WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Community Preservation Committee on Tuesday voted to backtrack on a plan to ask town meeting to increase the town's Community Preservation Act surcharge on local property tax bills.

 

And it heard arguments that the town should be asked whether to pull out of the CPA program altogether.

 

Earlier this month, the panel voted 6-2 to develop an article for the May annual town meeting warrant that would have asked whether the town should increase the current 2 percent surcharge (with the first $100,000 of property value excepted) to 3 percent, the maximum allowed under the CPA.

 

Committee members argued that raising the local surcharge to the maximum would unlock significantly more in matching funds from the commonwealth. Hypothetically, for example, the town would have received nearly twice the state funding for CPA projects in FY24 (the most recent year available) had it charged a 3 percent surcharge instead of the current 2 percent.

 

After hearing two members of the town's Finance Committee, a former Select Board member and one member of the public question whether the CPA surcharge makes sense at all for the town, five members of the CPC at Tuesday's meeting voted not to put the surcharge increase warrant article to a vote at the annual town meeting.

 

Nate Budington, one of four members to flip their votes from the Feb. 4 meeting, joined others in saying he was on the fence on the issue in light of the ever-increasing tax burden faced by property owners to support town and school operations.

 

"As to the surcharge, like other people, I went back and forth. I've had a couple of conversations with people on Spring Street about the demise of the [Williamstown Theatre Festival] and what that's meant to their business," Budington said. "And I don't think that's going to get any better. If anything, it's going in the wrong direction. And that's ominous to me.