Both.
The Salvation Army is obviously a church, but they take donations and, more important, federal government funds, for the specific putpose of providing social services. Whether they are considered a church or a social service agency should be irrelevant. They provide social services and surely including them in the PILOT Committee's study would be approriate. Right?
Yet Town Counsel Christopher Petrini stated in a February 8, 2006 memo that the PILOT Committee should not study the Salvation Army because they are a church. The memo seemed to turn on last June's decision at Town Meeting not to expand the PILOT Committee's charge to include all tax exempt properties, implying that not voting to expand the charge was the same as voting to narrow it, and on the assumption that studying a church impinged on its First Amendment freedoms.
We find Mr. Petrini's arguments highly unconvincing.
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First, the argument that Town Meeting voted to exclude religious organizations from the scope of the PILOT Study Committee is flawed.
The argument at that town meeting was not over whether to exclude or include churches, but whether to study social services alone or expand the study to include all tax exempt organizations. The amendment to expand the study was defeated and the will of Town Meeting was that the PILOT committee study the impact of social services on the town. The reason for this was not because churches should not be studied, but because the limited resources of the Town should be focused on the smaller, more reasonably attainable goal.
(Although the motion that created the PILOT Committee does specifically mention social services, it should not be inferred that the Town's PILOT program should be limited to only social service agencies. The motion states that "the Board of Selectmen and Town Manager shall report back their findings and suggested PILOT program" -- in other words, the PILOT committee will have the flexibility to suggest a PILOT program as broadly based as they deem necessary.)
So the PILOT committee was not instructed to exclude churches, it was instructed to focus on social services. To argue otherwise would be a double negative: the fact that Town Meeting did not vote not to exclude churches, that does not mean they voted to exclude them. If a church is also a social service, they can be, and should be, studied. It would be a mistake for the PILOT committee to stop looking into the Salvation Army simply because part of their operation is religious.
The PILOT committee had detailed discussions on whether the Salvation Army should be included, and that discussion is online at
http://www.framinghamma.org/web/Minutes/PILOT/November_22_2005.pdf
Excerpt:
Laurie previously emailed an updated set of addresses to be considered for the living list, information on the Salvation Army and a detailed description of the SIC codes:
http://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/sic_manual.display?id=70&tab=group
The Salvation Army has about 11% government funding and thus hiring for the social service programs must be based on non secular reasons. So those delivering services do not do it for religious beliefs. Major Triston [of the Salvation Army] confirmed this.
In other words, while the Salvation Army is a church, their social service operation is as relevant to the PILOT committee's work as SMOC's. For the committee to exclude the Salvation Army from their study based on the vote at Town Meeting last June is simply bad logic, and I find Mr. Petrini's argument that the PILOT committee studying the Salvation Army "incidentally burdens" their free exercise of religion to be shaky and overreaching.
Some believe that the Town of Framingham should avoid this issue in order to avoid a lawsuit that cannot win.
We do not believe this is a real risk. we see absolutely nothing that the Salvation Army could sue the town over, even if it chose to. They have always been the most community minded of all the community service organizations and were even willing to discuss moving their operation from its current location if that would help revitalize downtown. I can't believe they would sue even if they had cause. And what cause? They are being studied along with other social service providers and might be asked to make a voluntary payment to the town. Since when is it illegal or discriminatory to study a church? Since when is it illegal or discriminatory to ask for a VOLUNTARY payment in lieu of taxes?
The Rev. Paul Papas of Narrow Path Ministries wrote in the MetroWest Daily News after that Town Meeting that he supported the PILOT proposal and that "a non-profit cannot be forced to pay a tax by any other name but they should, if able, be good enough neighbors to help defray the cost of various services used" (The MetroWest Daily News, June 17, 2005).
Bravo, Rev. Papas! We would not be surprised if the Salvation Army did not, in the end, voluntarily offer the town PILOT money just as Narrow Path Ministries has pledged to.
It isn't hard to find other examples of churches stepping up to the plate and being good neighbors to a town. The First United Methodist Church in Pittsburgh pays PILOT money, for instance, as do the Greater Mount Sinai Church of God in Christ in Milwaukee, Wisc., the Anchorage (Alaska) Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and the Hales Corners Lutheran Church in New Berlin, Wisc.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06015/637067.stm
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4196/is_20020124/ai_n10756091
The pastor of Greater Mount Sinai Church of God in Christ, the Rev. Victor C. Davis, said he saw the payment as part of his church's civic responsibility. Also, because many of the church's members are Milwaukee homeowners, the church's contribution could help hold down their property taxes, added the pastor's sister, Regina Davis (the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 16, 2005).
In addition, many states have different rules for church owned properties depending on how they are used. As an example, the state of Wisconsin requires three separate tax exemption applications from a church property "with 3 buildings -- a church, parsonage and school [...] since the parcel has 3 different uses: Place of Worship, Housing (Other), [and] Educational (K-12)." They do not, in other words, treat the housing operation of a church as a religious organization protected by the First Amendment.
http://www.dor.state.wi.us/forms/govexmpt/pc-220.pdf
Finally, while this isn't the province of government, many churches feel it is their moral imperative to advocate for a fair tax policy and pay themselves if called upon. This argument was laid out, among other places, in Susan Pace Hamill's "The Least of These: Fair Taxes and the Moral Duty of Christians" (Sweetwater Press, 2003). The book includes Hamill's master's thesis for the Beeson Divinity School at Samford University, "An Argument for Tax Reform Based Judeo-Christian Ethics," which motivated Alabama Governor Bob Riley to propose restructuring the state's tax code to help the poor (though voters rejected the plan in 2003).
In the end, of course, this doesn't matter much. Whether they are studied or not, the Salvation Army will likely be asked for PILOT funds by the Town, and they won't be able to claim discrimination, because paying PILOT funds will be voluntary. We can only hope that they are sincere when they say they want to be good neighbors to the Town and make a good faith effort to help the Town financially.
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