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Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 11

Nashua did not have that built into the Charter. Grants are not built into the Charter, just those two items
that we have talked about, the principal and interest and so on. It seems to go on deaf ears. | tried to get
them to change it to say, if it’s not in a Charter it can be added or can be just automatically exempted and
so on. And | got, No you’ve got to let your voters decide on that and we fought back and forth. The bottom
line is this passed. And it passed with these, as far as | am concerned, these intended consequences, not
unintended consequences. | feel very strongly that they were intended consequences. And | keep making
a joke about my Ward 3 $1 million dollar grant. When | first got elected, we put in for this grant for Locke
Street to change this to make it safer, to make it better walking. We got the grant for $1 million dollars.
That was back in 2017. The monies are just going to come through, hopefully this fall. Now we are looking
at 4 years to get this money and so on.

And | would hate to have to go to my Ward and say all this work that we did, we can’t accept that $1 million
dollars. | would rather put it in as an appropriation and as a revenue so that it literally is a balanced
budget. We cannot spend more than we get, but we can accept it. If | remember correctly at the public
hearing for the budget there was ex-Alderman who stood up and was quite upset that he felt that we did
not fund two organizations — one | believe was the Girl Scouts and another was Salvation Army | think it
was and he was quite irate. He did not seem to understand that they didn’t put in for those monies. But
when you look at all the lists that we work at for the Human Resources Committee, the HUD grant and so
on, we would not be able to give those out if we don’t put those here ahead of time. And | would hate to
have to say to all of those companies such as The Front Door Agency and so on, we can’t help you, we
can’t fund you. Or the HOME Loan Program, goodness, or the renter’s loan program. | would hate to say,
we can’t do that this year because we didn’t have the foresight to think of this.

And where this is being zero and is not affecting the taxpayers, | don’t think we will get pushback from the
taxpayers. | keep referring to these things as “paper chasers”. And | make a joke but | am very serious
about it. If Ward 3 loses out $1 million dollars, | am not going to be happy and | am going to have a lot of
unhappy campers over our $1 million dollars. So | would like to see this go through as it was
recommended. But | do appreciate everything that Alderman Jette had brought up, those were really good
points as to does it mean that we can’t — | think it just helps clarify the situation. So thank you very much.

President Wilshire

Alderman Lopez.

Alderman Lopez

| think Alderman Klee is being a little bit kind about saying she'll be unhappy. If a mother is pushing a baby
stroller down the street and gets hit by a car because we didn’t fix that, people would be very unhappy. So
these aren't just appropriations that are done on a whim, the CDBG money and the Review & Comment
money for example support things like the expansion of the Nashua Soup Kitchen’s Homeless Shelter
because our City Welfare doesn’t have the capacity to put up all of the homeless people in Nashua into
motels; we don’t even have the motel capacity for that. Those are things we rely on non-profit
organizations to do in partnership with the City. And the City as a municipality is able to apply for those
grants and all taxpayers benefit from that.

A project | am concerned about is the Rail Trail Extension which the bike path along West Hollis is very
popular for people using it recreationally. It is also essential for kids traveling to and from school and
traveling on the afternoons when there’s a tremendous amount of traffic along West Hollis. It lets them
move up and down the Rail Trail safely. It lets elderly people who are living in outer neighborhoods travel
downtown to get to the hospital, to get to the pharmacy, to do things they need to do. So the extension on
the other side to the East Hollis side, it’s a big deal. And these are projects that Community Development
Program has done based on need, based on a considerable amount of work that the State doesn’t care
about, didn’t take into account. The State governs this way and at best it can be said to be incompetent.
They are not getting high marks as the State of New Hampshire for governing any of these municipalities.
We are, we are the ones who are working with our constituents and with our non-profit organizations to

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 12

solve problems including the problems that the State drops on us because partisan politics, people may be
trying to create a certain narrative about our performance as Aldermen. Regardless of how well we do
with our budget, the narrative is definitely going to be, we raised taxes, we spent more money.

And the culprits for are not the ones who are responsible for it. The State Representatives who are not our
elected State Representatives, we are already hearing people trying to blame the Fire Department for
wanting raises when they are trying to maintain a level of service, likely knowing that this budget doesn’t
actually account for their contract negotiations or that kind of stuff specifically. They are trying to make
sure the response time is effective. We just had a fire yesterday on Prescott Street, if a house burns down
that’s not going to be a — oh let’s elect a new person next year. That’s a tragedy and that’s potential lives
lost. The response time for Nashua Fire was criticized in public comment earlier. | know last week they
managed to catch a mattress that was on fire in a very heavily populated building with a lot of disabled
people in it before it caused more damage than just to that unit, coming right through downtown, right
through Main Street. The building is located on West Pearl.

So Nashua Fire does a lot of work. They have been responding to a lot of calls, even in the middle of a
hurricane or whatever you want to call yesterday’s flash storm. And we need to keep that service intact
because lives depend on it, that’s not where you want to cut. The Nashua Police from the State
perspective, they may be saying, OH well let’s fully fund the pension program even though we don’t need
20% of the total program to keep it sustainable by any measure, let’s do that because we feel like doing it
but the impact on the ground is now Nashua PD is supposed to not upgrade their command center, not
continue to make sure that they have compatible equipment with other parts of emergency response
systems? They just made some major arrests yesterday of people who are involved in cocaine trafficking,
felons that owned multiple firearms, they have been managing a number of increasing domestic terror
threats in the City including white supremacy actions and intimidating behaviors that have actually started
to penetrate even into our own public meetings.

This is not a good idea to cut resources from them because somebody on a sub-committee decided that
they wanted to play games and maybe make a point. These are services we need for our Nashua
residents that result in tragedy or catastrophe when we aren’t able to provide them. | have made many,
many comments about how we need more resources for people who are homeless and we need more
resources for people who are struggling to make their rent or facing homelessness eviction. Alderman
Klee mentioned the HOME funds. Those are important programs and that’s not just our score on a wallet
hub survey. That’s what our residents and what our taxpayers deserve. And if the intention of expanding
our budget so that we can accept tax money that these taxpayers already paid to the Federal Government
that we are returning in exchange for services into specific areas, that benefits them and | think it is
something we need to do. | don’t think we should hamstring our own budget because somebody in
Concord decided to take away the rights of Nashua taxpayers to repair or manage their own spending cap
and just imposed it on us in what | think is a pretty unusual manner.

So | think the motions that are made are reasonable and | think the costs that are associated are essential
and has been stated multiple times, this is grant money that is not going to increase the taxpayer's bill.

President Wilshire

Alderman Dowd?

Alderman Dowd

Yes, | would just like to reiterate so it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle here. We had a goldenrod copy of R-
21-142 and the motion | made to change the items in the budget book as was pointed out by Mr. Griffin

allowed to change the numbers in the golden rod copy and | think the motion is to accept the motion that
was made and accept the golden rod copy with the new numbers in it before finally vote on the budget.

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 13
President Wilshire

Anyone else? Alderman Jette?

Alderman Jette

Perhaps | missed it, but | know you made a report about what the Budget Committee did, | am not sure
that you made a motion.

Alderman Dowd

Yeah | did make a motion. | can repeat it.

President Wilshire

Would you Alderman Dowd?

MOTION BY ALDERMAN DOWD TO AMEND R-21-142 TO CHANGE PAGE 34, ACCOUNT NUMBER
48320 TO THE AMOUNT OF $77,411,477.00 AND ON PAGE 271 ACCOUNT NUMBER 70160
CONTINGENCY GRANTS TO THE AMOUNT OF $77,411,477.00 AND THEREFORE IN MAKING
THOSE CHANGES TO THE BUDGET BOOK IT CHANGES THE GOLDEN ROD COPY ON LINE 7 IT
CHANGES THE NUMBER $291 ,026,961.00 TO $368,438,438.00. AND ON LINE 8 IN THE GOLDEN
ROD COPY IT CHANGES THE $64,979,022.00 TO $142,390,499.00

ON THE QUESTION

Alderman Dowd

So that would be the new Golden Rod Copy to accept under R-21-142.

Alderman Jette

I’m sorry to be so dense about this but did you include increasing the Police Budget?

Alderman Dowd

That was in the original golden rod copy the $291,026,961.00 included the 3 motions made that we voted
on in the Budget Committee. That’s already in there.

Alderman Jette

OK. Thank you.

President Wilshire

So Madam Clerk, | believe the motion before us is to amend Resolution.
Alderman Dowd

To accept the golden rod copy as amended.

President Wilshire

With the golden rod copy. Is that correct?

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 14
Alderman Dowd

Yes.

President Wilshire

Is there any further discussion on that motion? Alderman Jette?

Alderman Jette

So are we voting, it’s all one package?

Alderman Dowd

Yes we are just voting for the changes to the golden copy and then the golden rod copy after we approve it
will be the final budget that we will then try to adopt of R-21-142.

Alderman Jette

Having it all together like this makes it difficult because there are parts of this | don’t agree with. | agree
with adding the grant revenue and the grant appropriations, | agree with that. | agree with taking the
$495,745.00 for the Command Vehicle out of CERF, that’s going to be bonded.

Alderman Dowd

Alderman Jette, perhaps | can clarify. After we pass the — so we have the clean golden rod copy, then
there will be a second reading of R-21-142 that you can make other motions then.

Alderman Jette.
OK is that correct, am | jumping the gun here?
President Wilshire

No, | think what we could do to address that is to take this piece by piece, the Police, the Fire and then the
grants.

Alderman Dowd

Attorney Bolton? Do we need to do that or can we just, could those be addressed under the final motion
on the Budget?

Attorney Bolton

Well you can do what most pleases the majority of the Board. But the question posed or the indication
was that it was to separate these things out when it was all packaged together. So it may be an
appropriate way to approach is to do one motion about the changes in the Police Budget which |
understand is two pieces; a second motion that deals with the Fire Department and a third motion that
deals with the grants. And then maybe people will have a better understanding on how they wish to vote in
each separate area.

President Wilshire

OK so the motion on the floor is to amend Resolution 21-142 by replacing it with the golden copy. What is
the Board’s pleasure? Alderman Jette?

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 15

Alderman Jette

| would like us to take it to separate it but | am not sure how to approach that. Can | just make a motion
that we separate it?

President Wilshire

Yes. Sure.

Alderman Jette

And it either passes or not and we can go from there.

Alderman Dowd

Point of order, | think you’d have to amend the motion that is on the floor currently.

President Wilshire

| am not sure we do. We are moving to amend the Budget Resolution with the golden rod copy.
Alderman Dowd

There are pieces of the numbers that are in the motion that | made that he wants to change. So if he
wants a piece of that out, | would suggest he make a motion to amend to eliminate, reduce, add whatever
he wants to do to that particular item that’s in there.

President Wilshire

OK we can do that route. Alderman Jette did you want to make a motion on the Police Department’s
budget?

Alderman Jette
Maybe someone could help me locate where it is in this golden rod copy?
Alderman Dowd

It would be the motion on the floor, the total budget including what we talked about for the grants is
$368,438,438.00. The motion on the Police Budget a portion of that is $241,338.00.

Alderman Jette
| am having trouble following you.
Alderman Dowd

It's that sheet that you got that had the motions on it from the Budget Committee. And if you want to
eliminate the adjustment to the Police Department that would be $241,338.00.

Alderman Jette

Yes | would like to amend the golden rod copy by eliminating $241,338.00 from the Police Department line
item 90120 which would restore it back to what the Mayor had proposed and | would like to speak to that.

SPECIAL BOARD OF ALDERMEN
JULY 1, 2021

7:15 PM or immediately after the Special BOA meeting Aldermanic Chamber and via Zoom

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89948155727?pwd=RD YwO LINZ WNT 05BcjRONFMyvSjRkOT09
Meeting ID: 899 4815 5727 Passcode: 088704

Join by telephone: 1-929-205-6099
Meeting ID: 899 4815 5727 Passcode: 088704

If for some reason you cannot connect to Zoom, please contact us at (603) 589-3329 and they wil help you
with connectivity. The public may also view the meeting va Channel 16.

PRESIDENT LORI WILSHIRE CALLS ASSEMBLY TO ORDER

PRAYER OFFERED BY CITY CLERK SUSAN K. LOVERING
PLEDGE TO THE FLAG LED BY ALDERMAN-AT-LARGE BRANDON MICHAEL LAWS
ROLL CALL
REPORTS OF COMMITTEE
UNFINISHED BUSINESS — RESOLUTIONS
R-21-142

Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess

Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright

RELATIVE TO THE ADOPTION OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2022 PROPOSED BUDGET FOR THE
CITY OF NASHUA GENERAL, ENTERPRISE, AND SPECIAL REVENUE FUNDS

e Budget Review Committee with anticipated Recommendation for Final Passage
PERIOD FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT
REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN

ADJOURNMENT

R-21-142

RESOLUTION

RELATIVE TO THE ADOPTION OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2022 PROPOSED BUDGET
FOR THE CITY OF NASHUA GENERAL, ENTERPRISE, AND SPECIAL REVENUE
FUNDS

CITY OF NASHUA

In the Year Two Thousand and Twenty One

RESOLVED by the Board of Aldermen of the City of Nashua that the Fiscal Year 2022
Proposed Budget for the General Fund of the City of Nashua be and is hereby adopted, and that
the following amounts are hereby appropriated for the several accounts and for other needs of the
City of Nashua General Fund for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2021, and ending June 30,
2022, and for the purpose of Section 50-a et seq. of the Nashua Revised City Charter, as
amended, each item of this budget shall be considered as a separate appropriation. The proposed
General Fund appropriation amount is $290,366,852 with estimated General Fund Revenues of
$64,979,022 including estimated state funding for education in the amount of $32,839,691.

That the Fiscal Year 2022 Proposed Budget for the Enterprise Funds of the City of
Nashua be and is hereby adopted, and that the following amounts are hereby appropriated for the
several accounts and for other needs of the City of Nashua Enterprise Funds for the fiscal year
beginning July 1, 2021 and ending June 30, 2022, and the purpose of Section 50-a et seq. of the
Nashua Revised City Charter, as amended, each item of this budget shall be considered as
separate appropriation. The proposed Enterprise Funds appropriation amount is $38,344,285
(inclusive of anticipated Capital Appropriations), with estimated Enterprise Funds Revenues of
$33,155,377 and any additional funding for capital and CSO-related expenditures from retained
earnings, bonding and/or State Revolving Fund Loans.

That the Fiscal Year 2022 Proposed Budget for the Special Revenue Funds of the City of
Nashua be and is hereby adopted, and that the following amounts are hereby appropriated for the
several accounts and for other needs of the City of Nashua Special Revenue Funds for the fiscal
year beginning July 1, 2021 and ending June 30, 2022. The proposed Special Funds
appropriation amount is $18,570,313 with estimated Special Revenue Funds Revenues of
$18,570,313.

RESOLUTION R-21-142

Neither the approval and adoption of this budget, or any appropriation contained herein,
or to any City department or agency, including the Nashua Schoo! District, whether as proposed
or amended, shall be deemed to mean that the City has approved any program or responsibility
for funding in accordance with Part 1, Article 28-a of the Constitution of the State of New
Hampshire. Notwithstanding any appropriation herein, the city hereby expressly declines to
approve funding for any program or responsibility for which it is entitled by law to payment
from the State of New Hampshire pursuant to Part 1, Article 28-a of the State Constitution,
whether it has previously been determined that the City is entitled to said funding or not.

LEGISLATIVE YEAR 2021

RESOLUTION: R-21-142
PURPOSE: Relative to the adoption of the Fiscal Year 2022 proposed

budget for the City of Nashua general, enterprise, and special
revenue funds

SPONSOR(S): Mayor Jim Donchess

COMMITTEE
ASSIGNMENT: Budget Review Committee

FISCAL NOTE: The tax rate cannot be determined at this time, however estimates
will be provided. The entire budget is a comprehensive package
and each component impacts the tax rate.

ANALYSIS

This resolution adopts the Fiscal Year 2022 Budget for the City’s general, enterprise, and special
revenue funds. For the purpose of Section 50-a et seq. of the Nashua Revised City Charter, as
amended, each item of this budget shall be considered as a separate appropriation.

A public hearing on the budget shall be held before its adoption by the board of aldermen with at
least seven days’ notice. Nashua City Charter $ 56-a; NRO § 5-8.

Nashua City Charter § 56-b provides that the board of aldermen may reduce any item in the
mayor's budget by a majority vote, but an increase or addition requires a vote of two-thirds of
the members of the board. Court decisions concerning Nashua’s Charter suggest that a court
may find that this provision, when applied to the budget resolution itself, is inconsistent with
state statutes and therefore unenforceable. See memorandum of Corporation Counsel dated
March 8, 2018.

The budget shall be finally adopted not later than August |, 2021. Nashua City Charter § 56-b.

Approved as to content, Financial Services Division

account structure, numbers,

and amount: By: _/s/John Griffin

Approved as to form: Office of Corporation Counsel
By:

Date: 1 Maw. ar

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 16

MOTION TO AMEND BY ALDERMEN JETTE TO ELMINATE $241,338.00 FROM THE POLICE
DEPARTMENT LINE 90120

ON THE QUESTION
President Wilshire
Alderman Jette?
Alderman Jette

So we have heard the Mayor explain his position how he started from being a given difficult task based
upon the consequences of what the State Pension Fund, the amount that they are asking us to pay plus
the legislature’s not funding schools as much, not funding or giving us our full share of the Rooms & Meals
tax. There were several things that the State Budget is doing that is reducing the support that the City is
getting from the State which has put us in a difficult situation. And he explained how he asked the various
departments to either maintain a zero budget or reduce it and how he tried to get the Police Department to
go with, | think it was a 1.7% cost of living increase. And the Police came back and said that they want —
that they don’t want to do that. So the effect of the Mayor holding them to the 1.7% cost of living increase
if | understood it correctly was that it would reduce their proposed budget by about $241,338.00.

Now their entire budget is according to page 144, their entire budget is $35,320,858.00. That is a 6.7%
increase over last year’s budget and the Mayor asking them to reduce that by $241,338.00 seemed fairly
reasonable to me. | think that in a $35 million dollar budget they would be able to find that amount and |
think during the budget hearing, the Police Chief told us that he could meet the Mayor’s request that
whatever amount of money we provided to the Police Department he would live with that but he pointed to
us that that there would be a reduction in services in some way. And he pointed out that he would have to
eliminate 4 police officers. | questioned him about that because | think when | divide the $240 or whatever
amount that the Mayor is asking him to reduce the budget by 4 | end up with around $60,000.00. | know
Police Officers make more than that and when you add in their benefits it is a lot more than that. And |
think, you know, | have a lot of respect for the Police Department and the Chief and the Deputies and all of
the Police Officers, | think he does a great job, it is an extremely well run Department.

But when we are asking other Departments to reduce their budgets or limit their budgets to under 2% and
the Police are asking us for 6.7% | think it’s not fair. | think that and | am not going to pretend to be able to
look at their budget and come up with items that | would say they can reduce. The Chief and there’s a
Commission that can do that, they have an excellent budget person. So! am not going to tell them how to
reduce their budget by $241,000.00 but | certainly believe that they can. We are talking about $35 million,
$241,000.00 out of $35 million, it seems to me that that’s a reasonable request. The Mayor is trying to
deal with a difficult situation and he’s asked the Departments to cooperate in that regard and | think it is
reasonable. You know, we’ve just been awarded or this Wallet Hub has said that we are the 4'" Best Run
City in the Nation and that’s certainly not because of anything I’ve done. | think it is largely due to the
Mayor and his management of the City Departments including the Police Department. And | support him
in his trying to lessen the impact on the taxpayers as much as possible. So that’s why | make that motion.

President Wilshire

Alderman Dowd?

Alderman Dowd

Yes | am the liaison of the Police Commissioners and yes they will operate with any amount of money we

give them. But you can’t expect the same amount of service. And when they put their budget together
they didn’t add anything, they just kept the same services and the same manning and everything that they