31 Spring Street, Amherst
Two weeks ago the Amherst
Zoning
Board of
Appeals approved the conversion of
31 Spring Street to a two family abode, thereby doubling its legal occupancy. The house, contiguous with the newly renovated Lord Jeff Inn, is owned by Amherst College, the
largest landowner in town.
The President's House, home to Biddy Martin, is tax exempt
Last year Amherst College, a tax-exempt education institution, paid the town $491,364 for the small part of their vast empire that is on the tax rolls: 31 single family, 5 two-family and 3 three-family houses, the profitable (unlike the town's own Cherry Hill) Amherst Golf Course on South Pleasant Street, the Dakin Property (purchased for $4.3 million in 2005) contiguous with the golf course and the scenic overlook at 69 South Pleasant Street.
In addition last year the college donated $90,000 in unrestricted funds to the town General Fund mainly for emergency services protection provided by
Amherst
Fire
Department.
Although a couple years earlier, before the endowment took a major hit, Amherst College had donated $120,000 to the town they are named after.
Those donations have traditionally (if you call three or four years a tradition) taken place at the start of the New Year. This past January/February, however, no announcements were forthcoming. Odd, since their endowment is now comfortably at a historic all time high, $1.64 BILLION.
Meanwhile the "5 year strategic agreement" with UMass/Amherst expires next month. That
Payment In
Lieu
Of
Taxes generated $325,000 per year (plus the regular $100,000 the state always gives Amherst for
all state owned land in the town). Umass is the
second largest landowner in Amherst--all of it tax exempt except for the Campus Center Hotel that, grudgingly, pays the local option hotel/motel meals tax.
Of course the closing and return of Mark's Meadow Elementary School to the University is a
major change.
Former Mark's Meadow Elementary School
According to the expiring 5-year Town/Gown "strategic agreement":
“If, in the future, the Town builds a new elementary school and
vacates the Mark’s Meadow facility, the Town, AES, ARPS and the
University will negotiate a new agreement in which the University may
reimburse the Town for a portion of the net costs of educating students
living in University tax-exempt housing. "
Estimates of the number of children attending Amherst Public Schools from our tax exempt flagship University are somewhere between 50 and 60 (two of them
Chancellor Holub's children), with our current average cost to educate at $16,413 per student, significantly over the $13,055 state average.
In other words, the $1 million it costs us to educate children coming from UMass tax exempt housing is more than double the amount they currently pay the town.
Last week Amherst Town Meeting approved an Elementary School Budget $218,000 in the red, which had to be made up by tapping reserves, currently around $6 million, but less than 10% of general fund operating revenues.
The Fire Department also spends about 25% of its time dealing with
University related emergencies; and with the AFD budget at $4
million, that too comes to a cool $1 million annually. Recently the firefighers union called upon the town and Umass to consider as part of the negotiations enough (extra) money to fund the addition of two new additional firefighter positions.
Considering the stress placed on AFD just from recent
Mullins Center concerts (run by a
for profit company cloaked under a tax exempt entity) a reasonable request.
Last night Amherst Town Meeting overwhelmingly approved the town operating budget (police/fire/DPW etc) without a single mention of negotiations with UMass, a guaranteed six digit amount for the FY13 budget. And no questions concerning the supposedly imminent deal with Blue Wave Capital for placing a $10 million solar farm on the old landfill, thus generating six-digit savings in electric costs on top of $200,000 in annual property taxes.
And then we have the runt of the litter, Hampshire College, who pays the town
zero in
Payment in
Lieu of
Taxes and a grand total of $61,613 in property taxes for a few houses and the Bay Road Tennis Club. Yet expensive trips to Hampshire College are as routine as rain for the
Amherst
Fire
Department.
Black Walnuts near Hampshire College main entrance. College gave the state a bike lane easement to save trees, but charged the town $200,000 in paving for an easement for Atkins Corner Project
All in all tax exempts own just over
half of Amherst, meaning the other half--homeowners and to a minuscule extent, businesses--have to make up that dramatic imbalance. And on top of that we have the most expensive average school costs in the region at $16,413 per pupil, spending a whopping $12 million more per year than our sister city Northampton.
But town officials still act like beggars, pleading with our tax exempt institutes of higher education to "spare a dime." It's time to get serious...and ask (nicely) for
real money.
