Special Board of Aldermen 6-13-2022 Page 12
So just to clarify that, there is nothing constitutionally in the NH State Constitution that they based their decision on. It
was purely Statutory?
Steve Bolton, Corporation Counsel
Yes.
Alderman Clemons
Okay. | guess I’m going to limit my comments to this tonight but what | think here is | do believe that the grants, and
the enterprise funds, and those types of things should not be included. | would be in support of changing our Charter
to state such a thing because | have been on the Board of Aldermen when we have received income from a windfall
or from something else and we have had Aldermen who couldn’t see the forest for the trees and realized that yes
you’re overriding the spending cap. However, you're not affecting the taxes. This is money that you know in some
cases it was money that the City didn’t even foresee coming. Came into the coffers and when | say appropriate it, we
couldn’t put it to anything. It just went and sit in an account. Period end of story. You may think that’s okay and
maybe in some cases it is but when there are needs in this City, and we have multitudes of needs, that’s a problem.
Where | really see this being a problem and when | look at that difference on this sheet between almost $96 million
and $60 million dollars in one year, if that goes the other way, we can’t do anything about that and we’re going to have
to turn down grants because grants are meant to be appropriated. When we accept a grant, it doesn’t come in to just
sit in an account. It comes in to be spent. So if we have a year that’s like that under this Charter, that’s going to be a
major problem. We're going to have to turn around and tell the taxpayers of this City sorry we couldn't accept the $25
million that came from the federal government or the $10 million that came from the federal government that would
have helped supplement some of the things that you wanted to see happen in this City. We couldn’t do that because
we have a spending cap that’s so foolishly written that it doesn’t allow for exception. So | will be looking into putting
before the voters something to change this and to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
Alderman Dowd
Yes, just a couple of things maybe for clarification. | spent a lot of time working on the bonding in the City and it is
true, the bonds are passed in this chamber by 10 votes. It immediately becomes an obligation. The City Treasurer
can go out the next day and sell the bonds if he wanted to. It doesn’t make sense but he could. We typically have -
there’s a lot of process in the bonding. The only thing to be concerned about is the debt service from the bond, which
is far, far including the bonded debt is far, far what is allowed by the State or even local ordinance. Not even close but
we do the bonding to keep the City where it should be relative to infrastructure and other things whether it’s paving,
new fire station, new DPW building, or whatever it is it’s justified and it’s passed by this Board.
The other thing is we heard about if we get a $1 million or $5 million grant from the federal government that we might
not be able to spend it. If we get a $5 million grant from the EPA to do something at the Wastewater Treatment Plant,
we don't have a choice. We have to do it. | don’t know how that factors into the spending cap but your hands are tied
because it’s a government mandate.
Having said that the other thing is that | was trying to point out but probably not too well since some people are
interpreting it the wrong way. This spending cap calculation and the spending cap itself has nothing to do with our
budget meetings other than we cannot have a budget that spent more than $113 million where it is today. Trust me,
no one is even going to try to do that. The budget that we’re trying to pass is based on what our Divisions need to
provide the services in a fundamental way for next year. There aren’t a lot of significant increases. So we’re going
through the budget, we’re listening to the Division Directors, we’re seeing where things make sense, and there may be
some things missing but | don’t see it changing significantly. In which case, it has nothing to do with the spending cap
because we aren't going to come even close. We're not even come within maybe $113 million of spending cap. |
think we’re in a position now where we have our trust in our financial experts, or legal experts, and the Mayor on how
the City Charter reads, and how the Court cases went, and how the State ruled. To me, that’s a solid argument for
the way we’ve calculated the spending cap but it shouldn’t be as big a concern because no matter how you figure it,
we aren't going to be close to it with our budget this year. Not within a $100 million, $113 million so it’s not something
we have to solve today or worry about today. People want to try and change the Charter, that is a huge, huge
undertaking but that’s not going to happen in the next few days. For one thing, it takes an election.
Alderman Jette
Thank you Madam President. So | have several questions. First question to CFO Griffin. If | understand you
