Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 5
on the previous slide. Again it just gives you what the raw numbers are. Now just to review what the
departments requested, again the Fire Department requested a 4% increase. My budget proposes 1.7.
Police — 2.59. My budget proposes 1.7 and the School Department requested again with the assumption
that the healthcare would not change but it very well might — | think it will benefit everyone if it does. They
proposed 2.38. My proposal was 2.29 with the healthcare or 1.6 without it. So that kind of shows you more
of the detail again.
Now | thought it was interesting to show you the six year budget analysis because | have been saying in
various State-of-the-Cities, and budget discussions, and all over the place that building these budgets that
are not sustainable there’s going to be an end to this. There has to be. Over the last six years you can see
what’s happened. There is a significant difference in the amount that the budgets have been raised over
the last six years. Fire Department is the most — 27% and that’s if their 4 percent raise is agreed to by the
Aldermen, then that will be a 27% increase over six years. If my budget held, it would be more like 25%
over six years.
Police same deal — 21%. Schools — 17.9%. Again if their proposed budget is adopted not mine. City Hall
almost 17 but 10% below the top. BPW 15 and the Library almost 12. DPW almost 16 but you can see
that — and | had this in mind when | proposed some of these guidelines. | certainly had in mind that over
time not that these percentages should be absolutely equal but we need to — all of these services are
important and we need at least to have in mind what we’ve done in the past to decide what we can afford
and where the most needs are in the future.
That gives you | think an overview of the numbers and the increase. I'd like to stress, again — oh one more
thing. Fortunately for us there is funds coming through the federal government through the most recent act
that was passed and so the budget suggests that we would apply about $4.4 million to replace some of this
lost school revenue. That will help us get it below that 5.5% increase imposed by the State of New
Hampshire. So thank you to the federal government. The American Rescue Plan helping to rescue us.
But if we left — and I’m going to stress one more time what that one slide said — if we could eliminate these
actions by the State — if we could just keep those things the same without the federal government, this tax
rate would be lower and probably down coming this fall but the $11.8 million from the State of New
Hampshire is a lot of money to make up and to try to maintain quality services.
Looking forward which is our last slide here, we are going to continue with the paving plan of action. The
city got way behind in terms of its infrastructure, in terms of paving and we are trying to catch up and | think
we’ve done a lot in that direction but still we have some streets that are not in good shape so we need to try
to press forward and continue with the 20 to 25 miles a year threshold that we’ve been reaching.
Another thing we’re pushing for is to try to increase tax revenues and deal with a housing crisis, a shortage
of housing at all levels of affordability. So we are optimistic that we can complete the School Street
housing 150 units. That’s market rate housing. Henry Hanger conversion — that’s 88 units. Again market
rate but also a Bronstein redevelopment which we’ve agreed to with the Housing Authority. They’ve been
very innovative in developing a financial plan to increase the affordable units on Bronstein and increase the
number from about 48 units to something over 200 units. So | think it’s an increase of about 160. That will
be helpful but we still have a housing crisis. We still have a shortage of housing and we need to add
housing wherever we can. There are other smaller projects that we’re working on. Things that are in not
quite the final stages that those are and of course we'll be talking about those in the future.
The middle school upgrade project, the expansion of Fairgrounds Middle School, which has already
occurred, the work at Pennichuck which is going on now and then the construction of a new Middle School
out on Buck Meadow Road which is a less expensive — still a lot of money — but a less expensive way to go
than trying to refit Elm Street. That’s an important project for the City, we are trying to upgrade the Middle
Schools and when we finish we will have State of the Art schools, all powered electrically at least by solar.
Alderman Rick Dowd is Chair of the Joint Special Building which is overseeing those projects. And we will
be moving forward with the Riverfront Master Plan; that was adopted some time ago to enhance the beauty
of the Nashua River which, of course, is a wonderful natural asset that the City has right in the core of
downtown.
