Report: Ten percent of Southborough property is tax-exempt

Fay School West Campus
One of the houses owned by Fay School

The Metrowest Daily News did an article on PILOT contributions in Metrowest towns, Southborough included. The article presents some interesting figures I haven’t seen elsewhere:

  • Southborough has $2.2 billion worth of taxed properties and $243 million worth of tax-exempt properties. If I did my math right — all those zeros make me dizzy — that means 10% of property in town is not taxed. Keep in mind that some of that property is owned by the town.
  • Since 2000, Fay School has purchased seven single-family homes and a vacant parcel of land, which in total were assessed last year at $4.7 million. The taxes would have been around $67,000. Fay’s PILOT to the town last year was $5,000.
  • St. Mark’s purchased one property in 2008 that was assessed at about $545,000. The taxes would have been $6,400. Last year St. Mark’s gave $20K to the town.

You can read the full article in the Metrowest Daily News.

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HelenL
14 years ago

It’s pretty pathetic when nearly every homeowner in town pays more real-estate taxes than Fay School does. Fay School has just built its own “village” along Route 30 – and they’ve been torturing the (tax-paying) neighbors with all that construction on Middle Road for months. (I went to a funeral a couple of weeks ago and all we heard was that construction.) Can anyone tell us why all those houses aren’t taxable? Why don’t these schools get taxed on non-educational facilities? For instance, does St. Marks pay taxes on its golf course? Or hockey rink for that matter…

I read that some of their employees are sending their kids to the Southborough public schools, which is on our dime, since where they’re living is tax-exempt. These are very expensive schools, why aren’t they doing the right thing here? Sorry, but this is just wrong that Fay and St. Marks give so little for so long, and get away with it. And using the field at the corner of Route 85 and 30 for Heritage day doesn’t quite cut it in lieu of taxes!

Marty
14 years ago

I just heard that some of the fields Fay uses on Middle Rd are actually owned by the State Department of Conservation and Recreation and Fay has a 50 year lease for $1 per year! Also, I was told that Fay tried to buy the land this year from the state.

Can the Board of Selectmen somehow stop this?

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