Since 1990, Yale, a non-profit educational organization, has set aside operating budget funds to make voluntary monetary payments to the city, above and beyond the taxes it pays on non-academic properties. These voluntary contributions provide additional support for key city services, including a defined percentage of the city’s fire services budget.
In the last year of the existing 2021 plan, which ends June 30, 2027, Yale will increase its voluntary payment by $5 million, bringing its total voluntary payment that year to nearly $30 million. The $5 million increase will carry forward.
In the first year of the new plan, fiscal 2028, Yale will make a total voluntary payment to the city of more than $30 million. The annual payment will rise at a set rate and reach nearly $34 million.
The latest plan additionally provides for a one-time $8 million enhancement of Yale’s voluntary payment in the current fiscal year (2026).
Yale’s voluntary payments were already and remain the highest of any American university to its host city.
The new plan also renews Yale’s commitment to make, for a defined period, voluntary payments equal to taxes on properties that become newly property tax-exempt because they have been converted to academic use. Payments would gradually diminish after the period, as in the past. Since 2021, those payments have resulted in approximately $2.6 million in property tax payments to the city.