April 3, 2003 | Read Time: 1 minute
Charitable checkoff programs aren’t limited to state income-tax forms.
In the early 1980s, the town
of Arlington, Mass., started a college-scholarship fund financed by tax checkoffs that appear on the town’s quarterly property- and car-tax bills, as well as on water and sewer bills. Since then, Arlington has raised approximately $500,000 for the scholarship fund through the checkoff. Last year the town awarded a total of $78,000 to 76 students.
Key to the program’s success is a series of inserts — a different one each quarter — that the town includes in tax bills to give taxpayers more information about the scholarship fund, says John J. Bilafer, Arlington’s town treasurer.
One brochure includes a picture of each of the students who received scholarships the previous year, along with the college they attend and their major. Other inserts list donors to the fund, report on how much money was raised the previous year, and offer information on a related program that allows citizens to create permanent endowments to benefit the scholarship fund.
To start the checkoff program, Arlington had to win approval from the state’s legislature, which it did, in 1983. And after seeing the success of Arlington’s scholarship checkoff, the Massachusetts legislature in 1986 passed another law allowing all municipalities to create tax-checkoff programs to benefit community scholarship funds.
Forty-seven towns and cities in the state now have such scholarship checkoffs, most of which appear on local property-tax bills, according to David W. Duncan, executive director of New England Dollars for Scholars, in Stoneham, Mass.
