Our FY24 Annual Report: The Coalition's Year-in-Review
Our annual report is an overview of the Coalition's activities on behalf of CPA municipalities during the last year - as well as a preview of our future plans and priorities.
Collaborations with the Department of Revenue: Improving Transparency for CPA Communities
Over the last year, the Coalition staff has had the opportunity to collaborate with the MA Department of Revenue (DOR) on a variety of initiatives to help bring more transparency to the statewide CPA program.
Responding to a longstanding request from the Coalition, we were pleased to see DOR’s Data Analytics and Resources Bureau release a new public database on the annual CP-2 reports submitted by CPA municipalities. These CP-2 forms provide detailed records regarding the financial components of each community’s local CPA program, but this information had never been accessible online until this year. Coalition staff worked with DOR to design a usable interface so that residents across the state can better understand how their community’s CPA financial accounts are being handled, and we also curated reports on the most requested CP-2 data for the “CPA Databank” on our website.
Additionally, the Coalition provided substantial assistance to DOR during the November 2023 CPA Trust Fund distribution. Due to staff departures, DOR requested assistance from Coalition staff to review and reconcile several significant issues with the distribution process. Crucially, we were able to help DOR identify missing CPA communities in the draft distribution spreadsheet to prevent any towns from missing out on their matching funds. Coalition staff also caught an error in the initial distribution: the 2nd and 3rd round distribution payments were not issued to eligible CPA communities on November 15th, and so we worked quickly with DOR staff to address this oversight.
Lastly, DOR has not provided a spring estimate for fall Trust Fund distribution in recent years, making it difficult for local communities to pass accurate CPA annual budgets. We advocated successfully for DOR to return to this important practice this year.
CPA Advocacy: A Fluctuating CPA Trust Fund and Plans for the Future
Massachusetts has experienced declining state revenues recently, and this has had a substantial impact on the CPA Trust Fund. Despite our advocacy in 2023, there were no state budget surplus funds available, and our recent communications at the State House indicate that this will very likely be the case again this year. Due to a struggling real estate market and a low probability of state budget surplus funding, CPA communities are bracing for decreased revenue from the Trust Fund for the time being.
The Coalition continues to advocate for new revenue sources to bolster the funding available for CPA cities and towns. Two initiatives were included in the recently passed Senate Housing Bond Bill with the potential to impact CPA revenue for municipalities. The first was a new grant program with $50 million for CPA municipalities that have actively utilized over 10% of their total CPA revenue towards housing production, incentivizing communities to be more proactive about CPA housing investments. The second initiative was the formation of a CPA study commission (which would have included representation from the Community Preservation Coalition) to study the efficacy of CPA statewide and recommend improvements to the program. However, both of these initiatives were unfortunately dropped from the final version of the bill when it was released by the closed-door Conference Committee on the very last day of the legislative session.
Completing the Coalition Transition to a New Fiscal Sponsor
One year ago, the Coalition successfully made its transition to our new fiscal sponsor at Third Sector New England. And while this process was not without its hurdles, we are pleased to report that we have securely settled into TSNE’s infrastructure, and all of our staff, IT, and database systems are now fully operational. Along with many process and reporting improvements, the move to TSNE provides lower overhead rates for the Coalition, allowing us to expand our staff later this year. We would like to especially thank each of our member communities for their patience during this process, and to the municipal accounting staff in these 196 municipalities that worked to update our records in their systems.
Regional CPA Updates, Training New CPC’s, and Our Latest “CPA Bootcamp”
The first half of 2024 involved a flurry of activity from local Community Preservation Committees requesting updates and training presentations from the Coalition staff — and we were thrilled to help! With the COVID-19 pandemic in the rear-view mirror, CPC’s are beginning to meet in person again, so the Coalition has been traveling across the state to provide presentations on CPA program updates, best practices, and advice on analyzing CPA project proposals. In just the last few months, Coalition staff has presented to over a dozen communities including a regional presentation for communities in the Springfield area.
We were also busy helping the newest CPA communities by providing our full CPC training seminars. Over the last year, we’ve trained each of the newly assembled CPC’s in all of the towns that adopted CPA in 2022 and 2023, including Boylston, Hopedale, Pepperell, Natick, Shelburne, Shirley, Westborough, and Worcester.
Aside from our in-person presentations, the Coalition brought back our popular “CPA Bootcamp” webinar series in June. Our latest webinar was designed to help CPC members better understand the more complicated facets of CPA, including a deep-dive discussion on utilizing the CPA Allowable Uses chart when considering project proposals. Over 200 CPC members, administrators, and municipal staff across 127 different CPA municipalities registered for the webinar, and your feedback made it clear that our members are already looking forward to new webinar offerings in the fall.
Preparing for a CPA Milestone: 200+ CPA Communities on the Horizon
CPA adoption activity has picked up in a big way throughout the last year. With a high-profile election coming up this November, we’ve seen enormous interest from local advocates working to bring CPA to their communities.
During a whirlwind town meeting season this spring, eight different communities succeeded in placing the question of CPA adoption on the November 2024 ballot. Residents in Clarksburg, Halifax, Rutland, Sheffield, Sherborn, Spencer, Swampscott, and Winchester will all now be voting on local CPA adoption proposals at the ballot. In addition, advocates in Colrain, Douglas, and Townsend have all started signature-collection campaigns for a ballot question petition in an attempt to advance CPA to the November ballot. With the potential for 11 different communities voting on CPA adoption this year, it’s very likely that we will see the total number of CPA municipalities finally crest over 200 this fall.
Coalition Operations
The Coalition was proud to welcome several new members to our Steering Committee, representing two of our non-profit partner organizations and one new CPA community representative. These new members include:
- Jessica Rudden-Dube, Executive Director for Preservation Massachusetts
- Jennifer Dubois, Managing Director of Land Conservation for The Trustees
- Thadine Brown, Director of the Boston CPA Program
We are also incredibly excited to begin the long-awaited hiring process for a new Legislative and Research Director for the Coalition staff. This is the first time that we’ve been in the position to bring on a new hire for the Coalition team since 2019, and this new staff member will play an integral role in advancing our newly established strategic goals for both our organization and the statewide CPA program.
The Coalition completed another year on firm financial footing (see our budget summary report to the right). We are deeply grateful for the support of our member communities and thank them for their advocacy on behalf of CPA, as well as their work on hundreds of impressive housing, recreation, historic, and open space projects that were completed over the last year.