Skip to main content

Gateway: Tips for state owned land submission

Learn tips on for state owned land submission.

Skip table of contents
You skipped the table of contents section.

Introduction

DLS’s Bureau of Local Assessment is pleased to announce the State Owned Land (SOL) Program (Chapter 58, S13-S17 and Chapter 59, S5G) migration to the DLS Gateway system. The Gateway module was developed to comply with recent changes as adopted in the Municipal Modernization Act of 2016.

The Bureau and DLS IT has made every effort to provide you, the system user, with an easy and transparent database program. Gateway will allow you to view old and new records, as well as communicate with the bureau on documentation through an upload and submit process. We welcome your feedback as we go forward with the 2020 launch.

As you may be aware, the Municipal Modernization Act changed the SOL valuation methodology to a statutory formula. This formula utilizes each community’s 2017 valuation and a per-acre valuation derived from that valuation. The “base year valuation” for each city and town was applied for the FY2019 SOL PILOT.

Starting for Fiscal Year 2020, the SOL PILOTS “base year valuation” will require updates annually to include the value of any acquisitions (additional acreage purchased by the state) and/or dispositions (acreage sold, surplus, or transferred to a non-reimbursable agency). For FY 2020, and every two years thereafter, the “valuation” and “per acre valuation” will be adjusted by applying an equalized valuation (EQV) factor.

We have received from the Department of Capital Asset Management (DCAM) as part of their quarterly reports recently acquired land in your community. Additionally, we have decreased the amount of documentation required to determine eligibility for reimbursement. The new program also allows documentation to be uploaded to the parcel page within the system.
Under the new law, in preparation for the FY2020 valuation numbers, all newly reported acquisitions from calendar 2017 & 2018 will to be uploaded to Gateway by DLS for processing by March 1, 2019. It is imperative each community respond to the request for information within 30 days. This will insure that the additional acreage will be included in your FY2020 payment.

The criterion for reimbursement eligibility remains the same and is dependent upon three factors:

  1. taxable status at the time of its acquisition;
  2. land use;
  3. and the state agency owning or holding the land.

Instruction

Annual Maintenance:
An acquisition notice will be sent from BLADATA@dor.state.ma.us to your Department contact’s email address in the Local Officials Directory. Please be sure to add the BLADATA address to your Contact list to avoid the notification getting caught in SPAM filters.
The Gateway, State Owned Land program is found in the “Other Apps” tab. Guidelines and helpful links are available on the SOL landing page.

Gateway state owned land module instruction

A screen is available to each community displaying an inventory of parcels: the community’s currently reimbursed parcels and the acquisitions/deletions (in the processing stage) awaiting approval.

This is called the SOL Dashboard:

Gateway state owned land module instruction

From the SOL Dashboard a user can select an individual acquisition parcel to review.

  • Parcels with “Final Approval 2019” status are informational only and cannot be updated.
  • New acquisitions with the status of “FORM ENTERED” require your review, update of the required fields, and documentation upload. Once you have edited and submitted a new acquisition, the status will change to “FORM SUBMIT”. The status will change again to “FORM APPROVED” when BLA approves the parcel for inclusion in the next valuation round.
  • To edit, chose “Select” to enter the SOL Parcel Maintenance screen.

SOL Parcel Maintenance Screen Information in Green has been supplied by DCAM and is not open to update. If available, we have also supplied, additional information for your review such as deed reference, grantor and community ID. We ask you to review and update this information if needed.

Gateway state owned land module instruction

In addition, there may be a few blank fields on the screen. This will require the assessor to respond by verifying reported information and completing all missing information:

Gateway state owned land module instruction

For reimbursement the following documentation is required:
Uploads by assessor include:

  • recorded deed or order of taking,
  • copy of last commitment book entry

To upload select the “upload new documents” link to access the document upload box.

Gateway state owned land module instruction

To upload select the “upload new documents” link to access the document upload box.

Gateway state owned land module instruction

Click the word “here” to select the document file from Windows Explorer.

After the file has loaded, click “Done”. Your file is attached.

Parcels exempt at the time of taking; simply indicate the status on the form and attach a copy of the deed or order of taking.

After all information is reviewed and complete and documentation is attached, there is a sign and submit for the assessors at the bottom of the page. From there, BLA staff will receive notification of submission. When the program criteria is satisfied, BLA will edit the new parcels, adding a DOR ID and Reimbursement state use code and will “approve” the parcel for reimbursement.

Approved Acreage would be rolled over for each community then summarized for the fiscal year PILOT program by June 1st.

Notices
Assessors with state owned land should be on the lookout for the notices they will receive:

  1. Initial email (you have an acquisition go to Gateway annually by Jan 31)
  2. Reminder (we have not received your information, within 15 days)
  3. Warning (we will not be able to include this acquisition in this year’s PILOT, annually by March 1st)
  4. Notice: BLA will sometimes edit existing acreage to enter a Disposition Code and Date if property is surplus or otherwise removed from inventory. They also may change other data like Reimbursement Status or may correct various data if we receive new information or catch an error.

II. Valuation Summary
The 3rd component of the program is the SOL Valuation Summary screen. This screen allows the user to select an individual year or all years. (The data is currently limited to Final for 2019).)The information is downloadable to an Excel file for sorting/graphing and manipulation of data

Gateway state owned land module instruction

In addition, this link features Frequently Asked Questions about this program.
For assistance contact: BLADATA@dor.state.ma.us

Help Us Improve Mass.gov  with your feedback

Please do not include personal or contact information.
Feedback