HE has a tax problem and it’s hurting local communities
Time 10 April 2021
On 30 March 2020, toward the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic, New Haven citizens stormed the city’s Zoom budget meeting to vent their outrage at Yale University’s continued strain on city finances. Residents specifically pointed to Yale’s vast and tax-exempt property holdings compared to the deficit-ridden New Haven public schools hungry for property-tax dollars, writes Davarian L Baldwin for
Time.
Four months later, on 29 July, a new coalition of Yale union workers and residents followed up with a 600-vehicle ‘Respect Caravan’ that brought downtown traffic to a halt. With signs that read ‘Yale: Pay Your Fair Share’, organisers acknowledged that the university offers the city voluntary PILOTS (payments in lieu of taxes) but declared these funds were “pocket change” compared to the US$30 billion endowment. For the protesters, COVID-19 merely exacerbated a growing disparity between urban colleges and universities and their host cities.