In Northfield’s midterm elections, voters faced a ballot question to increase the Community Preservation Act surcharge on real property from 0.5 to 1 percent. CPA allows communities to create a local Community Preservation Fund for open space protection, historic preservation, affordable housing and outdoor recreation. Community preservation money is raised locally through the imposition of a surcharge of not more than 3 percent of the tax levy on real estate, and a community’s voters must agree to this local surtax by referendum.
Northfield adopted the CPA in 2008 at its maximum 3 percent; in 2009, voters lowered that to 0.5 percent. In 2018 came a push to grow this pot of money. In the weeks leading up to election day, members of the Northfield Community Preservation Committee worked hard to educate townspeople about the benefits of CPA money, putting signs around town pointing out “Your CPA Funds at Work.” Ten completed projects were showcased, ranging from repairs to historic buildings including the library, the old high school, Town Hall and First Parish Church, to historical monuments such as the Belcher Fountain and the Civil War Memorial, to housing (Squakheag Village) and the preservation of land for the new Ames Accessible Nature Trail.
Being a property tax increase, it was a hard sell, made all the harder by the failure of the state to live up to its original promise to match 100% of what each municipality raised. In the end, the 2018 ballot question was defeated 553-847.
Indeed, there was scant incentive for voters in Northfield or across the state to cough up more of their own money. As originally conceived, taxpayers’ contributions were to be matched 100 percent by a pool of money created by a $20 fee collected at the state’s Registries of Deeds when property changes hands. That happy state of affairs lasted for six years. But as more towns signed on, the available pool of money had to be cut more ways. By 2008, the state reimbursement had fallen to 67 percent and continued to drop every year. This year, the reimbursement rate was 13.8 percent, boosted by $10 million in state surplus funds to yield a 19 percent reimbursement – a far cry from the original 100 percent.
Just seven towns in Franklin County have adopted the Community Preservation Act (Conway, Deerfield, Leverett, Northfield, Shutesbury, Sunderland and Whately). All joined it in high hopes of preserving history, conserving land and supporting affordable housing in their communities. But since then, it was been subject to push-back from opponents. For example, last fall the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled to bar the disbursement of CPA funds to restore stained glass windows in an historic Acton church. Less clear is the fate of CPA money granted to restore other historic structures in active use as religious institutions. Unfortunately, historic churches are ubiquitous in Franklin County. In the state Legislature, lawmakers have from time to time attempted to raid the CPA trust fund. Even townspeople themselves can ask for a re-do in an attempt to water down the program; in Northfield, for example, the year after CPA was narrowly adopted in 2008, taxpayers passed a surcharge decrease from 3 percent to the present ½ percent in 2009, thus reducing the available pool of money to spend locally.
If the Community Preservation Act is to fulfill its promise – indeed, even survive – our legislators must adjust the funding formula to ensure every CPA community could receive at least a 50 percent match. On the campaign trail, Gov. Charlie Baker promised to do just that, saying, “It’s obvious that there needs to be an adjustment made. We would support that mechanism being increased and I’m assuming it will probably be taken up again in the legislative session. … We would support it and we would sign it.”
A bill to raise the Registry of Deeds filing fees that feed the trust fund has been in the House Ways and Means Committee since May 2017. It’s time for our representatives to vote to pass this bill and for Gov. Baker, now comfortably reelected, to sign it, as promised.
Only then will our towns have a compelling reason to adopt CPA and, for those that already have, to put a bit more of their hard-earned money to work in their community.