Six tax-exempt Boston cultural institutions relieved of PILOT payment duties

Six tax-exempt cultural institutions taking part in the city s free Sundays museum initiative for Boston schoolchildren and their families have been relieved of their PILOT payment responsibilities The Boston Children s Museum Institute of Contemporary Art Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Museum of Fine Arts Museum of Science and New England Aquarium are no longer part of the city s Payment of Lieu of Tax Operation according to new PILOT input for last year that was issued by the city Friday The city had requested PILOT payments from those six cultural institutions for years but did not do so in fiscal year Their removal from the plan is due to their participation in Boston Family Days a mayoral initiative that waives museum fees for all city schoolchildren and three of their family members on two Sundays each month We can confirm that yes this is related to Boston Family Days and the agreement between the Mayor s office and the cultural partners participating in that effort a spokesperson for Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum commented in a Friday email to the Herald A New England Aquarium spokesperson validated the aquarium no longer receives a PILOT bill from the City of Boston while referring any specific questions on that to the city The four other cultural institutions and Mayor Michelle Wu s office did not forthwith respond to a request for comment Wu has advocated for the removal of cultural institutions from the PILOT campaign in the past Collectively nine of those institutions met just of their requested PILOT payment and contributed less than in cash in FY The three that remain Boston Symphony Orchestra GBH and Longwood Collective met of their requested PILOT payment last year Those nonprofits collectively contributed in cash in FY and the same amount in region benefits or services such as college scholarships medical and employment initiatives that the participating institutions assessment as providing to the city and its residents Under the PILOT operation private institutions with tax-exempt property in excess of million make voluntary payments amounting to roughly of what they would have paid in real estate taxes Payments are split between cash and area benefits credits City information show participating educational diagnostic and cultural institutions collectively met of their requested million PILOT payment last year Of the million total contribution just million was paid in cash with the remaining amount taking the form of region benefits credits Related Articles Boston s tax-exempt sector comes up M short of City Hall s requested PILOT bill evidence Battenfeld Trump supporter super PAC donation more ammo for Wu Boston working group recommends physical condition care reuse of Dorchester s shuttered Carney Hospital site Boston Water and Sewer Commission parts methods with its K HR director amid civil fraud assertions Trump administration s visit to Boston to probe college antisemitism is off While homeowners were hit with double-digit tax hikes this past January tax-exempt institutions that include the city s biggest hospitals and colleges failed to pony up million of their requested PILOT payment The lack of full compliance from multiple of the participating institutions has long been a source of contention Advocates and specific elected administrators have argued that the city s wealthy nonprofit sector is not paying its fair share of city taxes while that sector has pointed to the area benefits its institutions provide The Wu administration is in the process of negotiating with nine of the biggest nonprofits in Boston to ink long-term volunteer PILOT payments to help ease the tax burden on homeowners and businesses Boston s tax-exempt sector comes up M short of City Hall s requested PILOT bill figures This file is auto-generated function d l use strict l querySelector d addEventListener undefined typeof URL d wp d wp d wp receiveEmbedMessage d wp receiveEmbedMessage function e var t e figures if t t secret t message t value a-zA-Z - test t secret for var s r n a l querySelectorAll 'iframe data-secret ' t secret ' ' o l querySelectorAll 'blockquote data-secret ' t secret ' ' c new RegExp https i i i