From IHE

• A sign of the times: A group of labor unions in Boston is questioning whether teaching hospitals there are contributing enough to the city’s coffers, The Boston Globe reports. The group, Community Labor United, released a report, “The Nonprofit City,” suggesting that the city’s major nonprofit hospitals are paying their fair share at a time when the city’s finances are a mess. The report found that the hospitals had made voluntary payments of $4 million when the taxes they would have owed on their property would have resulted in a contribution of $64 million toward the city services from which they benefit. Officials of the hospitals said the report greatly underestimated their contributions to the city, especially in the provision of medical services to the needy. As urban and state economies struggle, calls like the one in Boston are likely to escalate inversely.

From the Globe aritcle

Community Labor United, a coalition of union and activist groups, found that the city's eight biggest teaching hospitals would have owed $64.2 million in city taxes in 2007 if their land and buildings had been taxed like commercial property. Instead, the hospitals made voluntary payments to the city of just $4 million in 2007, a year when they collectively had profits of more than $750 million.

"They're not paying their fair share," said Mary Jo Connelly, director of research for Community Labor United, whose members include a union seeking to organize city hospital workers. "In a time that everyone is sacrificing, it's time for them to step up and start addressing these shortfalls. We know there are going to be significant layoffs of teachers, police, Fire Department personnel, and that sort of thing. If they paid only 25 percent [of the property tax rate], we could save 115 firefighters" from layoff.

and here's the report

Finally, Boston’s AMCs do not even provide an adequate level of charity care to the poor, one of the core purposes underpinning their nonprofit tax-exemption. They fall very far below the proposed federal standard of directing 5% of their revenues to provide uncompensated charity care for low-income patients. These failures cannot be attributed to a lack of resources: in Fiscal Year (FY) 2007, Boston’s AMCs had profits—which they call surpluses—ranging from $9 million to $355 million, and owned assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The property tax exemption AMCs enjoy as nonprofit institutions represents additional millions of dollars in public subsidies they receive every year in the form of tax exemptions. Ironically, this adds to the AMCs’ capacity to buy more land and buildings, which takes even more land off the tax rolls and increases traffic and other burdens on adjoining neighborhoods.