Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 8/11/2022
WESTFIELD – A tax incentive for the proposed Westfield Data Center backed by local state representatives is now in limbo, after a state law on surplus spending canceled debate on a Beacon Hill economic development bill.
On July 14, the state House of Representatives adopted an amendment to its economic development package filed by state Reps. Michael Finn and Kelly Pease that provided economic incentives to support the $2.5 billion hyperscale data center being developed on Servistar Industrial Way in Westfield. The legislation allowed for a sales tax exemption for data centers that meet certain economic criteria.
The Senate took up the question on July 21. According to Gabriel Adams-Keane, communications director for state Sen. John Velis, the data center tax incentive had not been a part of the version of the bill passed by the Senate, but was to have been discussed by a conference committee that would have combined the two bills into one final proposal to be voted by both houses.
Adams-Keane said it often happens that amendments are filed in only one house. He said Velis had planned to advocate for it throughout the reconciliation process.
However, the compromise economic development bill never reached the floor, after the state auditor questioned whether the size of the state’s budget surplus — which would have been the funding source for the economic development spending — triggered a 1986 law requiring that funds be reimbursed to taxpayers.
Pease said he didn’t know where that leaves the data center tax break proposal. He said while he and Finn had pushed it through in the economic development bill, along with the language on some of the tax breaks, the bill did not come up for a final vote by the time formal sessions ended for the year on July 31.
“That’s what we’ve got to follow up on; can they still do something with the economic development bill,” Pease said, adding that otherwise, it may be postponed until the next formal session in January.
According to Westfield City Councilor Rick Sullivan, president of the Western Mass. Economic Development Council, the economic development bill has been held up.
“As of right now, it is not the law of the land,” he said.
Sullivan said just because the data center didn’t pass in this form in the economic development bill, there are other mechanisms to bring it back in an informal session – where a bill can be defeated by just one “no” vote – or to call back lawmakers into a formal session.
“It doesn’t mean it can’t come back once everyone figures out the rebates based on the 1986 law. They have to recalculate and recalibrate,” he said.
Asked what the 1986 law might mean for taxpayers, Sullivan said Massachusetts residents may receive a tax credit.
“It looks like it would be about a 7 percent rebate of what you paid in state taxes in the spring,” he said.
“Don’t spend it yet,” Sullivan added.