Board of Aldermen Page 11
September 14, 2016
Alderman Schoneman
This did go before the Budget Review Committee, and | am on that committee and | was the only vote
against it. | do want to express here at the full Board what my main concerns are. | like the things that
we are doing on the top part of that sheet, as part of the legislation, the $243,000; the various initiatives,
the fall music festival and holiday lighting. | think those are a good use of left over funds and good for
the city. We are also transferring some funds to the city building expendable trust fund and to the Capital
Equipment Reserve Fund. Both of those are funds that may potentially have been neglected over the
years for various reasons but | think they are legitimate expendable trust funds and that we want to
maintain buildings and amortize the cost of our vehicles. $900,000 — 40% of the total amount is going to
the pension expendable trust fund and my only objection there is that it’s not really a cost that is
amortized the same way that vehicles would be. It’s an operating cost that is due in the next operating
year. | understand the logic behind moving funds and making it available for spending but what came
out in the Budget Review Committee is that the main reason for doing this is not the only way to
accomplish it and certainly doing this is not necessary for meeting our pension obligations, we have to
meet them no matter what. The main reason for doing this is to avoid the vote on a spending cap
override that would otherwise result if this had to be appropriated in next years’ budget. This means that
although we call it a savings we are not actually spending less money, we are spending more money. All
we are doing is avoiding the spotlight that the spending cap override legislation would involve and | just
don’t think that we should do that so | didn’t vote for it at the Budget Review Committee and | don’t plan
on voting for it here.
Alderman Siegel
I'd like to address some of my colleagues’ comments. One is that it absolutely is an amortized expense
because it represents the shortfall that the State of New Hampshire has dropped down on our heads like
an anvil to pay down over a period of time; initially | believe it was 25 or 30 years and we are several
years into that. It’s adjusted biannually and this is something that we don’t control. | am absolutely
sympathetic to the spending cap arguments. The spending cap argument is stuff that is in our control but
this anvil was dropped on our heads. Obviously this has gotten quite a lot of scrutiny and nobody is
hiding anything because there were several attempts at legislation to try and use what we had already
set aside for that and it didn’t pass. At this point we do have these obligations and they are not going
away. This money would not have been my preferred solution; | had other legislative action that | would
have preferred, however, the bullet is out of the gun barrel and it is on its’ way and we cannot pretend
that we don’t have to pay this down so | strongly urge my colleagues to support this and also | would
point out that one of the big problems that | had in the budget hearings was CERF being effectively
gutted. This backfilling the CERF fund | think is critical for the health of the city because we can’t pretend
that the vehicles and the rest of the major equipment that CERF funds don’t need maintenance.
Alderman Schoneman
There is no pretending, | think | understand the CERF. | was one of the advocates for doing more for
CERF and I’m glad to see that. | think there is no pretending about the city buildings needing some
funding or better maintenance. The objection is simply to the pension fund. It’s a current obligation and
there’s no pretending that we don’t owe it. The only thing is that it ought to be part of a budget and not
transfers to avoid any spending cap. This represents more spending and by doing this we are allowing a
little more room, $900,000 more room in next years’ budget for things that we’ve already probably
committed to that may | think, in my mind, have been excessive. | don’t like the idea of relieving that
pressure on us. | think that we owe it to the taxpayers not to find ways to avoid bullets even if they have
left the gun. We owe it to them to live within the limits and | think the limit is defined by the spending cap.
