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State Surplus Finalized: CPA to Receive $25 Million

Posted on: April 30, 2018 - 4:54pm

Nov. 5, 2013: Today marks an important landmark in our six-year legislative effort to secure additional funding for the statewide CPA Trust Fund. According to the Commonwealth's Statutory Basis Financial Report (SBFR) released today, the state's FY2013 budget surplus will be sufficient to transfer $25 million to the statewide CPA Trust Fund this month. In the report released today, State Comptroller Martin J. Benison wrote:

"...the Commonwealth...completed the fiscal year with a consolidated net surplus of $106.8 million, sufficient to meet statutory requirements, as set out in the FY14 General Appropriation Act and FY13 final supplemental appropriation bill, to provide $25 million to the Massachusetts Community Preservation Trust Fund..."

The $25 million will be combined with the fees collected on transactions at the state's Registries of Deeds, the traditional source of revenue for the CPA Trust Fund. There's good news there, too. As the real estate market has recovered, the Registry filing fees collected for CPA have risen almost 6% during the past twelve months.

What percent match will communities receive this year?

The Massachusetts Department of Revenue (DOR) will release the Community Preservation Trust Fund distribution amounts for each CPA municipality by November 15th. The Coalition will send another bulletin with the final distribution amounts as soon as they are available.

The Coalition is grateful to our legislative sponsors, Representative Stephen Kulik and Senator Cynthia Stone Creem, who led the successful effort to provide this additional funding for the CPA Trust Fund. We are thankful for the support of House Speaker Bob DeLeo, House Ways & Means Chairman Brian Dempsey, House Minority Leader Bradley Jones, Senate President Therese Murray, Senate Ways & Means Chairman Stephen Brewer, and Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr. 

We also thank our many CPA legislative supporters and the 100+ statewide organizations who advocated for this important legislation. But most of all we are grateful to you, the CPA advocates across the state. Through your hard work on CPA at both the local and state level, you have created a program that is a national model. Congratulations on this important milestone!