Activists donned Christmas outfits and decked the halls outside of Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s office with song Tuesday demanding that tax-exempt nonprofit institutions pay the amount requested in the city’s payment in lieu of taxes program.
“I live in the city, I pay property taxes,” said Enid Eckstein of the PILOT Action Group. “We feel like this is an issue that’s really timely in the city, and we’re hoping that in 2019, the city will take a more sophisticated, hard look at what this is.”
The group staged the demonstration at City Hall, where it joined community members and a brass band in singing Christmas songs with lyrics changed to “Jingle bells, jingle bells, PILOT’s on the way,” and “Joy to the schools, the funding’s come,” before trekking to Walsh’s office to present 1,000 signatures to the mayor, demanding that the city improve its PILOT program.
“That money goes to really important city services,” said Alissa Zimmer, a Northeastern student and member of the PILOT Action Group, who served as emcee of the event. “… things that we all need and that those institutions benefit from, too.”
The PILOT program, which started in 2011, is a voluntary program in which the city asks nonprofits such as universities and hospitals to give voluntary contributions through cash and community benefits.
This past summer At-Large Councilor Annissa Essaibi-George and District 1 Councilor Lydia Edwards held a hearing demanding that the city’s wealthiest nonprofits “pay their fair share,” after a report done by the PILOT Action Group revealed that $77 million in overdue payments hadn’t been made.
Essaibi-George told the Herald Tuesday that the properties also need to have values updated and a list posted on those who don’t pay their share.
“When you think about our residents in this city and our property owners in the City of Boston, they have had their property reassessed regularly,” she said.
Samantha Ormsby, a spokeswoman for Walsh, said: “We continue to work with partners who participate in the voluntary PILOT program to achieve 100 percent participation on their payment and community benefits.”
