Some blame the council’s tax-cut advocacy as ballot question looms
The Mass. High Technology Council’s crusade to lower the state income tax seems to be popular with voters. But not so much with a subset of the influential business group’s members.
Voting with their feet, several have left or not renewed memberships in recent weeks, blaming the group’s key role behind a ballot question to reduce the income tax to 4 percent from 5 percent. Those departures are primarily among higher-ed members: Bunker Hill Community College, Bridgewater State University, UMass Lowell (all state-funded institutions). Lobbyist Joe Boncore also did not reup for his firm, Commonwealth Counsel, for the same reason.
Others have left, but with different explanations. Northeastern University said it no longer saw the need after a statewide coalition serving the defense sector was launched last year, for example.
UMass Boston says it left after chancellor Marcelo Sáurez-Orozco stepped down from the board in June. Likewise, WPI said it departed after president Grace Wang stepped down from the tech council board due to competing leadership commitments.
Massport is also gone, but declined to say why. Then there’s Wentworth Institute of Technology, which says its nonrenewal was due to a clerical error, and it has since reupped.
Working behind the scenes is Mass. High Tech’s archenemy: Raise Up Massachusetts. People affiliated with the progressive, union-backed coalition urged many council members to rethink their status with the business group because of the pending tax cut.
Mass. High Tech took the lead for the business community a decade ago in a legal fight to block Raise Up’s millionaires tax proposal. Ultimately, Raise Up succeeded, and won over voters statewide in 2022. Since then, Mass. High Tech president Chris Anderson and his allies have been trying to offset the impact. They started the Mass Opportunity Alliance, a new business coalition that doesn’t disclose its donors, in part to pursue this latest tax ballot question along with one that would cap state government spending.
Financially, this battle is being waged through campaign committees, like all political campaigns. But Raise Up and Mass High Tech are the biggest players behind each side.
Anderson declined to talk about the defections, saying he doesn’t comment on membership dynamics. And it’s hard to imagine the bulk of his members, including many of Greater Boston’s biggest tech and financial firms, complaining about Anderson’s anti-tax efforts.
UMass Lowell chancellor Julie Chen says they should. Cut funding for higher ed, she says, and you cut into the quality of talent you can recruit here. Chen and Pam Eddinger, president of Bunker Hill Community College, sent a letter to Anderson in December, asking him to reconsider before they bailed.
Higher ed funding is supported, to some extent, by the millionaires tax. Eddinger, though, notes that the budget impacts go far beyond direct subsidies for public colleges. If the safety net for low-income residents gets weakened, she says, fewer would have the luxury of time to study in the first place. Plus, she says, the state’s workforce development programs could take a hit.
How much money are we talking about? The state income tax brought in more than $26 billion last year. Cut that by 20 percent, and you get around $5 billion in cuts — something Bridgewater president Fred Clark says would be a “body blow” to the state budget.
Mass. High Tech argues that blow will be mitigated by more economic growth spurred by the tax cut, while making the state more competitive for business and more affordable for residents — arguably the two biggest economic challenges facing the state today.
Unlike Bunker Hill and Bridgewater, UMass Lowell has been a longtime tech council member. The group’s low-tax agenda is no secret, but the ballot questions go too far for Chen.
Her school has long been a feeder system for the tech companies that ring the northern suburbs along Route 128 and Interstate 495, with help from connections made through the council. Chen says UMass Lowell will have to work a little harder to maintain those ties now.
While business associations aren’t always going to agree, she adds, when it seems like a group’s primary focus could harm the organization you represent, it’s hard to justify sticking around.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.
