Search

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 27

reassessment update is going to be a pretty difficult pill to swallow and | wouldn't be surprised if you don’t
see ...

Alderman O’Brien
30 seconds.

Ms. Ortolano... the need higher. So | think the tax impact assessment was too superficial and | think that
the increase to this budget was unacceptable. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Anyone else from the public wishing to give public comment? Seeing no one. Remarks by Members of the
Board.

REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN

Alderman Dowd

| want to thank the Budget Committee for all their nights out and their hard work on the budget. It is, of
course, a tough year, but | have been dealing with the budgets in the City for 40 years. | don’t remember
one when we came in and said, “man this is a great year for the budget”. | know there are ups and downs
but they are never above that line it says, “hey we got a great budget”. | think that we have done a very
good job protecting our Police and Fire Departments and in doing so, protecting the citizens and the tax
payers of the City of Nashua where these services are critical. Other services aren't critical. | have full
respect for everybody that works for the City and support them wholeheartedly and | applaud them for
coming in at the numbers they came in at. But Police and Fire are extremely important. And it’s not like
these two groups were asking for all kinds of new things. No. They were trying to keep things pretty much
as they’ve had them in providing a great job to the City of Nashua.

As far as salaries, firemen — how many people do you know that run into burning buildings? How many
people do you know that go under the concrete of a caved in building to try and save people? You know?
That fire down in Massachusetts, 100 and some odd degrees out there and the firemen are running into the
building and coming out with heat exhaustion and ending up in the hospital. Firemen do a great job; Police
do a great job. And we can’t shortchange them. And nobody likes to pay taxes, | think that goes without
saying. And this year if we had any cooperation from the State of New Hampshire, we wouldn’t have had
an increase. We may have even had a decrease even with the additions we made. So that’s what needs to
be fixed and | still want to see those people that run the State Pension Plan come down and talk to us.

Alderman Klee

Thank you Madam President. And | want to echo the words that Alderman Dowd said. | really would like to
get the people from the Pension Plan, the retirement group here to try to explain to us and the taxpayers
here of Nashua why these numbers keep going up and so on. And I'd like to also thank the Budget
Committee, you did a thankless job. Truly it is and | wasn’t able to attend all of them for various health
reasons, but | have watched them all. And | don’t want to you fought amongst yourselves but you
discussed amongst yourselves...

Alderman Lopez
Robust.

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 28
Alderman Klee

Robustly, yes. And everybody on both sides made very good points and | think you did come up with a
good budget and | thank you for that. You made our job here a little easier because you ferreted it out
during the meetings. I’d also like to just kind of comment again on the fire on Concord Street. When the fire
happened it was called in by the local ice-cream truck gentleman who was going by and saw the smoke
and called the fire. And as a result of that, he got stuck there. He could not leave because there were
hoses all around him and he made a bad situation good by giving the children who were being displaced as
they got out of school, he gave them popsicles and different things to try to soothe them. He also gave
popsicles and | believe water to the firefighters that were there. So instead of sitting there and being grump
and so on he reached out. | don’t this gentleman’s name, but I’d like to publicly thank him.

Alderman Lopez

Hazy ice. He lives in Ward 4.
Alderman Klee

Hazy Ice, who lives in Ward 4 but he helped out those in Ward 3 so | would like to publicly thank him for
that. And | want to make a reminder that 4"" of July is coming up this weekend. We are having a firework
display at Holman Stadium and | pray that that’s where it stays. | know it won't, but | know there will be
some private ones. Let’s not put our firefighters and our police to any extra work, keep them at home and
where they belong. And please stay safe this weekend. Thank you.

Alderman Lopez

Ironically Hazy Ice could not join us for the Tree Street Block Party because the Fire Department was
helping us with the road closure and he kind of got deflected a little bit. But we appreciate you, both of you.
Nashua Fire actually helped us with our road closure and had to go respond to a fire so the Nashua PD and
their Command Center were surprisingly well positioned as well. We had a really good event. | want to
thank all the City Departments that participated too in the Touch a Truck event because there’s a lot of City
services that they don’t really get a chance to meet the bus driver when they are not like hurrying on and off
of it. They don’t get a chance to talk about the Token (inaudible) which is a really helpful way to be able to
pay for transportation to and from things. Even the Solid Waste Department was there and demystifying
sidewalk pickups and solid waste pickups and all that kind of stuff for residents is really, really helpful.

| want to thank the organizers that worked with me, a lot of residents were contributing their time really as a
labor of love. One couple that has been volunteering regularly for years the wife was in and out of the
emergency room like 3 different times and they still found time to help. One of our food providers lost two
close relatives in a week and was pretty close to Reverend Perkins as well and still made time to help. And
just the amount of problem solving and overcoming adversity that | saw just in organizing a simple street
party was very inspiring. And we need it because we are coming out of COVID-19, we were originally
planning this thing when we were still unsure of whether vaccines were going to be effective and all of that
kind of stuff and people stuck to it. So | want to thank everybody that helped organize the Tree Streets
Block Party.

| do also want to comment a little bit on some of the public comment that has been made and the opinions
that have been offered. | am concerned about the ratio of private properties to commercial properties —
residential properties to commercial properties as well. But | would point out that there was probably some
role in how the residential properties were more intrusively and thoroughly assessed because of tireless
advocacy on the part of a small group of people who are now going to present as though that had nothing
to do with this sudden shift of ratios and how people’s property taxes are going to be going up because
their houses were assessed at a higher value. People try to take on political positions and they are not
necessarily taking on any position of responsibility for the results of those actions. It is frustrating to see.

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 29

When people who are serving in the State Legislature and do not live in Nashua take it upon themselves to
modify our spending cap against the opposition of all of our elected officials that were sent to the house and
using parliamentary tricks and maneuvers in order to achieve it, that is discouraging. It speaks to their
moral character, it speaks to their credibility of their ideals and it is definitely not going to reflect in how
effective their overall government is. If your platform politically has to be, | am going to sabotage other
people to make them look bad so that | can look good by comparison, you are not doing anything other
than tearing things down. So! applaud my fellow aldermen who have been focused during their terms here
on building the City of Nashua up, being an inclusive place, being a welcoming City, working on
development and forward thinking and creative ways to be economically responsible to be fiscally
responsible to build the tax base and to grow a City that | think we are all proud of. So thank you
everybody.

Alderman Jette

Thank you Madam President. So | want to thank my fellow aldermen for pointing out various areas in my
way of thinking about trying to support the Mayor in reducing the Police and Fire budgets. | hope that with
4" of July coming, you know, | hope the Police still respond to complaints from Ward 5 about fireworks in
spite of what | said tonight. And if there are any fires, | hope the Fire Department comes and doesn’t cross
our Ward off the list. We don’t have a Fire Station in Ward 5 so | hope that doesn’t deter them from
responding if necessary.

We all do what we think is best in the interest of the City and even though we disagreed on these issues, |
appreciated your statements and your sentiments and in the end we all voted for the budget. So thank you.

Alderman Schmidt

Thank you Madam President. I’d like to thank the Mayor for the budget. | think he helped produce a nice
tight budget and it was pretty amazing to see what happened. Thank you very much. | also wanted to
thank the leadership of Alderman Dowd on our Committee. The work he has done on this, nobody
understands how much he does to help create a terrific budget. Thank you very much. One more point |
wanted to make, | was watching the Board of Education the other day and at the end of it, Sandra Ziehm
took a moment to talk about the people who had come to complain about various things. That day it was
just about masks and she said, when we sit up here, we do a lot more than you would ever know. We pay
attention to every aspect that we need to. You may come here just to talk about masks but that’s a tiny part
and we'd really like you to understand if you want to be part of what happens, you need more than just one
issue. You really need to think about the entire job that we do. | thanked her for that because | don’t think a
lot of people realize that it is a big issue to talk about the budget but golly, you know, making sure
somebody’s stop sign gets put in place is really important to a lot of people too. And it is a terrific job that
we get to do to protect the citizens that we serve. We are public servants after all, this is a terrific job and
when | hear complaints about how we are doing so poorly | just have to shake my head and think about
Sandra Ziehm and thank her very much for making the point. Just one more thing, the people who were at
the meeting that day, there was a lot of anger and there was a gentleman there who was standing up in the
back with his arms crossed and you could feel that it was unpleasant and that shouldn’t happen, that’s a
business meeting. If there are comments that you need to make, you make a comment, we do that here.
And when your comments are done, the business goes on. And | am really very grateful for how this Board
manages that. And | think the Board of Education is under a little stress right now and we need to support
people who are working on it. Thank you very much.

Alderman Cleaver

Thank you Madam President. Alderman Schmidt took one of my words but | want to express my
appreciation to the Mayor and all the Department Heads for an outstanding job in the budget process and
especially also to Chairman Dowd and the Budget Committee for an outstanding job; very, very well done,
many, many hours of work to do that and to get to where we are right now. And also lastly | would like to
wish everybody a very safe and happy 4" of July.

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 30

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

Thank you Madam President. | too would like to echo that, the Mayor’s Budget as well as Alderman Dowd,
thank you. And | too like Alderman Klee came here not sure how | wanted to truly vote on this but after
hearing all the testimonies and realizing that everything that was being said truly was true, you know, you
couldn’t deny that we do have the best in both our Fire Department and our Police Department. So | too
changed and | voted yes. | am happy | did. And | have two announcements. Saturday with the Black
Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, Southern NH Outreach of Black Unity and the Greater Nashua Area
Branch of the NAACP, we will be celebrating the reading of Frederick Douglas’ speech Saturday, July 3% at
12:00, it will probably go to about 1:30 at the Library on the Commons. And last but not least for those that
don’t know Reverend Dr. Bertha Perkins passed last Tuesday, the founding pastor of New Fellowship
Baptist Church at 50 Ash Street. And we will be celebrating her wake on Friday, July 9" at 5:30 until 8:00
at 50 Ash Street. However, the funeral service will be Saturday morning at 12:00 P.M. at the First Church
at the top of the hill in Nashua. | think that’s Concord and Main Street at 12:00 P.M. And we will be having
a repass and that will be announced later as to where that might be. Thank you.

Alderman O’Brien

Thank you Madam Chair. | think Alderman Dowd, excuse me, Madam President, Alderman Dowd did bring
up a good point. Some of the emails that | have gotten have come up and said, OH the pension system, |
don’t believe in the rollbacks that the State of New Hampshire has done. Folks, the current delegation from
the City of Nashua that represent and | am proud to be with them up at the State House fought hard this
year to represent Nashua against a pretty difficult tide. The current wasn’t with us. But it seems like there’s
been a lot of emails not really believing that. So | think in defense of the Mayor, what the Mayor says is
100% true. So | think we need to make the people aware that we are not claiming the boogey man is in the
room, he is there. And | agree with Alderman Dowd, so | would like to make a formal request, it is
summertime, that we contact NH Retirement System, see if we can have a representative, perhaps maybe
Marty Carlen could come down and give a presentation to this Board, advertise it so that the citizens can
see that we are not being Chicken Little saying the sky is falling. That you can hear it right from the horse’s
mouth and | think it’s high tide and Madam President | am willing to work on that if you so wish.

President Wilshire
Thank you Alderman O’Brien. | would just like to congratulate the City on being the fourth best run city in
the United States. However, | think Alderman Jette sells himself and the rest of us in this room short when

he doesn’t include all of us in that process. We help shape and form the policy decisions that go on in this
City. So the Mayor does a great job, his staff does a great job but we do too.

Alderman Lopez

Don't be lazy, keep doing a good job.
President Wilshire

That’s all | have. Committee Announcements.

COMMITTEE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Alderman Caron

Next Tuesday the 6" at 7:00 Personnel / Administration has two public hearings; one on the gambling and
the other one increasing the members of the Health Department Board. Then we will take up the
Legislation concerning the Police Commissioners. So thank you.

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 31
President Wilshire

Any other Committee Announcements? Seeing none, do | have a motion?

ADJOURNMENT

MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN THAT THE JULY 1, 2021, SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF
ALDERMEN BE ADJOURNED, BY ROLL CALL

A viva voce roll call was taken to adjourn the Board of Aldermen meeting which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderman Dowd,

Alderman Caron, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza,

Alderman Jette, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Cleaver,

Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire
11

Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED

The meeting was declared adjourned at 10:50 p.m.

Attest: Susan Lovering, City Clerk

Font

oo NY Oi BP wWN

NNN NM NM NM NH PP PPP ee PB
SPSS&RNXUSREREERSESGRURREERES

City of Nashua
Analysis of Grants

Activity Group Grant Description FY2022 Estimate
Police Grants (JAG) Justice Assistance Grant 5 40,000
Police Grants {VAWA) Grant S 206,000
Police Grants Bullet Proof Vest Grant 5 20,000
Police Grants New Hampshire Highway Safety Grants S 100,000
Police Grants Homeland Security Grants S 350,000
Fire Grants Homeland Security Grants 5 100,000
Parks & Rec Parks & Recreation Grants S 100,000
Emergency Managemet Emergency Management Grants $ 100,000
Public Health & Community Services Public Health & Community Services Grants $ 4,000,000
Urban Programs Community Development Block Grant S 768,964
Urban Programs Home Program Grant $ 447,023
Transportation FY2022 FTA 5307 Operating Funds Grant S 3,509,490
Transportation CMAQ Grant $ 130,000
Total City Grants $s 9,865,477
School Grants School Grants 5 16,000,000
Total Typical Grants $ 25,865,477

CARES ARPA Grants/Funding

City ARPA Funding - Will be accepted and appropriated in FY22
Will be accepted and appropriated in FY23

8,000,000
8,000,000
$ 16,000,000

ve Ur

School CARES Act Funding CARES | 5 3,274,000 Sep 2022
CARES II 5 12,973,000 Sep 2023

CARES III (ARPA) $ 19,299,000
$ 35,546,000

Total CARES/ARPA Grants $ 51,546,000

Fred Teeboom

24 Cheyenne Drive
Nashua, NH 03063
(603) 889-2316
fredtee@comcast.net
June 30, 2021
To: | Mayor Donchess

Board of Alderman
CFO Griffin

From: Fred S. Teeboom

Subject: The FY22 Proposed Annual Budget

Attached are the calculations that support my comments during the Public Hearing on the FY22
proposed annual budget.

1. Spending of taxpayers’ money is increasingly out of control

Doing the same comparison of the 6-year average for the years 2016-2021 and comparing
FY2022 with FY2021, I come to an entirely different conclusions: Nashua’s spending is
increasingly out of control.

Unlike the presentation on pages 9 and 10 of the FY22 proposed budget, the calculations in the
table below include payments for NHRS state pensions and Medicare/Medicaid.

The taxpayers do not have the option of not paying the pension costs, so the budget comparisons
for purpose of presenting the budget for a Public hearing should not exclude them, either.

Excludes includes
Pensions and FICA/Medicare Pensions and FICA/Medicare
6yearincrease | 6 year annual 6year increase | 6 year annual
FY¥21-F FY¥21-FY22

FY16-FY21 average on F¥16-FY21 average ‘a

City Hall 0% -2.7% 7.8% 4, 2.0%
ity Ha 16.0 2.7% = 27.8 6% si

Police 21.0% 3.5% ( =} 26.5% 44% 6.6%

Fi 27.4% 6% NN 1.7% 27.3 4.6% :
ire 4.6 a 3% rs 9.1%

enna

ppw 15.8% 2.6% aE 15.6% 2.6% 1.0%
Schools 17.9% 3.0% 2.3% 18.3% 3.1% 3.5%

This table illustrates the enormous cost for the Police and Firefighter pensions

2. City Must Sue the State over Pension Payments

The pension costs that now amount to $31.5 million, representing a 23.5% increase from last
year, are completely out of control. New Hampshire Retirement System (NHRS) pension
costs now represent nearly 11% of the proposed $290.4 million General Fund.

Page 2 of 3

aveg. 6 year

i FY21 - FY22
annual increase
21 2 increase
FY16 - FY21 FY FY2
$ % $ %

Pension |$ 1.69 7.9%|$ 25.49|$ 31.48/$ 5.99| 23.5%

FICA/Medicare| $ 0.14 1.8%|$ 865/$ 894/$ 0.29 3.3%

I pointed out the $1Billion in losses incurred through NHRS mismanagement. Couple that
to the insanity of paying for 100% funding of the NHRS fund.

Consider the exorbitant payouts to retirees who learned to “play” the system. | cited the

example of a former Deputy Fire Chief (current alderman) who collects on his retirement as
follows:

Example Pension Payments
Deputy Fire Chief
(current alderman)
Retired 1 June 2015
2015 § 65,000 severance payment
§ 94,000 NHRS pension payment
$159,000 retirement payment (ist year)

2016 $120,908 NHRS pension payment (2nd year)
(incl. additional severance payment)

2021 $111,844 NHRS Pension Payment
7,349 Medical subsidy (tax free)
$119,193 retirement payment (7th year)

plus 50% survival benefit

By comparison, here are the much lower Social Security payments to the taxpayers who have not
worked for the government:

Social Security Payments

2021:
$ 15,852 |retire age 65
average
$ 18,170 [all retirees
§ 37,356 |retire age 65
max

S 46,740 |retire age 70

" This publicly available information was obtained from the NHRS.

Page 3 of 3
3. Accounting for New Bonded Debt in the Enterprise Funds

I pointed out an accounting error in the Enterprise Funds. The principal (face) value of proposed
new bonding is included in the FY2022 annual budget, whereas only the annual debt service cost
(principal plus interest) should be shown (see Account 193 Debt Service). .

Debt service payments for new bonded debt in the current year do not appear until the following
year.”) This makes a significant change in the accounting of the Enterprise Funds, and in the
Total Appropriations:

Enterprise Funds Enterprise Funds
new bond included new bond excluded
FY21 - FY22 FY21 - FY22
FY21 FY22 _increase FY2i FY22 snerease
$ % $ %
solid waste $ 9.86 | 5 10.25 | $ 0.39 3.9% $ 9.86 | $ 9.30 | $ (0.56)} -5.7%

Wastewater 5 20,25 | $ 28.09 | $ 7.85 38.7% $ 20.25 | $ 16.86 | $ (3.39)| -16.8%

E j
nterprise Funds |. ayaa] 38.35 | $ 8.23] 27.3% |$ 30.11|$ 26.16]/$ (3.95}} -13.1%
Subtotal
Spec, Revenue Funds 5 18.58 | $ 18.57| $ (0.01) 0.1% $ 18.58 | $ 18.57 | $ 0.01)} -0.1%
City + School " ‘ - : as

General Fund $ 282.88|$ 290.37) 5 7.48 2.6% $ 282.88)/5 290.37) 5 748 2.6%

Total

_ $ 33158|$ 347.28|5 15.71 4.7% $ 33158|$ 335.09|$ a.52| 1.196
Appropriations

according to standard practice for municipal bonding.

A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Wednesday, June 23, 2021, at 7:05 p.m. in the
aldermanic chamber as well as via Zoom teleconference.

President Wilshire

And | am going to take just a moment to just say to the Aldermen and anyone else in this Chamber that the
people of Nashua expect more from us than what happened last night and | think that they expect more, as
far as decorum, and they deserve more. So | just want to leave that out there. That’s it.

President Lori Wilshire presided; City Clerk Susan Lovering recorded.

Prayer was offered by City Clerk Susan Lovering; Alderman Tom Lopez led in the Pledge to the Flag.

To join by Zoom — please refer to the agenda or the website for the meeting link and telephone number.

Let’s start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance. When each member states their presence, please
indicate if participating via Zoom state why you are not meeting in person and whether there is anyone in the
room with you during this meeting which is required under the Right-To-Know Law.

City Clerk Lovering called the roll and asked them to state the reason he or she could not attend, confirmed
that they could hear the proceedings, and stated who was present with him or her.

The roll call was taken with 8 members of the Board of Aldermen present: Alderman Michael B. O’Brien,
Sr., Alderman, Alderman Richard A. Dowd, Alderman Thomas Lopez, Alderman David C. Tencza,
Alderwoman Elizabeth Lu, Alderman Ernest Jette, Alderman Brandon Michael Laws and Alderman
Wilshire.

Alderman Patricia Klee, Alderwoman-at-Large Shoshanna Kelly, Alderman June M. Caron, Alderman-at-
Large Ben Clemons, Alderman Jan Schmidt, Alderman Skip Cleaver and Alderman Harriott-Gathright
were recorded absent.

Mayor James W. Donchess, Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.

President Wilshire to turn the meeting over to Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.

ROLL CALL

Alderman O’Brien

| am present and | am in the Chamber.

Alderman Dowd

| am present and in the Chamber.

Alderman Lopez

I’m here, | am in the Chamber.

Alderman Tencza

Present.

Alderwoman Lu

Here.