April 16, 2012

The legislation to sustain the Community Preservation Act took a major step forward last Friday, when House Ways and Means Committee Vice-Chairman Stephen Kulik and House Minority Leader Bradley Jones filed an amendment to the House's Fiscal 2013 state budget (amendment #737). 

The amendment's language contains the full text of An Act to Sustain Community Preservation (HB 765), with one exception.  The funding mechanism proposed in the amendment is an annual transfer of $25 million from the state's end-of-year budget surplus into the CPA Statewide Trust Fund, rather than an increase in the registry of deeds recording fees.  

If passed, $25 million from the state's budget surplus would be added each year to the revenue from the existing CPA deeds recording fees, beginning with the Fall 2013 CPA Trust Fund payment.  All of the other provisions of HB 765 are included in this budget amendment, including the changes to the rules for CPA recreation projects.

Prior to be being filed on Friday, sixty-nine state representatives had signed on to co-sponsor the amendment.  It will now be voted on as part of the House's budget deliberations, beginning the week of April 23rd.  Find the full text of the amendment here.

The Coalition will provide regular updates as this exciting, new development unfolds.

The full list of state representatives that have sponsored budget amendment #737 are below (as of Friday afternoon).  Please let your representative know that you appreciate their support of CPA!

Representatives Kulik of Worthington, Jones of North Reading, Dempsey of Haverhill, Andrews of Orange, Ayers of Quincy, Atkins of Concord, Balser of Newton, Barrows of Mansfield, Basile of Boston, Bastien of Gardner, Beaton of Shrewsbury, Benson of Lunenburg, Cantwell of Marshfield, Coakley-Rivera of Springfield, Conroy of Wayland, Creedon of Brockton, D'Emilia of Bridgewater, Dykema of Holliston, Fallon of Malden, Ferguson of Holden, Fernandes of Milford, Ferrante of Gloucester, Finn of West Springfield, Forry of Boston, Garballey of Arlington, Garlick of Needham, Gifford of Wareham, Gobi of Spencer, Hecht of Watertown, Hill of Ipswich, Hogan of Stow, Holmes of Boston, Howitt of Seekonk, Humason of Westfield, Hunt of Sandwich, Kafka of Stoughton, Kaufman of Lexington, Khan of Newton, Kocot of Northampton, Koczera of New Bedford, Kuros of Uxbridge, Lewis of Winchester, McMurtry of Dedham, Miceli of Wilmington, O'Day of West Boylston, Parisella of Beverly, Peake of Provincetown, Peisch of Wellesley, Peterson of Grafton, Provost of Somerville, Puppolo of Springfield, Sannicandro of Ashland, Scibak of South Hadley, Sciortino of Medford, Schmid of Westport, Smizik of Brookline, Smola of Palmer, Stanley of Waltham, Story of Amherst, Straus of Mattapoisett, Timilty of Milton, Toomey of Cambridge, Torrisi of North Andover, Vieira of Falmouth, Walsh of Framingham, Walsh of Boston, Walz of Boston, Winslow of Norfolk and Wolf of Cambridge