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The Tufts PILOT working group

Updated October 23, 2026

What's happening

Somerville has had no formal payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement with Tufts University since 2017. Mayor Jake Wilson said in April he was forming a working group to renegotiate one. Six months later the group still hasn't been publicly named or produced a public report. A PILOT is a voluntary payment a tax-exempt institution makes to a city in place of the property taxes it doesn't owe.

The pressure on Tufts this fall has come from its own workers. On October 21 Tufts library staff voted 41–5 in an NLRB election to unionize with SEIU Local 888; the yes votes are about 71% of eligible library staff across the campuses. Workers cite pay with no cost-of-living adjustment against Boston-area costs, and a title system that bars staff with library-science master's degrees from promotion if their job isn't technically "librarian." Nearly 400 Tufts community members signed a support petition, and the Tufts Labor Coalition rallied students (Tufts Daily, Oct 22). Bargaining hasn't started. A hundred 32BJ SEIU facilities workers reached a tentative agreement on September 11 after authorizing a strike, and the resident assistants' union is bargaining a second contract. Tufts President Sunil Kumar also pushed back on the Council's August 27 resolution about a dismissed graduate student worker.

Finance Director Ed Bean raised a PILOT on April 14 as one way the city might close the FY27 budget gap, alongside a fee review, reserve draws and vacancy control (digest). It closed none of the gap. The FY27 budget book carries $1,770,980 in PILOT revenue from all sources. That's 0.45% of the city's $394 million in budgeted revenue, against $291.4 million in property taxes (budget).

The story

Tufts has a big footprint in Somerville. The FY27 budget book lists Trustees of Tufts College as the city's fifth-largest employer, with 369 employees, behind Cambridge Health Alliance, the City of Somerville, FormLabs and Stop & Shop. In a single sitting on February 12 the Council approved 22 lodging-house license renewals and three new licenses for Tufts dorms and housing (digest), which gives a rough sense of how much residential property the university holds. The money also flows the other way: more than half of the city's FY27 pay-as-you-go capital line is rent on the Tufts Administration Building (The capital plan: fix it first, borrow last).

Institutional property doesn't pay property tax, and that matters more than usual right now. Property taxes supply 73.92% of Somerville's revenue, and the commercial side of the base is shrinking. New growth fell from $17.7 million in FY2024 to a projected $5 million for FY2027, and Bean expects that level to last three years while the life-science market stays empty (the lab glut). When growth stalls, tax-exempt land gets a closer look.

The Council has been circling Tufts from other directions. A "Tufts accountability report" was on the Housing, Community Development and Equity Committee's docket as of March 12 (digest), and nothing public has come of it. On June 30 the Legislative Matters Committee recommended a home rule petition regulating residential leases, after Tufts students reported landlords demanding renewal decisions six to ten months early (digest). That petition is tracked on Beacon Hill bills.

The public record doesn't show the terms of the lapsed agreement, the size of the city's ask, who is on the working group, or whether Tufts has been approached at all. Those are questions for the mayor's office.

The graduate-worker resolution

On August 27 the Council passed two resolutions aimed at the university. One backed the 32BJ facilities workers (item 26-1304). The other sought "a fair and dignified resolution for an international graduate student at Tufts University" (26-1302), asking Tufts to correct any grades changed in retaliation, pay appropriate compensation and reach a fair settlement. At-large Councilor Ben Wheeler, a co-sponsor, said the wording deliberately avoids "assuming that we know exactly who was in the right or wrong" (Tufts Daily, Sept 24).

Kumar's reply to Council President Lance Davis defended the grievance process Tufts negotiated with the graduate workers' union, SEIU Local 509. "You will not be surprised to know that we do not always agree with the union's allegations in certain matters," he wrote, and he called the process "robust, fair, and transparent." Citing student privacy law, Tufts won't say how the case came out. Neither resolution mentions a PILOT.

Labor at Tufts

The 32BJ unit is 100 groundskeepers, skilled maintenance workers and licensed trades workers. At a September 3 rally of about 175 people they voted unanimously to authorize a strike, seeking a narrower pay gap within the unit, lower health-insurance costs and access to the union's legal fund for immigration matters. At-large Councilor Will Mbah and Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven attended, and Medford Council President Zac Bears said Medford taxpayers "subsidize Tufts to the tune of millions of dollars a year." Eight days later the two sides reached a tentative agreement covering wage increases, paid time off, advancement for groundskeepers and protection for workers on leave for immigration matters. No figures were released.

The library drive went public September 9, when staff declared their intent to unionize and asked for voluntary recognition. They got an NLRB election instead and won it six weeks later. SEIU 888 organizer William Hansberry tied it to the rest of campus: "The only way that any one group is going to win that dignity and respect is if we're all able to come together."

The United Labor of Tufts Resident Assistants, represented by OPEIU Local 153, is bargaining a successor to its first contract, ratified in 2023 and extended to October. The union wants a higher stipend and full room and board, and is resisting a university restructuring of the RA role, planned for fall 2027, that could cut hours and pay (Tufts Daily, Sept 29).

What's next

  • No scheduled date: the working group Wilson announced on April 14 hasn't been named or reported on publicly.
  • Undated: first bargaining for the SEIU 888 library unit; the 32BJ ratification vote; any settlement in the graduate student's grievance, which Tufts says it won't disclose.
  • October 2026: the RA union's extended contract runs out (outcome of bargaining not in our sources yet).
  • Fall 2026: Bean said the city's long-range financial plan would be revised. A PILOT assumption would be one of the few new revenue levers open to it.
  • Spring 2027: the FY28 budget cycle. If a renegotiated PILOT is coming, the April financial-condition report is where it would first show up as a number.