HOLYOKE — The city is contracting with a public policy consultant to help initiate a formal policy that would ask tax-exempt property owners to make payments in lieu of taxes, also known as a PILOT.

Mayor Joshua A. Garcia notes that Holyoke is home to a large number of tax-exempt nonprofits that offer a range of services, including group homes, human service providers, educational institutions and treatment centers. He describes Holyoke as a “compassionate city,” while also noting that these organizations receive city services but pay no property taxes.

“We have no quarrel with the importance of their missions,” Garcia said in a statement. “All citizens, including the vulnerable populations these nonprofits serve, deserve quality services from their government. But I can’t give quality services if I’m not collecting the necessary revenue to keep up with the need.”

Garcia notes that he also has a mission to provide public safety, public education, sewers, streetlights, drinking water, and safe roads, to name a few, and that to keep property taxes low so that people can afford to live here.

“Many tax-exempt organizations acquire taxable properties and then file for exemptions, thereby removing that property from the tax rolls,” Garcia said. “It happens a lot, and each time it happens the flow of property tax revenue to the city is diminished. All the while, the cost of city services goes up, salaries go up, fuel goes up, and road maintenance materials go up. What else goes up? Your property taxes.”

One of Garcia’s Citizen Advisory Councils — the Government Restructure working group — explored the subject of PILOTs and reached out to the Collins Center for Public Management, a state government entity affiliated with the University of Massachusetts Boston.

The Center submitted a proposal for a six-month, $13,000 study that entails meetings with city officials; fact-gathering on the tax-exempt properties in Holyoke, research on existing PILOT programs in the commonwealth, including those in Boston and Brookline, and an in-person meeting with tax-exempt property owners. Two members of the project team, Stephen Cirillo and David Colton, have experience developing and negotiating PILOTs for the towns of Brookline and Easton.

On concluding their research and interviews, the Collins Center project team will present the city with options for a voluntary PILOT program. These options will include revenue projections.

In the past, Holyoke negotiated a small number of informal PILOT agreements, but the documentation for these agreements is scant. Garcia said he wants a formal, written policy complete with talking points and a formula for establishing a PILOT payment schedule for the city’s tax-exempt properties.