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Lawmakers moved closer to reviving a stalled economic development bill they shelved two and a half months ago now that Auditor Suzanne Bump on Thursday certified that Massachusetts must return nearly $3 billion to taxpayers.
The monthslong Beacon Hill kerfuffle over tax relief and economic development lurched into a new phase with publication of Bump’s report, which confirmed the Baker administration’s projection that surging state tax revenues blew about $2.94 billion past the amount allowed under a 1986 voter-approved law.
The bill’s stalling in July raised fears that a range of projects, like Lupoli Cos.’ conversion of a disused Littleton office park into an extension of the town’s center commercial district, wouldn’t get vitally needed state funding to get off the ground. The Senate’s version of the economic development bill also included a provision legalizing accessory dwelling units on many single-family lots 5,000 square feet or larger statewide, considered a vital step in creating more housing after decades of under-building.
The spotlight now shifts back to the executive branch, which hasn’t said how and when it plans to distribute the mandatory relief, and to top House and Senate Democrats, whose froze their tax relief and spending plans after learning that Massachusetts was on track to trigger the tax cap law for the first time in 35 years.
Legislative leaders signaled Thursday that they will work to pluck some form of the $4 billion economic development and tax relief bill from limbo and advance a $1.6 billion fiscal year 2022 closeout budget that sets aside money for the Chapter 62F relief. They offered few details on the scope or timeline for action, however, and both branches gaveled out for the weekend without taking any new steps.
“We will be moving forward on something now that we have the finite knowledge of how much money we have,” Senate Ways and Means Committee Co-chair Michael Rodrigues, who co-chairs a conference committee tasked with negotiating a final bill, told the News Service.
The roughly $1 billion in tax relief lawmakers wove into the original House and Senate bills, including $500 million in one-time rebates and $500 million in targeted tax law changes, “are all in conversation,” Rodrigues said, stressing that the final contours are “still to be determined.” House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka have taken different tacks on how big the bill’s price tag can be, with Spilka publicly arguing that the state legislature could afford both its original tax relief proposal and the required returns and Mariano keeping his foot on the brakes.
“I called it the kitchen sink bill before, and now it’s just a bigger kitchen sink because we also have the final closeout,” the Westport Democrat said.
House- and Senate-approved versions of an economic development bill (H.5034 / S.3030), both of which sought to combine American Rescue Plan Act funds, surplus tax revenues and bond authorizations to make a slew of investments, remain bottled up in a six-member conference committee tasked with producing a final accord.
Rodrigues is joined on that panel by Sens. Eric Lesser of Longmeadow and Patrick O’Connor of Weymouth; the House conferees are Reps. Aaron Michlewitz of Boston, Mark Cusack of Braintree and Michael Soter of Bellingham.
It was not immediately clear Thursday if the conference committee had scheduled a meeting to examine Bump’s report or continue its work, though Rodrigues said he spent the summer “in constant contact and conversation” with Michlewitz and the Baker administration.
Sam Doran contributed reporting.
