Board of Aldermen Page 5
April 12, 2016
state or in the top five in the communities. Looking at the 162 public school districts today, there are 52 better
or average teacher paying districts in Nashua’s $58,468.00. Some of our surrounding towns pay better on the
average; Amherst, Brookline, Hollis and Londonderry. Manchester is at $59,384.00; Portsmouth is at
$69,714.00 and Concord is at $70,225.00. Now consider the starting pay in Nashua with a BA and no
experience is $39,284.00 and with no step freezes it would take a new teacher 15 years to reach the maximum
pay now which is $67,676.00. Then realize the tuition at UNH is $17,624.00 and out of state is $31,424.00 per
year and that the average student loan debt in 2014 was $33,000.00. Add to this the cost of living in Nashua
and will this community have problems in the future in attracting good teachers into this community. It’s your
vote tonight and it could and will affect the quality of education that will be offered to the children of Nashua
now and in the future. Hopefully you will support the Principal's contract also.
Mr. John McCallister, 47A Williams Street
| am the president of the Nashua Firefighters Association, Local 789. | am here tonight to speak and ask you
guys to support legislation R-16-015 for the expendable trust fund for pension costs. This legislation is taking
money previously set aside for pension costs and allowing it to be used for that purpose. This is a reasonable
request and | would ask that it be approved. To limit the use of the budgeted money under the spending cap is
wrong. The state has down-shifted these pension costs to the city and towns across New Hampshire and it’s
not the city’s fault nor is it our employees fault. | ask you as a Ward 7 resident and also an employee of this
city to approve this fair legislation and use our tax dollars for the purpose that it is intended for. | also am
asking you tonight to consider our contract between the Nashua Firefighters Association and the City’s first
reading tonight. Please take that into consideration, it was negotiated in faith by our members as well as the
city and | think it’s a very reasonable deal. Thank you for your time tonight.
Ms. Paula Johnson, 15 Westborn Drive
| am not going to say much about R-16-015, | am going to concur with what Mr. Teeboom has said but I’m just
getting a choke hold here. I’m listening to the unions whining about this pension. This is taxpayers dollars too
that’s going into this and | haven’t seen where my taxes have gone down in the last 8 years but maybe they will
come down this because | endorsed you, Mayor. | think we are at a turning point in this city that we need to
have some tax relief. | get it what’s happening with the pensions but the pensions are not a thing in the private
sector anymore, very few people have that grade of pension. Nobody has $93,000 pensions other than usually
union workers and that come from the city. | am listening to this whining and | can’t deal with it, it’s my taxes
and | think there has to be a compromise here but the compromise is not to override that spending cap that we
the people of the city worked hard to get it into effect. A teacher's union member changed it and now they are
whining about it. | want to talk about R-16-001 and that’s the downtown parking money. I’ve said for many
years that money should be returned to the citizens. It should have been used several years ago to help with
the paving of our streets. $170,439.20 can be used to decorate the downtown, | don’t have a problem with
maybe $10,000 or $20,000 but $170,000; that should remain in the general fund and be used to help reduce
our taxes. Oh he’s not here, the Alderman that has a nice pension. | ran into him at Market Basket and | had
congratulated him on his election and | said to him that | hoped he would be considerate of us taxpayers
because a lot of our seniors are on fixed incomes and that usually means that you don’t have another source
of income. He said to me that he was on a fixed income too and me being who | am and | can’t keep my
mouth shut, | turned to him and said, yes, on my tax dollars. Then when | realized how much he is actually
getting, that just blew me over. The average person does not make over $93,000 that a lot of the employees
of this city do. The average person who is on a fixed income, a pension, they are lucky if they get $22,000 in
social security, maybe $30,000 or $40,000 so | hope you will remember us taxpayers who have to pay this.
Thank you.
Mr. Gary Hoffman, 18 Harbor Avenue
| am here to speak in favor of R-16-015. I'd first like to get a little clarity on the pension issue. The average
pension in New Hampshire, which is from the New Hampshire Retirement Service for teachers is $22,961; for
the police department it’s $35,000; and for the fire department its $37,000. 95% of pensioners in New
