubwonk. I’m Joe Selvaggi. Welcome to Hubwonk, a podcast of Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston. Effects of the changes in the way we live and work since the COVID 19 lockdowns continues to ripple through the policy world. For urban centers across the country, the shift towards remote work has decreased demand for office space, leading to a downward repricing of commercial real estate.
[00:00:24] For cities like Boston, which rely heavily on business property taxes, this downward revaluation means a reduced tax base. Anticipating a reduction in revenue, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has secured permission from the City Council for a Home Rule petition to protect the city’s revenue base by raising property tax rates on businesses.
[00:00:46] This proposal, now submitted to the Massachusetts Legislature, aims to protect tax rates for residents while increasing the city’s budget by another 8%. However, this comes at the expense of commercial interests, already weakened by the shift away from traditional office spaces. While supporters of the Mayor’s plan assure taxpayers that the measure is temporary and modeled on a similar adjustment during the 2004 property valuation decline, critics argue that other budgetary tools should be considered.
[00:01:18] What are the stakes for residents and businesses, and what alternatives exist for the city to meet its expense obligations without increasing tax bills for residents and landlords? My guest today is former Massachusetts State Representative and Interim President of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Marty Walz.
[00:01:37] Ms. Walz recently testified to the legislature’s Joint Committee on Revenue, providing analysis of Boston’s impending structural revenue shortfall and commentary on the mayor’s proposed changes. She will share insights on the scale of the revenue challenges facing Boston and offer alternative tax and spending strategies for a balanced budget that could ease the post pandemic revenue burden.
[00:02:01] When I return, I’ll be joined by Boston Municipal Research Bureau Interim President, Marty Walz. Okay, we’re back. This is Hubwonk. I’m Joe Selvaggi and I’m now pleased to be joined by the Acting President of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Marty Walz. Welcome to Hubwonk, Marty. Great to be with you.
[00:02:17] Thanks for having me. Well, I’m thrilled to have you here to discuss an issue. I think if it’s not already on our listener’s mind, it’s going to be in the future, which is, those of us who live or work in, in cities, in Boston or cities like Boston are going to see a shift in, our tax patterns largely as a function of a shift in our behavior as workers and consumers and as residents.
[00:02:37] So we’re going to talk, go deep into the future of, Boston in particular, just tax. strategy, but before we do, I introduced you as the interim president of, the Boston Municipal Research Bureau. Before we talk about this particular analysis, let’s give our listeners some, words on what you do there at the, the Boston Bureau.
[00:02:56] Martha Walz: So, at the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, we are what some people call a watchdog group, but we’re a 92-year-old membership organization, and we focus in on the city’s fiscal health, And the quality of the services that it delivers. So, we focus not just in on how the city is spending its budget, but how well the city is delivering on the services that it’s paying for.
[00:03:21] So we are not like a traditional business group that may be focused on, let’s just make sure costs are lower and taxes are lower. We’re very much focused on fiscal health, as well as the overall health of the city and what it’s like to live and work in Boston.
[00:03:37] Joe Selvaggi: Wonderful. As a fellow resident, I appreciate the work that you’re doing, but let me just ask, as a setup, when you look at analysis of Boston, it’s one of many cities. Do you look at us in context of other cities of similar size, or do you look more historically? How do you assess how we’re doing, compared to what, of course?
[00:03:56] Martha Walz: Well, really both, so it depends on the topic and depends on the particular report that we’re working on. So sometimes we look at historical data. Sometimes we look at other cities in Massachusetts and sometimes we look at other cities across the country. because we’re not an island, and there’s lots of things that we can learn from other cities, what they do well, and things that we could do in Boston as a result.
[00:04:20] Joe Selvaggi: Yes, in spite of fact, we are indeed the hub of the universe, but there are places we can learn from.
[00:04:24] At a high level, what does the – we all deal with layers of government, we have a federal government, we have a state government, and we have a city, government. What does the city in particular, what does the money that we pay or what they spend, what does that go to at the city level?
[00:04:39] Martha Walz: Sure, so the city’s budget for the fiscal year that started July 1st is about 4. 6 billion dollars, and so that covers quite a bit. It covers Boston Public Schools, it covers parks, The traditional municipal services of police, fire, emergency medical services, things like maintaining the streets and the sidewalks. It has public housing. There’s code enforcement. So, with restaurants and other property owners. So, it covers the full gamut of. of services that a typical city provides to its residents and visitors.
[00:05:14] Joe Selvaggi: So, and of course, that, most of that budget, and we’ll get into the particulars, is paid for by property taxes. If you are a resident, you pay a property tax. If you’re a business, you pay a tax, a property tax. Let’s get into this. This is going to be very important for our conversation. There are two categories or classifications for tax, property tax assessment. Describe for our listeners. What are they and, what are they relative to each other? Let’s get started.
[00:05:43] Martha Walz: This topic is a very complicated topic that we’re going to keep, understandable, for listeners so we don’t get too deep into the details. There’s really two kinds of property taxes. Residential, And, what typically just gets referred to as business or commercial, it’s actually, there’s 3 buckets.
[00:06:00] Commercial, industrial, and personal property, but we’re just going to refer to that to keep this simple as business. In Boston, we have what’s known as a split tax rate. Some communities tax commercial properties and residential properties at the same tax rate. So, you might pay 10 per 1,000 of value, whether you’re a business property or a residential property.
[00:06:25] In Boston, we have this split tax rate. So, the tax rate for commercial is about 2.3 times the tax rate for residential. So, there’s a deliberate decision to tax commercial properties substantially higher than residential properties. So, there’s a subsidy, essentially, that the commercial properties are providing to the residential properties.
[00:06:51] Joe Selvaggi: Okay, can you give me a sense? Okay, I, again, we say we’re talking about Boston. Lots of people live here, but there’s lots of businesses here. Gives a relative sense. You said that the business tax is 2.3 times higher than the residents. What’s the relative size of the residents to business? And then who effectively, when that tax is applied to those two groups, who’s really paying the lion’s share of the cost of the city?
[00:07:16] Martha Walz: So, if you look at value. Just look at how much property, how much value residential has versus how much value, the business properties have. So residential values are about 2/3rds of the overall property value in the city. So, 2/3rds residential, 1/3rd business based on value. If you look at who pays the actual taxes, Business pays about 60 percent of all property taxes.
[00:07:44] So they’re about 1/3rd of the value. They pay about 60% of all taxes. So residential is two thirds of the value, and residential overall pays about 40%. So that’s an example of how, the commercial properties are paying more than their 50%, or in this case, 66,33. if it was based purely on value, business would pay 33% instead of paying 60%.
[00:08:14] Joe Selvaggi: So effectively, as you mentioned, we are, as residents, cross subsidized by our business partners, right? They pay more than we do, particularly when you think they don’t send kids to school, if they’re, business, they don’t, use the sidewalk as much, they don’t need the trash taken out as much. We, as residents, use a lot of services, business less so, and yet they pay, less. The vast majority of the tax, is that fair?
[00:08:37] Martha Walz: It’s completely fair. and so not all communities do it this way. this is a choice that any city or town in Massachusetts can make to have this separate tax rate and to have the business properties subsidize, in essence, the residential properties. And so that’s how Boston has done it historically. but it’s a choice that the city has made, and it’s a choice That has served the city well, as we’ve overall in recent years been thriving, both on the residential side and on the business side.
[00:09:06] Joe Selvaggi: That sets up my next question very well, because I’m curious, and I’m honestly asking because I don’t understand the process. Of course, our tax bill is, based on the notional value of our property, which no one can know from moment to moment, but the city does have to assess our value and the value of business property. How is that done and how often is that done when we’re deciding, what are properties worth?
[00:09:31] Martha Walz: Well, it’s done every 5 years, and this year is the year in which that is being done. So that is, in part, what’s causing the concern leading to the. The mayor’s home rule petition about the property tax system is because this is that reevaluation year. And so later on this year, the city will have gathered up data. On the values of both residential and commercial properties. And be able to accurately determine the values and then they, of course, shifted quite a bit given the pandemic and its aftermath. And so that’s where we’re going to have much more information later on this year. And we’ll know more in August or September where properties are likely to be valued.
[00:10:18] Joe Selvaggi: Okay, so this is great. So, we set up our conversation perfectly. I hate to tell our listeners, this is all prequel to the, to what we’re really going to be discussing, which is, the report, that you recently released at the BMRB, the title is, Analyzing Mayor Wu’s Property Tax Classification Proposal.
[00:10:33] We’re really going to be talking about anticipating a divergence, between residential And, commercial on which the city relies so heavily. So we’ve got a city relying very heavily on commercial property tax. We anticipate both the mayor and your analysis anticipate a reduction in the estimated value of commercial, which means ultimately a reduction in the tax that you can collect on that property. So, we all seem to be on the same page knowing it’s going to change. It’s going to diverge. I’m going to ask you a tough question. Why is it changing? Why has commercial property value been hit recently and not residential? And by how much does your organization anticipate it will go down?
[00:11:14] Martha Walz: So, this all stems from the changes in how we work from the pandemic. There are fewer people coming into office buildings downtown. There are fewer businesses located downtown in those buildings as a result of hybrid work or fully remote work, and that has led to the change in the values of commercial properties.
[00:11:35] At its most basic, sometimes in the past we’ve seen values change in the commercial sector because of traditional economic cycles. values go up and down with some predictability. This is a fundamental shift in the market as a result of remote or hybrid work that’s causing the decline in commercial properties. We don’t know exactly how much because that reassessment process that I just mentioned is still underway. So, we don’t know exactly how much commercial values overall will be dropping. We’ll know that later on this year, but that’s what’s the situation we’re in. It’s the aftermath of the pandemic and the way we are working differently.
[00:12:19] And we will know more later on this year. In the report that the Research Bureau put out earlier this year, we made some assumptions. Because we don’t have the data yet. So, to analyze the consequences of this change in the market, we made the assumptions that overall commercial values would go down 10%, and overall residential values would go up 5%. And if you make those assumptions, you can begin to model, well, how much would taxes need to change based on those changes in value. It’s complicated, but at its most basic, we just made some assumptions working with our partners at the city on what those values, how those values would change and how that would change tax collections.
[00:13:08] Joe Selvaggi: So, okay, so now we’re looking at the future, residential properties going up, tech, commercial down, given no change, right? That means the tax bills for commercial will, on that go down. You know, right. Less value means less tax, which would mean that if the budget stays the same in the city, the burden for the tax for running the city would shift to those residents whose value has gone up. That would be a big change, right? one group would go down and one group would go up. Is this at the heart of it? the mayor’s effort to reduce the shock of this, the residents getting a much larger tax bill to compensate for the reduction in the commercial property tax collection.
[00:13:50] Martha Walz: The mayor’s idea is to smooth the rate of increase for residential property owners, recognizing since their values are going to go up, taxes are likely to go up anyway based on those values. And because of some shift from commercial onto residential, the taxes may go up even more than they would simply because the values are going up. So, the idea behind the proposal is to spread the increase in residential property taxes out over time.
[00:14:21] So, instead of having it come all at once, spread it out over several years. It, at its most basic, and so some people think, oh, well, this means my taxes and the residential side are going to go down. Not likely, almost certainly not going to happen because your values are going up. So, taxes aren’t going to go up as your values go up. What the mayor’s suggesting as a proposal is to shift some of the tax increase from residential onto commercial, which would then slow the rate of increase on the residential properties.
[00:14:58] Joe Selvaggi: Indeed. So, this is sort of a math equation, but we’re keeping, let’s say, the city’s budget, what they spend, it’s fairly constant. We’re saying somebody’s got to pay this fixed bill. Who’s it going to be? Residence or commercial? but I want to get into the city’s budget, because again, we’ve, I don’t know how long you’ve been in Boston. I’ve seen 30 years of ups and downs and property values going up and down. and the city chugs along. I’ve read something about this thing called Proposition Two and a Half. I don’t want to get into the total details, but what I find reassuring is it’s, at least the idea that the growth of the city’s budget is constrained to two and a half percent, a number I’m comfortable with, it’s growing but slowly.
[00:15:34] And yet, in your paper I read, that in the past ten years, the city’s budget has grown by 54.8%.you cite the relative, inflation’s only 31 percent in that time only. but, how would you get a two and a half percent increase, winding up amounting to 54%? Growth in the budget.
[00:15:55] Martha Walz: Two words. New growth. So, the Prop 2.5 allows for budgets to increase beyond the cap when there’s new growth. You think of new growth as you put an addition on your house, yes. There’s more property to be assessed. You build a new office building, there’s more property to be assessed. So, new growth are the magic words here.
[00:16:19] And much of Boston’s increase can be attributed to property taxes from this new growth. So that is in the, you know, taxes on new buildings or additions to buildings are not constrained. By the 2.5 percent increase. So, as Boston has been booming, and there’s more and more new growth, you know, think the creation of the Seaport. That’s new growth. So, all the buildings in the Seaport weren’t on the tax rolls 25 years ago. All of those taxes are on top of the cap on Prop 2.5.
[00:16:55] Joe Selvaggi: So, the city effectively needs to grow to boost its ability to spend. In theory, it needs more government to run a bigger operation, and it can afford a bigger operation. But let me take that logic in reverse. I’ll say, sure, during periods of growth, it’s always easier to spend more each year than you did the year before. Shouldn’t that logic work in the reverse? Meaning, let’s say if Boston does say there’s a reduction in the demand for all these wonderful buildings, Commercial buildings. Shouldn’t then the city’s logic extend there then to, let’s say, some belt tightening or some constraining of those, budgets. Is that something that is on the table that you’ve seen in this conversation?
[00:17:35] Martha Walz: When the Research Bureau put out its report in May, the city was in the middle of the process of determining the budget for fiscal year 2025, which started on July 1st. We said that one way to help solve this problem is to slow the rate of spending increase. We were not calling for deep budget cuts. But we were saying, instead of proposing an 8 percent increase in the budget, you could say, propose a 3 or 4 percent increase in the budget, so that the problem you’re trying to solve for gets a little easier to solve.
[00:18:10] The mayor did not take up that idea, neither did city council. So, the budget that was recently approved is increasing 8 percent year over year. In contrast, the budget that the state legislature just approved and that’s sitting on Governor Healey’s desk went up 3.5%. So, 1 of the solutions that we talked about was slowing the rate of increase and the budget.
[00:18:38] Joe Selvaggi: Yeah, so I want to return to, I mean, you have some fine offers of solutions, alternatives to solutions. I want to end our conversation towards the end with those. I think they’re all very good. Although I did listen to the mayor’s presentation in front of the budget committee, joint budget committee, and she predicted, if we are not able to make this change, and what we’re talking about is she’s gone to the legislature after having it approved by the city council and asked for, I guess a variance, a temporary permission to change these ratios, to move more of the burden to commercial.
[00:19:11] Despite the fact that commercial values are going down, she wants to increase the rate at which they’re taxed, but she made a dire prediction. I saw her say, or heard her say, that if we don’t make this change, the burden that will shift to the residents without this change would be 30%. Their tax burden would go up 30%. Your estimate was smaller in your report. What do you, how is her math different than yours? And what would you explain, why is 30 percent unlikely for us residents?
[00:19:39] Martha Walz: Well, she’s actually using our report to make this assertion. So, what we did in our report, was estimated commercial values are going down 10%, residential values are going up. What would happen? And the prediction is that it would lead to, for the fiscal year that just started, an increase that in actual dollars and cents. $910 a year. And so, what she is saying is, well, because we backload the tax bill, we don’t make them pay it evenly over all 4 quarters. It’s backloaded into the 3rd quarter bill, which comes out in January. So, instead of the 16.5 percent increase that you’d spread out over the whole year. It becomes the 33 percent increase. Come January, so it’s the same math. It’s the way in which the city bills. Property owners for their taxes.
[00:20:45] Joe Selvaggi: I see. Okay, that’s good. I’m glad I cleared that up. It’s just the bill itself would be much scarier because it’s, you’re getting all the rays in one, one, bill rather than spread over, over time. That, that, that’s good. I honestly did know the answer. So, there’s going to be some pain.
[00:20:59] The rates are going to go up, one way or the other. That’s good. In watching, again we’re going to talk about your solutions, in listening to her testimony of why this is needed, why we need to put more of the burden on the already highly burdened commercial space, is two reasons. The pain it would cause to residents would be high. There was some testimony from people who are perhaps fixed income people with low property values who couldn’t afford the increase but also, the fact that commercial properties could handle the increase. And I bucket her argument into two things. One is the commercial property owners, because the value of their property is going down, their assessment will go down, the tax they actually pay will go down, even though their rate would go up.
[00:21:42] I want to come back to that questionable reasoning later, but also she compared it to historical trend, you know, an incident 20 years ago, almost to the day, where the late great, Mayor Menino asked for a similar, exception or variance or whatever you want to call it, owing to, another dramatic change in property values, he asked for changes and was granted a temporary change.
[00:22:05] In your testimony, in your paper, you draw distinctions between what the mayor 20 years ago, Mayor Menino, faced and what’s going on right now. Share with our listeners, what is the difference between asking for a temporary change now from asking what the mayor did, temporary change, 20 years ago?
[00:22:23] Martha Walz: Yeah, so we’ve spent a lot of time saying 2024 is not 2004, the 1 and only time this has happened in the past. I mentioned a little bit ago, what happened in 2004 was a more traditional economic cycle. And this is a more structural change and how we’re living and working post pandemic. So, economic cycles, they come and go. You can assume over time, after values dip, they’re going to go back up again in a traditional economic cycle. Here, there’s no reason to think in the short run, those commercial values are going to go back up again. We’re not going back to the way it was in 2019. Very few of us are going to go back to the days when we go into an office 5 days a week. This is a likely permanent shift. And how many of us are living and working. So this is not a short term. We just have to wait it out a couple of years and things are going to go back to the way they were. So, as we think about, what the potential solutions are here, we have to be honest that this isn’t a traditional economic cycle. We’re not going back to 2019. Another change that’s different.
[00:23:35] Is what I was alluding to earlier and what we talked a little bit about is that the city’s budget went up 8 percent year over year and that the city’s budget has been going up quite a bit over the last 10 years. As you noted, 54.8 percent over the last 10 years. Want to compare that to 2004, where the rate of increase in the budget under Mayor Menino was much slower.
[00:24:03] It wasn’t cutting the budget. He was slowing the rate of increase, which is what we had advocated. That the city could do. So, for example, looking at fiscal years 2002 to 2004, spending in 2002 only increased 3.8% spending in fiscal year 2003 increased only 2.8%, and in fiscal year ’04, it increased only 1.5%.
[00:24:32] So again, wanting to look at what the mayor in the city’s response was 20 years ago. What the response is today. The other thing that we looked at was headcount. personnel is a key driver of the city’s budget. So, what happened 20 years ago versus what happened now? in that same fiscal year, 2002 to 2004 time period, full-time equivalence, headcount, declined by 8.7%. In the past 10 years, headcount in Boston has increased. 7. 6%. So again, we’re looking at how the city prepared itself the last time. And what’s happening this time, and we think 2024 is not 2004 for a whole host of reasons. So, as we think about what our alternatives. To what the mayor’s proposed, the comparison to 2004 isn’t. As close as you might think it is.
[00:25:43] Joe Selvaggi: Indeed. Okay. And again, now that’s setting up for what we might do as alternatives to this, shift in tax plans. But I just want to also say, again, I’m not going to justify with a sort of a debate about the notion that the property values for, commercial properties have reduced in value, largely because the demand for them has reduced.
[00:26:03] the value, you know, the poor guy holding the bag is the value of his asset has decreased to raise his taxes at a time when his. Value has decreased seems arguably absurd. As our avid listeners know, we embrace the idea that companies don’t pay taxes. It’s the people in them that pay the taxes.
[00:26:19] So just as a renter knows that his landlord’s tax goes up, his rent will likely go up. So then does a resident of a commercial property, whether it’s a restaurant or an accountant or a lawyer, that fee will be, that tax will be passed to them. And that fee ultimately passed to their clients. We all pay the tax.
[00:26:38] It’s not, it’s an illusion to imagine that commercial property somehow magically pays it. So, I want to shift, and it’s going to be painful for everyone if the budget remains where it is or keeps growing, as you described. So I want to give enough time. I may be running out of time, but before What I think are wonderful alternatives to the mayor’s proposal, which as we keep sort of hinting at, is changing where the money comes from.
[00:27:03] If not from residents and not from commercial property, you’ve laid out some very interesting ideas of how we could ease this situation. Painful transition from where we used to be in 2019 to where we are now. So, with that said, what are some of the ideas? I’ll go through in order of how you describe them in your report. Let’s start very basically taming the city’s budget. What could be reduced?
[00:27:28] Martha Walz: That is a very long answer that we do not have time for. So, what we’ve said is rather than calling on specific line items to be reduced. Is. The big driver of the city’s budget, as I mentioned a moment ago, is personnel. So the city needs to look at the raises that are negotiated in collective bargaining agreements. It needs to look at the pace of growth of its payroll. So we have not identified specific line items to be cut. There’s a longer conversation to be had there. And what we’re saying is, let’s look at the overall budget. And make some of those challenging decisions. That we need to make long term. The Mayor and the City Council chose not to do that this year, but we think that is a very important conversation that we need to have.
[00:28:17] Joe Selvaggi: Well, to your credit, you did put provide some specifics in your report and in your testimony, you pointed specifically to the public schools, the city’s public schools.
[00:28:25] Those are very expensive. I don’t know that they perform as well as they might. Your report cites the fact that each pupil in Boston costs the city 30, 000 per pupil. They could go to some good schools here in town, when they graduate at that rate. What could be done there?
[00:28:42] Martha Walz: Again, much longer conversation about how to adjust the Boston Public Schools budget, but what we have cited over and over again Is that enrollment continues to decline, costs continue to go up substantially, and the mayor and the superintendent and the school committee are not confronting the need to consolidate or close schools.
[00:29:04] We have fought, we are way over capacity. Those are deeply challenging conversations. But we urgently need to have them so that we can stop investing in half full buildings, and get those funds invested in actual education for students. It’s a very long and complicated and fraught conversation, but we urgently need to have that because we are out of alignment between the number of students we have and the number of school buildings that we’re operating.
[00:29:34] Joe Selvaggi: Fair enough. You also mentioned and provided no details, revenue diversification. I heard my wallet scream when I read that, but you made no reference to what that looks like –
[00:29:45] Martha Walz: That’s because we don’t know, and we are actually working on a report right now to put some specifics to that. So, we’re saying not, you don’t necessarily increase revenue.
[00:29:54] We’re talking about diversifying the sources. So, the city’s not as reliant on property taxes. So, you’re hearing increase in revenue. I’m going to pay more. What we’re looking at is revenue diversification, not increasing overall money necessarily, but can we reduce the reliance on property taxes to find alternative sources? So we are literally working on that report right now. And this is an example, to go back to where we started, we’re looking at other cities in Massachusetts. And we’re looking at other cities around the country. Are there other ideas to diversify our revenue stream? So that when values of property are dropping the way they are now on the commercial side. We are not going to feel the pain quite so heavily because we have other sources of revenue.
[00:30:43] Joe Selvaggi: Indeed. And one of the, again, we’re talking about painful choices. One of the least painful items you mentioned, and I think I’d be thrilled to hear this, there’s lots of property that has been foreclosed in Boston. It’s not at its highest and best use. The city owns these properties. It could, and we cover on this podcast many times, the need for new housing growth because housing is scarce and expensive. What could the city do, is it literally possible to take these foreclosed properties, sell them to the highest bidder, and generate substantial revenue to run the city? It’s not just foreclosed properties.
[00:31:16] Martha Walz: The city owns other properties, as does the state. So what I’m saying is the city and state own property. That’s excess property. Why is not every 1 of those parcels considered for housing if the city or the state don’t need. These properties. expedite their sale or their development for housing. There’s properties all over the city and the state that could be used for housing. Let’s look at those. Let’s expedite that process. We know we have a problem. We’ve got property available. Why are we not making that a top priority?
[00:31:56] Joe Selvaggi: Indeed. Okay, so let’s pull back because we’ve run out of time. And I’m sorry, I try to respect your time, but it’s so much good stuff here. I’m trying to squeeze out a little bit more. Now let’s zoom back. It’s in the process. Last week the mayor made her case to the legislature. It’s late in the legislature process, as a former legislator. She wants this done now, this year, this fiscal year. It’s moving through, I’ve read.
[00:32:19] It’s not complete. Where are we now? And describe for our listeners. What happens if they consider it and approve it? And what happens if they consider it and just don’t get to it this year?
[00:32:29] Martha Walz: So, roll call votes in the legislature end, give or take a little, at midnight on July 31st. So, the mayor is pushing to have this voted on by both the House and the Senate by midnight on July 31st so they can send it off to the governor’s desk.
[00:32:45] So, we are very near the end of this session. So, right now, the Revenue Committee has sent the bill to the House Ways and Means Committee, and that’s where it sits as of the time we are talking at just after noon on Friday. This may have changed by the time people listen to the podcast. And so, the House Ways and Means Committee is considering whether to approve it as written or to potentially change it. And then send it to the House of Representatives for a vote, and then it will go over to the Senate, and the Senate will have to decide whether to vote on it as changed or to change it yet again if the Senate doesn’t agree with what the House is proposing.
[00:33:27] Joe Selvaggi: Indeed, okay, so, now you’ve written this great report, for the BMRB, you’ve made your testimony, which, our listeners can find if they work hard, where can they find the report that you’ve written, and then I’m going to piggyback on that, if they find your argument persuasive, and they’d like their legislator to you. Consider your ideas, share with us what would you do? Again, being on both sides of this, uh, debate, what would you suggest listeners do if they find your, the arguments in your, paper persuasive? So where can we find you and what should they do then?
[00:34:00] Martha Walz: Yes, our website is bmrb.org. And our report is on our website. I think my testimony to the revenue committee may be there as well. And if listeners want to weigh in, they should email or call their state representative and state senator. Many legislators are aware of this proposal and are wrestling with what the right answer is. And people should weigh in because whether you live in Boston or don’t live in Boston, if you have any contact with the city at all, even as somebody who comes in and shops or goes to restaurants, this is going to affect all of us.
[00:34:36] Joe Selvaggi: Indeed, and of course it affects all, not just Boston, but all cities, large and small. This shift is universal, and long lasting, as you point out. So, if you care about your tax bill or the tax bill of your local businesses, this matters. So, we all have an opportunity to get excited and engaged about something very real, not off in the distance. So, thank you very much for your time today, Marty.
[00:34:58] You’ve been great. again, I appreciate your help that you offer to the research board. Your testimony was very persuasive and your research compelling. So, thank you for joining me today on the Hubwonk podcast.
[00:35:09] Martha Walz: Thank you for having me. It’s been great to be with you.
[00:35:12] Joe Selvaggi: This has been another episode of Hubwonk. If you enjoyed today’s show, there are several ways to support Hubwonk and Pioneer Institute. It would be easier for you and better for us if you subscribed to Hubwonk on your iTunes Podcatcher. It would make it easier for others to find us if you offer a five star rating or a favorable review. We’re of course grateful if you share Hubwonk with friends. If you have ideas or comments or suggestions for me about future episode topics, you’re certainly welcome to email me at hubwonk@pioneerinstitute. org. Please join me next week for a new episode of Hubwonk.
Joe Selvaggi talks with Marty Walz, the interim president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, about more viable, long-term alternatives to Mayor Wu’s property tax classification proposal.
Guest:
Martha (Marty) Walz joined the Boston Municipal Research Bureau in November 2023 as Interim President. She has over 35 years of experience and leadership positions in the non-profit, corporate, and government sectors, including work in interim leadership roles for a diverse array of organizations. Previously, Marty served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, leading the organization’s health care, education, and advocacy work. She is also a former Massachusetts State Representative. Marty holds a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law, and a Bachelor of Arts from Colgate University, from which she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She is a resident of South Boston.