Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 4
With the budget that | have proposed if it were — and we’re going to talk about more of the details ina
moment — but if it were not for the State the actions that they have taken in increasing expenses and cutting
revenue, Nashua’s tax rate for Fiscal 2022 would actually be flat and probably down but we have to try to
deal with this $11.8 million. So at the beginning of the budget, | asked all departments but for one which |
will mention to come in with no more than a zero percent increase to try to compensate for what the State is
doing and because we were in the middle of the pandemic, unemployment at least at that point was very
high. There were a lot of people out of work and it seemed like many people in distress. So we needed to
propose a very tight budget.
| did for one department — that being the School Department — asked for a different guideline. That was
without pension and benefits, | asked for a 1.5% instead of zero. The reason for that was the disruption
that they suffered as a result of the pandemic, the effect on children — education for our children is a right
not a privilege. Every kid deserves an excellent school and certainly the remote on-line learning was a
challenge for both teachers who worked very hard and many students. So the idea there was to allow them
a little more slack to try to compensate for all the disruption that had occurred. So | asked for zero.
Remember that and 1.5% excluding pensions and benefits for the schools. So here’s what in the end |
proposed because you will see that the departments over which | have more direct control certainly
complied with and exceeded the zero percent guideline. Those that run by independent commissions, or
boards, or the like didn’t necessarily agree or comply with the zero percent idea.
So for the City Hall departments, and Department of Public Works, and the Library, City Hall will be down
2.85% percent from the current year. We did that through the health changes, through the elimination of
duplication so thank you to City Hall and all of our employees there who worked very hard and helped the
taxpayers in this way.
The Department of Public Works basically the same thing. We eliminated some unfilled positions, made
some economies, and their budget for Fiscal 2022 is down 1.28% below the current year. Library as well.
They’re down 1.94%. So thank you to all of those departments — Department of Public Works, City Hall,
and the Library.
Now police and fire, and | will mention a little bit — I'll show you what the proposed increases are in a minute
but the Fire Department requested a 4% increase. The Police Department about 2.6%. Now I’ve been
suggesting to all of our outside departments and for several years that they were building in costs which
were not sustainable and that we would ultimately reach the point where we would either have to cut
services or raise taxes significantly. It seems we may be at that point now. | didn’t feel that the — especially
given all these discussions over several years, | didn’t feel that we could afford those increases. On the
other hand, these are very important departments. We all respect the work that our Fire and Police
Departments do for the city so | proposed a compromise with each of them. Instead of the zero percent
increase that | had suggest, instead of the 2.8% reduction like for City Hall | so okay look. How about a
cost of living increase. Cost of living is 1.7 so for each of those two departments | proposed a 1.7%
increase.
For the School Department, things are a little more complicated because although this suggests a 2.29%
increase, they proposed 2.39 with healthcare. The thing you should keep in mind is that under the
teacher's contract and our teachers based upon comparisons with other districts are underpaid. We're
about 60" jn the districts of New Hampshire. About 60 districts pay more than Nashua does. This includes
the healthcare but healthcare is not resolved for our largest employee group those being the teachers
because that’s in negotiations now. If the teachers were to adopt the healthcare plan proposed by the city,
that number would drop from 2.29 to about 1.6%. So that’s in discussions in negotiation. We'll see how
that comes out but unlike the other departments where healthcare is a fixed. We know what’s going to
happen. There’s nothing agreed to on either side with respect to healthcare for the school department.
Overall, they really did what | asked and without the benefits and without healthcare, they came in at 1.7. |
had asked for 1.5 so there again a proposed a compromise to split the difference at 1.6. If you go to the
next page which Mr. Griffin is going to get for us, this just gives you some of the detail. It just shows you
what the detailed numbers are and you see the same percentages on the right-hand column that you saw
