Gov. signs FY25 supplemental budget with tax title updates

Gov. Maura Healey yesterday signed a fiscal 2025 supplemental budget that allocates $259 million in spending and makes technical updates to the tax title foreclosure process.

The law includes a clarification that there is only a prospective impact from the recently reduced interest rate on the original sum of property taxes or other municipal charges owed.

The fiscal 2025 state budget reduced the tax title interest rate from 16% to 8%, but a Land Court decision later determined that the reduced rate applied retrospectively, which is at odds with both the legislative intent and a Division of Local Services bulletin issued last year.

The supplemental budget law clarifies that the reduced interest rate applies only to tax title takings that occurred after Nov. 1, 2024.

The law also extends the deadline for making a determination of whether to retain or sell a property after a final judgment of the Land Court that forecloses the right of redemption. Last year’s state budget law gave a municipality 14 days to make this decision; the supplemental budget law extends the timeframe to 30 days.

Since the tax title law was changed last year, the MMA has been actively working to get these critical technical changes made.

Spending in the supplemental budget includes the following:
• $60 million for home care services for the elderly
• $42.9 million for rental assistance for families in transition
• $40 million for the Committee for Public Counsel Services
• $15.5 million for the Department of Transitional Assistance’s electronic benefits transfer chip cards
• $10 million for extraordinary EMS cost reimbursements
• $7.5 million for the Healthy Incentives Program

Written by Ali DiMatteo, MMA Legislative and Policy Counsel, and Adrienne Núñez, MMA Senior Legislative Analyst