Legislature OK’s FY25 supplemental budget with tax title updates

The Legislature enacted a fiscal 2025 supplemental budget bill on July 31 that would allocate $259 million in spending and make technical updates to the tax title foreclosure process.

The bill (S. 2575) 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.

S. 2575 would clarify that the reduced interest rate would apply only to tax title takings that occurred after Nov. 1, 2024.

S. 2575 would also extend 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; S. 2575 would extend 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.

The funding in the supplemental budget bill 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

The bill awaits Gov. Maura Healey’s signature in order to become law.

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