Board of Aldermen — 9/26/17 Page 3
COMMUNICATIONS
MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN MELIZZI-GOLJA THAT ALL COMMUNICATIONS BE READ BY TITLE ONLY
MOTION CARRIED
From: Mayor Jim Donchess
Re: | Downtown Riverfront Development Master Plan
MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN MELIZZI-GOLJA TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND REFER TO THE
PLANNING & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
MOTION CARRIED
PERIOD FOR PUBLIC COMMENT RELATIVE TO ITEMS EXPECTED TO BE ACTED UPON THIS EVENING
Fred Teeboom, 24 Cheyenne Drive, Nashua
I’m here to talk about R-17-125 that the Mayor mentioned during his remarks. R-17-125 recommends $7.1
million be transferred from the city’s unassigned fund balance account to offset the tax rate. To put this all into
perspective, and this gets into accounting, but since I’m suing the city, I’m pretty much up-to-date on these
things. If you look at the tax levy, the tax levy is in Fiscal ’16, the latest number available, is $196.1 million, the
total amount of money that is collected from local property taxes. $196.1 million. 7.1 percent, if you calculate
that out, represents 3.6 percent. Every percent is $1.96 million. $7.1 million represents 3.6 percent. Instead
of putting another 3.6 percent from the citizens of Nashua, you take it out of the reserve account. That’s why
government accounting has to be regarded with great suspicion because the true tax increase, and | see
Alderman Clemons is smiling, maybe he understands all this, if you take the 2.9 percent increase that was
mentioned, predicted on the citizens of Nashua, you add the 3.6 percent, represented by $7.1 million on the
offset, the total tax increase, increase in taxes represents 6.5 percent.
Obviously you don’t want to tax people 6.5 percent. There would be uproar. There would be recalls. God
knows what would happen. So, you take money out of the reserve account. However in context, $7.1 million
is a very large number. If you look at the money transferred in past years, it’s 4.3 million in Fiscal 12 to $5.1
million in Fiscal 16. The only time we ever came close to this $7.1 million was $8 million during the Streeter
administration when we had the fiasco with the insurance fund. Other than that, transfers from fund balance
account typically are $4 to $5 million.
In the resolution before you, it mentions NRO 5-135,A. Look it up. Maybe some of you have, maybe you have
never heard of it or never read it. It says to maintain your undesignated general fund balance to a minimum of
ten percent. That’s a requirement of the NRO. A minimum of ten percent shall remain in the undesignated
fund balance, money that you took the $7 million out of. Plus, and nobody every talks about this, the statewide
enhanced education amount, the local school net commitment, plus the county appropriation. The county
appropriation is $11 - $12 million. I’m not here to talk about the other amounts. I’m just talking about the ten
percent.
If you look at the general budget, what’s the ten percent? The Fiscal 2018 budget has $258.5 million general
fund appropriations. The total appropriations for Fiscal 2018 was $301.5 million. At least you’ve got to keep
$30.1 million in the unassigned fund balance account, maybe more if you take the other things like county
taxes. But even disregarding that, ten percent means you have to have at least $30.1 million in fund balance
account. Guess what? Look up the fund balance account. Where do you find the fund balance account?
You’ve got to do some digging. It’s not easily found. If you look at the budget book, Fiscal ’18, which is now
adopted, on page 319, it mentions the unassigned fund balance account. That has no assigned purpose, like
a savings account or a rainy day account. That’s what I’d call it.
The CAFR on page 166 and the budget on page 319 both mention the same number. Guess what’s in there?
$28 million, not approximately $30 million as mentioned in the budget minutes. $28 million is in there. If $28
million is in there, and you take $7.1 million out, you’re left with $21 million, nowhere near ten percent of
