As property taxes spike for Boston residents, the Massachusetts Senate on Thursday once again shot down a measure pushed by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu that aimed to mitigate painful tax increases for homeowners, while approving alternative tax relief proposals that face a cool reception at City Hall.
Thursday marked the first time the full Senate formally weighed in on Wu’s proposal, which would temporarily increase how much Boston can tax commercial properties relative to residential properties, to ease the transition to higher taxes for homeowners.
The legislation has been the subject of a bitter, nearly two-year-long battle between Wu’s administration and powerful Democrats in the upper chamber, who blocked her proposal from even getting a vote on Beacon Hill three times prior to Thursday. This week’s vote marked another, harsher blow to a mayor who has struggled to get her legislation passed by the state Legislature.
In a bid to revive Wu’s measure, state Senator Michael Rush, a Democrat from West Roxbury, filed an amendment that largely mirrored Wu’s proposal, tacking it on to a separate property tax relief bill. But Rush’s amendment failed 5-33 after senators debated it for roughly 30 minutes.
In addition to Rush, the amendment was backed by three Democratic senators who represent parts of Boston — Sal DiDomenico, Lydia Edwards, and Liz Miranda — as well as Senator Pat Jehlen, a Somerville Democrat.
State Senator William Brownsberger, who also represents parts of Boston and voted against the amendment, argued it would set a bad precedent to give the city a temporary exemption from the state law that allows municipalities to tax commercial properties only at a rate up to 175 percent of the residential rate.
“This is a ceiling, this is a guardrail. This is saying we’re not going to go further away from that fundamental principle of everybody pays the same,” Brownsberger said on the Senate floor Thursday. “If we voted for this amendment and passed it today, the result would be that we would have this request from every other city” with a similar tax structure.
Instead, the Senate debated and passed several alternative tax relief measures Thursday.
The Senate voted 37-1 to pass a bill filed by Brownsberger, which would allow municipalities to offer property tax credits to certain vulnerable homeowners to prevent a dramatic spike in their third and fourth quarter tax bills in years when residential property taxes are poised to increase more than 10 percent. Under the legislation, those credits would have to be funded by the municipalities themselves; the state would not offer any funding.
The Senate also approved a bill filed by state Senator Nick Collins, one of Wu’s chief antagonists on Beacon Hill. Collins’s legislation would allow cities and towns to offer uniform tax rebates to homeowners who received a residential exemption in their tax bills and meet certain other qualifications. Those rebates would also be funded locally — a prospect Wu has not embraced. The bill advanced with several amendments, two of which would let municipalities expand the personal property tax exemption as well as the senior property tax exemption. Another amendment would extend the deadline for homeowners to appeal their property valuations.
Both bills now head to the House.
The Senate on Thursday also passed two other property tax relief bills, which would loosen eligibility requirements for seniors who want to defer their property tax payments, and make it easier for municipalities to offer tax exemptions to seniors in need.
In a statement Thursday morning, a spokesperson for the mayor indicated Wu is skeptical of using city funds to offer tax breaks and slammed the proposals by Brownsberger and Collins as “costly” alternatives to the city’s pitch.
“As sky-high housing costs continue to push families out of Boston and Massachusetts, we can’t afford to burden residents with continued double-digit property tax increases while commercial properties get significant tax breaks under state tax laws,” the spokesperson said.
The Senate proposals passed Thursday would “require sacrificing needed funding for city services,” the spokesperson said.
In a statement after the Rush amendment failed, Wu thanked the senators who backed her proposal. The measure has received approval from the City Council and state House several times since 2024.
Wu first sought Beacon Hill’s permission nearly two years ago to shift more of the city’s property tax burden onto commercial properties in order to soften coming tax spikes for homeowners.
More than 70 percent of Boston’s budget is funded by property taxes, and the city already taxes commercial properties at 175 percent the residential property tax rate, the highest differential allowed by state law. But in recent years, residential property values have risen while commercial values have fallen, largely due to increasingly empty office buildings downtown, as companies pivoted to remote work policies after the COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s meant that homeowners have seen significant increases in their tax bills to make up for the lost revenue from commercial properties, whose taxes, on average, dropped. This time last year, the property taxes for the average single family home in Boston went up 10.4 percent year-over-year, and this month, homeowners saw another 13 percent increase, on average.
Niki Griswold can be reached at niki.griswold@globe.com. Follow her @nikigriswold.