News release from the Preservation Without Taxation Committee

A group of Milton citizens is pleased to announce they have formed the Preservation Without Taxation (PWT) committee in response to the CPA tax ballot question that, if passed, will create a new permanent tax on Milton property owners.

The PWT Committee, led by Bill Bennett and former Milton Treasurer/Collector Kevin Sorgi, the committee treasurer, is educating voters about the CPA, an acronym for Community Preservation Act; a tax that will appear on the November 6th ballot as Question #4.

The group is urging residents to vote No on Question #4.

Bill Bennett, one of Milton’s assessors said, “The CPA tax will be portrayed as a small annual amount to the average homeowner, but will cost each of us thousands of dollars more over the 10 to 20 years we live in our homes.”

The CPA tax if passed, will add 1.5% to every property tax bill above the first $100,000 of assessed value. Its use is limited to affordable housing development, open space purchase, parks improvements, historic preservation and conversion of historic properties for affordable housing.
We formed this committee to explain to Milton residents why the CPA proponents have overstated its benefits.

Open Space – Did you know that Milton is already 38% open space? We already have a large portion of our potentially taxable land off the tax rolls. Milton is built out with very little room for growth. Milton’s tax free land includes a college, a hospital, an internationally recognized private school with significant holdings, several other private schools and 12 houses of worship. This fact already places a heavy financial burden on the individual property owner to pay for delivery of basic services. No other town in the greater Boston area has more protected space than Milton.

Parks – For the past 6 years, our town’s budget has risen more each year than the CPA would raise each year. Every year, Town Meeting funds our Parks department. If the citizens think parks are a priority, we already have the money to build or maintain any parks we want.

Affordable Housing – Did you know that the most significant benefit of the 40(b) law accrue to the developer and not the end user? And it supersedes local zoning that is obviously so important to our town.

Historic Preservation – Why is the CPA required to maintain our firehouses when we just formed a Consolidated Facilities department to achieve greater building maintenance savings and efficiency?

Conversion of Historic Properties – Did you realize that converting private buildings to historic status would remove more tax paying properties from our roles, further increasing the burden on the rest of us? The tax money designated to historic preservation doesn’t necessarily translate to the preservation of historic buildings. One town used CPA tax money for what it called the ‘historic archiving of town records’. Cities and towns are bound by law to archive its records; the costs are covered in the annual budget.

The PWT committee believes that Milton taxpayers have been very generous, supporting construction of the Council on Aging building, 6 new schools that far exceeded original estimates and a new library as well as overrides in the millions.

Kevin Sorgi said, “If we continue to follow the town’s current budgeting approach, an operational override becomes necessary every few years to maintain basic services. I’m afraid if the CPA passes, the voters will reject an operational override which will negatively impact the schools, police, fire and other essential services.”

The Preservation Without Taxation committee welcomes and wants Milton residents to help defeat passage of Question #4 in any way they can.

For more information, please email info@preservationwithouttaxation.org and visit their website at www.preservationwithouttaxation.org.