Williamstown Select Board Finalizes Property Tax Relief Measure for Town Meeting
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board last week finalized a request to town meeting to change the parameters of a property tax relief program for residents aged 60 and over.
At last year's annual town meeting, members approved a proposal to lower the age of eligibility from 65 to 60 for the 41C senior exemption, which gives eligible residents a break of $1,000 on their property tax bills.
In order to open the program to more residents, the Select Board this year wants voters to okay increases to the income limit and asset limit for eligibility.
Currently in town, the income limits are $21,846 for a single person and $32,769 for a married couple. The asset maximums are $43,692 for a single person and $60,076 for a couple.
At its March 9 meeting, the four members of the board agreed those numbers should be raised from the current thresholds but could not agree on where to set the new limit.
Peter Beck had volunteered to come back to the March 23 session with some proposals based on his research. He reported last Monday that after looking at other income- and asset-restricted programs at the state and federal level, he found a variety of limits.
"I think all the numbers we were looking at a couple of weeks ago are reasonable," Beck said. "They're all backed up by some kind of program. … I'd propose doubling [Williamstown's income limit] which gets us to about 50 percent of the area median income: $44,000 for a single person, $66,000 for married.
"For assets, different programs use different asset limits. A lot use the same number for income and asset. They say if you have less than a year's worth of income saved, you're qualified."
That asset limit does not include the resident's home or car, but it does include things like cash in the bank, retirement plans or other valuable personal property, Beck told his colleagues.
"If you lived on a lake and had a boat, for example, the boat would count," he said. "The car wouldn't. … [Different government programs] have different things exempted. Some include a car up to a certain value. Some include a retirement account and some don't. For a lot of state programs, the asset level is $75,000. That's one benchmark. But benchmarks are pretty loose because of what's included.
"Often the federal limit is $100,000."
Beck suggested that the town set its asset limit at $100,000, which is close to the statutory cap of $112,000 under Massachusetts' 41C program.
His proposal to effectively double the income maximums and significantly raise the asset limits would allow the town to get a sense of how many residents would apply. The limits can always be raised again if not enough seniors are taking advantage of the program, he said.
"I think it's probably going to take two years for us to get a sense of how many applicants there are," Stephanie Boyd said. "I'd be happy to go with [Beck's] numbers. We'll probably ask [town hall] how it's going next year and then decide what we want to do."
Shana Dixon asked whether her colleagues thought the $100,000 asset limit might be too high.
Beck again pointed to the wide variation in income and asset limits for various government programs.
"At that asset level, you still qualify for federal housing programs," he said. "[$100,000] is high relative to state income-restricted housing but low relative to the state age-restricted housing programs."
Dixon said it still struck her as a lot of money to have in the bank while seeking town help with one's property taxes.
Town Manager Robert Menicocci countered that the income level is still relatively low (well below the area-median income, for example).
"It's not unheard of to have some degree of assets," Menicocci said. "If you have no income and have to siphon off from $100,000 in the bank, it's not a lot of money over the span of time. Over 20 years, that $44,000 [in income] plus a little money in the bank is not going to go very far."
In the end, the board voted, 4-0, to ask town meeting to raise the local 41C income thresholds to $44,000 (single) and $66,000 (married) and the asset maximum to $100,000.
The Select Board also advanced two town meeting warrant articles coming from the Planning Board.
In a 4-0 vote, the Select Board referred back to the planners for a public hearing a proposal to amend the town's 2019 accessory dwelling unit bylaw.
Most of the proposal that will go to town meeting is designed to bring the town into compliance with recent state law requiring greater access to ADUs. Boyd, who was on the Planning Board in 2019 when it put the bylaw before town meeting, asked what happens if this May's town meeting fails to pass the amendments needed to bring the bylaw into compliance with the Affordable Homes Act passed in 2025 on Beacon Hill.
"Then we'd be in violation of state law," current Planning Board Chair Kenneth Kuttner replied. "I honestly don't know what comes next. That's something we'd have to put to town counsel. I'll leave it to the attorneys in this room to figure that out."
The Select Board also Monday agreed on a 4-0 vote to put on the town meeting warrant a request to designate Williamstown as a Seasonal Community. The Planning Board brought the proposal to the table, but the Select Board, noting it's not a typical Planning Board-sponsored article, like a zoning bylaw change, opted to bring the question to town meeting on its own.
In other business, the Select Board voted, 4-0, to direct Menicocci to find money in the town's budget to make a $5,000 contribution to the committee organizing events on July 3 to extend the town's Independence Day celebration light of the coming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Tags: annual town meeting, property taxes, tax exemption,
