Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 3
One area where we really wanted to focus was particularly in the pandemic was the fact that small
businesses were very affected and hurt by the pandemic by the closures mandatory and otherwise. The
city assembled in various batches about $2.5 million of federal funds and we created a COVID-19 impact
fund which was used to extend loans and some grants to small businesses and to some nonprofits
throughout the city.
In addition to address the closures downtown, we expanded outdoor dining. That was authorized by the
Board of Aldermen very early in the pandemic — in the spring of last year April/May timeframe. | think it
went into effect in early May. As a result according to at least one of the largest restaurant tours downtown,
we probably saved many businesses by doing that. That has turned out to be a very popular success.
We've received a lot of positive feedback on that and we have many, many more people downtown than
ever before as a result of it.
Also we are about to complete Public Health building renovations. This is a project that has been
discussed and in the works for at least probably a decade. It’s a renovated space over at Mulberry Street.
They will occupy that really within about a week.
Another project that we’ve undertaken during the pandemic is the Imagine Nashua Master Plan. Of course
the Master Plan is a land use document required by the State of New Hampshire. So periodically it’s
necessary to update the Master Plan. The last one was about in year 2000. So it’s been about 20 years.
That was an interesting exercise, an interesting project because normally of course of all the meetings
would be held in person which could not be done during the pandemic. A benefit or interesting side effect
of the pandemic and the remote participate in the Master Plan is that because it was done remotely, we
had a lot more public input than we have with respect to prior Master Plans. We had hundreds of people
involved. People who probably might not have taken the time to go to City Hall or somewhere else to
attend in person. They attended remotely and provided their input. That will eventually in the next few
months result in a Master Plan document. We're still taking public input so anybody who is interested and
wants to put in their two cents worth regarding any of the areas of the city that we’re looking at, please we
encourage you to do so.
Now let’s go on to the budget that I’ve proposed. The budget that | proposed to the Board of Aldermen and
of course the way this works is that the departments submit budgets to me and then | make changes or not
and | pass it onto the Board of Aldermen — the Mayor’s proposed budget. They are basically the final
decision makers subject to veto and override.
So the budget is up $7.5 million to $290 million but | would like to stress that more than half of that increase
was as a result of the State of New Hampshire’s pension costs increase. Were it not for that, the city
budget would be up as | proposed it about $3.1 million or a little over 1 percent. Now unfortunately the
State of New Hampshire is really going to slam the city, our city, as well as cities and towns across New
Hampshire during Fiscal 2022. One could argue at the worst possible time. These pension costs are going
up. Our bill will now be nearly $29 million. This is unrelated to any increase in wages. Sometimes people
say that oh well you shouldn’t increase wages so much. This has nothing to do with wage increases. In
fact, the State pension system will tell you that 80 percent of the money we're paying in — in other words 80
percent of $29 million is just to just build up their assets. They were fully funded around 2001. They
mismanaged the system, a big mess resulted, and now the cities and towns are being forced to pay to
correct the State’s mistakes. So again $24 million of taxpayer money from the hardworking taxpayers of
Nashua is going - $24 million of the 29 is going to compensate for the State’s mistakes and that will
continue until the indefinite future.
The other thing that happened is that the State of New Hampshire reduced school aid by $7.4 million. A
big hit during the pandemic. Now if you total those two actions, that is the pension increase and the
decrease in school aid, you come up with about $11.8 million. A negative impact to the city’s taxpayers.
That equates to a 5 % percent tax increase. So going into the budget, we really had to take a hard look
because we needed to try to compensate offset some of this increase in expenses and reduction in
revenue being imposed by the State of New Hampshire.
