A Republican state representative from Norwell on Friday again prevented Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s property tax home rule petition from progressing in the state House.
Representative David DeCoste for the second time in two days used a procedural move to delay the legislation, which Wu has said urgently needs state lawmakers’ and the governor’s approval before the end of the month, to give the City Council and state revenue officials time to set property tax rates before tax bills are sent out in early January.
The proposal would give the city the authority to temporarily shift more of Boston’s property tax burden onto commercial real estate, beyond what is allowed by state law, to prevent residential property owners from seeing a significant spike in their January tax bills. This latest iteration of the measure is a compromise that has the blessing of Wu and major business groups that had opposed the original legislation for months.
Though he does not represent any part of Boston, DeCoste on Thursday said he blocked the bill because he was concerned about the economic impact the measure would have beyond Boston.
On Friday, he doubted the presence of a quorum — or whether there were more than half of the chamber’s 157 representatives present for a vote — the same maneuver he used to delay the bill on Thursday.
Representative Rob Consalvo of Boston, a former Boston City Councilor who was the sponsor of the legislation on Beacon Hill, said Friday he hopes to meet with DeCoste over the weekend to discuss the proposal.
“I really give the mayor a lot of credit and the business community for coming together and finding this compromise, so I’m happy to sit down with him over coffee and chat with him about how we think we might get to yes,” Consalvo said. “At the end of the day, he’s doing his job as a state representative. He’s following the rules, he has the ability to do that, so it’s incumbent upon me, and the mayor and our other colleagues to try to convince him, and I’m happy to do whatever I need to do over the weekend, and make that happen.”
More than 70 percent of Boston’s budget is funded by property taxes. But due to a decline in downtown commercial real estate values as a result of the rise of remote work post-pandemic, the city faces the prospect of either levying significantly higher tax rates on residential property owners to make up the difference, or cutting what officials say would be hundreds of millions of dollars from the budget. Wu’s measure would mitigate that spike, easing the transition to higher residential property tax rates over a three-year period.
The House had previously voted to pass an earlier iteration of Wu’s proposal during formal sessions over the summer, before the measure stalled for months in the state Senate. The current version of Wu’s proposal is a compromise with business groups that had lobbied against her original home rule petition. A legislative committee advanced the bill to the full House Thursday morning, after Wu testified in support of the tweaked bill during a hearing on the issue Wednesday.
The House is slated to return for another informal session on Monday, where the bill could emerge again. But should less than half of the House’s members show up — a likely scenario given the time of year — DeCoste or another representative could stall the bill’s passage another time.
Friday’s delay highlighted the challenge the Legislature’s Democratic leaders face in trying to move legislation through lightly attended informal sessions.
Even with a super majority in both chambers, Democrats have repeatedly watched bills stall amid GOP opposition over the last year after they allowed major legislation to bleed past the deadlines lawmakers create for themselves to hold formal votes.
Wu didn’t immediately respond to a Friday request for comment. On Thursday, she said it was “disappointing to see a procedural delay used on a local home-rule petition, especially because the State Representatives from Boston already voted to support this measure and it’s their constituents who are facing the potential for a devastating tax hike that our consensus solution would address.”
Matt Stout of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Niki Griswold can be reached at niki.griswold@globe.com. Follow her @nikigriswold.