Councilors: Colleges don't make the grade on PILOT fees

City councilors want to wrest more money from Boston’s institutions of higher learning, saying they need to step up as taxpayers are squeezed to balance the city’s budget.

But colleges and universities say they’re giving enough even though they’re below what a payment plan recommends.

East Boston City Councilor Lydia Edwards and At-Large City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George are calling for a hearing on the payments in lieu of taxes — commonly referred to as PILOTs — that the city receives from many taxexempt institutions, including colleges. In 2011, many schools made a voluntary agreement to work toward paying 25 percent of what their property taxes would be — half of that in cash and half in community benefits.

And while PILOT payments have increased in general, they’re still less than half of that goal — in 2017, colleges paid about $13.3 million of the $27.2 million they would give at a 25 percent rate. Boston University paid $6.1 million instead of $8 million, Harvard paid $3.2 million instead of $6 million and Northeastern University paid $1.3 million instead of $5.5 million.

“These are not poor institutions. They use roads and transportation. Their students live in our housing. They’ve placed a burden on the city,” Edwards said, adding she wanted to look into potentially levying extra fees for universities using city services. “This doesn’t have to be contentious, it shouldn’t be seen as we’re being mean. They’re not filling their part of the deal.”

George said that with property taxes accounting for 70 percent of the city’s $3.3 billion budget, officials need to find other sources of income to give residents a break. “We continue to work with properties with PILOT agreements to get them to their 100 percent payment. The administration will review the hearing order and discuss the current PILOT program with the Council,” mayoral spokeswoman Nicole Caravella said in a statement.

University officials said they believed their payments and community services like scholarships for Boston residents offset the loss of tax revenue.

“Northeastern’s engagement with the city goes far beyond voluntary payments,” university spokeswoman Renata Nyul said in a statement.

“We are very supportive of our voluntary PILOT program,” BU spokesman Colin Riley said.