Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | January 8, 2018 | Worcester Business Journal 37 Central Mass. affordability helps ease tax bill pain The Worcester Business Journal welcomes letters to the editor and commentary submissions. Please send submissions to Brad Kane, editor, at bkane@wbjournal.com. O n any given day, we might be helping a local business owner open his second location, nego- tiating the number of jobs a new company will bring to Marlborough, or working with the Department of Public Works on its latest downtown beautification proj- ect. If it's Monday night, we're attend- ing the City Council meeting. If it's Tuesday night, we're at the Urban Affairs Subcommittee meeting. The rest of our weekdays and weekends are usually chock full of commit- ments ranging from speaking on a regional panel about Marlborough's bid to host the new Amazon headquarters to picking up garbage along the Assabet River as part of Project Clean Sweep. Economic development is not a profession. It is a pro- cess, an amalgamation of various activities, which, togeth- er, focus on a singular goal: the betterment of a communi- ty. This is what we at the Marlborough Economic Development Corp. do, day in and day out. We are often asked what metrics we use to evaluate our work. For starters, we look at your property tax bill because stabilizing Marlborough's residential tax rate is our core mission. If you own a home in Marlborough, you can think of your tax bill as our report card. By helping busi- nesses to open, move or expand here, we are facilitating the growth of commercial tax revenue for the city, thereby reducing revenue needed from residents. The arrival of large employers, like GE Healthcare Life Sciences, Quest Diagnostics, and TJX Cos., has resulted in a steady decline of Marlborough's residential tax bill. Marlborough now has one of the lowest average single- family tax bills, compared to surrounding communities, which seldom offer the same level of municipal services. The tax revenue generated by new business openings has allowed Marlborough to offer new and improved ser- vices. Over the past few years, tax dollars have paid for major improvements, including revitalizing Memorial Beach, renovating Ward Park, building a new senior cen- ter, constructing two new turf fields, and reconstructing miles of city streets. Marlborough has invested more in its schools, equipping classrooms with cutting-edge technolo- gies. With the influx of employers, local students have access to internships and jobs at world-class companies. Speaking of jobs, we know that's the one thing commu- nities want more of. So, we make it our job to help bring jobs to the community. In the last five years, new company move-ins and business expansions have helped create 6,000 jobs in Marlborough; the city's unemployment rate has dropped by half and now hovers below 3 percent. It is these and other aspects of our work stimulating growth and prosperity for the areas and people we serve. It is how we, economic developers, uplift communities. Meredith Harris is the executive director of the Marlborough Economic Development Corp. Economic growth is a community- driven process A lthough the details from the tax over- haul passed by Republicans in Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in late December are still being picked over, one thing is abundantly clear: Higher cost states (read blue) are about to get more expensive. States like Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and California – which have voted majority Democratic in the last several elec- tions – are being unfairly impacted by the new law. The new law places a $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions made on federal tax returns, as opposed to being able to deduct all of your property taxes and other state taxes on your feder- al return – which was previously allowed. This hurts Massachusetts and other high-prop- erty-value states more than the Alabamas and West Virginias of the nation because residents end up having to shoulder more of the tax burden. However, real estate values vary widely in our state, with the inner Boston suburbs dominating the list of high-cost towns, where even moderately sized homes sell in the seven figures. The median 2017 home price in Worcester County (through November) was $259,000. While that is significantly more than the $102,000 medi- an home value in West Virginia, according to real estate listing site Zillow, Worcester County is still less expensive than 10 of the other 13 Massachusetts counties. Only the western counties of Berkshire, Franklin and Hampden have a lower cost of housing. While Central Massachusetts' more expensive communities like Harvard, Boxborough, Southborough and Paxton will likely be more affected by the new cap, the vast majority of towns in Central Massachusetts will face a mini- mal impact when compared to the eastern part of the state. As Staff Writer Zachary Comeau detailed in his story on Page 4, Worcester County is already becoming a magnet for home ownership. With high prices and high demand pricing people out of Greater Boston, Worcester County had the sec- ond-most home sales in November with 762 while Middlesex County – home to MetroWest communities like Marlborough and Hudson – had the most with 1,005. This, coupled with Worcester's rising profile as a cultural hub, is attracting more people to the city and the region. While the GE's of the world can move into expen- sive digs in Boston and not worry about its top executives affording life in Greater Boston, for most firms looking at Massachusetts, cost of liv- ing is an important factor. The new tax plan may cut taxes on millions of Americans, but like every new law, there will be winners and losers. And while the new tax code may prove to be net negative for the state's resi- dents, the hit will be a lot lighter in affordable communities like Greater Worcester. V I E W P O I N T E D I T O R I A L BY MEREDITH HARRIS Special to the Worcester Business Journal Meredith Harris W W WO R D F R O M T H E W E B Tweets of the week "The @WBJournal this month took a look at Triple-A stadium deals to frame what the @PawSox might mean for Worcester. It's worth a read... Curious why the PawSox declined to comment" - Eli Sherman (@Eli_Sherman), Dec. 29, on a story about the value of a potential minor league baseball stadium deal in Worcester "Congrats Sunny - a great dedicated professor for biotech professionals!" - Patrice Milos (@milospm1206), Dec. 27, on a story about professor Sunny Tam, who's running a new biotech master of business administration program at Framingham State University Facebook feedback "This is my gas station and Dunkin of choice, hope it stays great!" - Jordan Beane, Dec. 31, on a story about a Worcester gas station and store being sold for $2.8 million to the founders of Yatco Energy " Coffee and beer. Fabulous idea." - Mariann Paladino, Dec. 20, on a story about a collaboration between Dunkin Donuts and Wormtown Brewery

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