Whether it’s providing scholarships for Needham High School students or money to help protect victims of domestic violence, some Needham residents become so engaged by aspects of civic life that they donate money to the town in trust. Altogether those donations currently add up to $12 million, and that money has to be overseen responsibly. That’s the job of the Needham Commission of Trust Funds. Aided by the money-management services of Rockland Trust Bank, the state-mandated board oversees 93 donations, each one specified for a different purpose. Its main task is to make sure expenditures match the wishes of the donor.
Joe Scalia, 87, has been a commissioner since 2006, and is finishing his final term in office. “It’s time for someone younger to take over,” he said. Scalia has lived in Needham since 1968, and his career selling investment services for the Boston Company gave him the skills needed to be a commissioner of trust funds.
“When I first joined, I wondered why anyone would give money to a town,” Scalia said. “But there is a long history of municipal giving, going back to Roman times.”
Benjamin Franklin set the tone for municipal giving in the United States, according to Scalia. Not only did he jumpstart the nation’s public libraries with book donations, he gave 1,000 pounds (about $350,000 in current dollars) to each of his hometowns, Boston and Philadelphia. The money came with many stipulations, including that for the first 100 years the funds could not be touched. When the money was finally accessible, it was used to create a technical college in Boston (now the Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology) and to complete a major water project in Philadelphia.
Scalia said that prior to the creation of municipal trust funds, there was a history of public officials using donated monies as private slush funds and directing it into their own pockets. His 2023 Trust Commission report states, “We follow the time-honored practice to disburse about 4% of a Trust’s balance each year.” Currently that amounts to almost half-a-million dollars in yearly giving. Because average market returns on investments are higher than 4%, the trusts have been growing in a manner that not only keeps up with inflation, but also grows the principal.
About 10 years ago, Charles and Bernice Siegel donated $200,000. The gift has paid out 4% of its value each year and is now worth more than $400,000. “They said they wanted the money to go to the best math student at Needham High School. No other qualification,” Scalia said. “It’s not need-based.”
There are many funds and foundations that help the community — Friends of the Library, the Needham Education Foundation and the Friends of the Needham Board of Public Health, for example — but these are special, targeted trusts. The commissioners of trust funds only accept gifts of $5,000 or greater. Sixty-five percent of the assets are education related, about 15% are dedicated to the Needham Public Library and the remainder cover a wide variety of purposes. The Domestic Violence Trust Fund disburses funds from principal that totals approximately $500,000.
Scalia said he has tried to publicize the commission and he wants more people to consider municipal charitable giving. “Every once in a while, we get a new donor. Not as often as I’d like,” he said.
Dan Burns joined Scalia as a trust commissioner in 2018. “We give the public confidence that if they make some kind of bequest there will be a group of elected people watching it,” he said. Burns became interested in town politics when he attended meetings to learn about a massive construction project in his neighborhood, the Sunita Williams School.
At 44, Burns is well below the average age of volunteers on town boards. “I’m the youngest on the board, but not the newest,” he said. The newest of the three commissioners is Julia Satti Cosentino, who was unopposed when she was elected to her first three-year term in 2024. Burns said Scalia has an encyclopedic knowledge of the trusts and their purposes. “He comes at this role with a passion. He’s a very civically minded guy,” Burns said. “He relies a lot on institutional memory and connections, and I don’t have that.”
Burns is in the process of digitizing all the trust information so that he and future commissioners will be able to access information more readily after Scalia’s term ends in April.
State law allows towns to either elect or appoint trust commissioners to three-year terms. In 2024, The Needham League of Women Voters lobbied to make this position appointed by the Select Board, but Scalia and Burns lobbied against the proposal and prevailed. Burns explained that when an opening comes up in the middle of a term, the Select Board recruits applicants and makes an appointment. He can’t recall a contested election for this position.
One gift that keeps on giving is from a local organization that was in the process of going defunct. “In 1947, the Needham Military Band had $500 in their kitty and they donated it to the town,” Scalia recalled. “They said, ‘We want you to use this money for the 300th anniversary of the town of Needham.’ In 2011, for the town’s tricentennial, it was worth $23,000.”
The money was used to hire musicians, after which the Needham 300 Committee regifted the unspent funds. As a result, celebrants at Needham’s 350th birthday in 2061 will be feted with music funded from the 1947 gift.
Scalia is not retreating from public life completely. He will still run Great Plain Traders, a weekly discussion group at the Senior Center for people interested in talking about the stock market.
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