Please contact your Massachusetts State legislators TODAY and ask them to contact the members of the State Operating Budget Conference Committee in support of including raising the annual cap for the Conservation Land Tax Credit (CLTC) program in the budget for the 2020 fiscal year.
The Conference Committee has already started meeting, and they need to hear from the conservation community.
If your legislator is a member of the Conference Committee, please feel free to contact him/her directly. If not, it is better to contact your own legislators and ask that he/she contact the Conference Committee in support of the CLTC. Members of the Conference Committee include:
- Representative Aaron Michlewitz
- Representative Denise Garlick
- Representative Todd Smola
- Senator Michael Rodrigues
- Senator Cindy Friedman
- Senator Viriato deMacedo
All it takes is a quick call or email to your legislators' offices (under five minutes). Contact information for your legislator (searchable by municipality) can be found here. For a fact sheet on the CLTC program and proposed changes, please click here. Below is a sample call "script" and email that you can send to your legislators (feel free to augment it with the additional information in the fact sheet or a story about a landowner you worked with who has been able to take advantage of, or is on the wait list for, the tax credit).
Dear Representative/Senator ________: As part of a [land conservation organization] in your district, I am contacting you to ask you to please contact the FY20 State Operating Budget Conference Committee in support of including the House's Amendment 1202 to increase the annual cap on the Conservation Land Tax Credit program in the Conference Committee budget. The amendment would eliminate the backlog of applications for this successful program and enable our organization to collaborate with private landowners to conserve land for farming, forestry, wildlife, and clean water.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
Your Name and Org/Group [Give your home address or organizational address, whichever is in the legislator's district]