Board of Aldermen — 4/11/17 Page 21
| think there’s a point where we are inflicting self-harm on ourselves. It is a difficult decision to make but we
didn’t take the steps when we could have prevented it earlier. If we don’t take the steps to prevent it now,
we’re going to have a serious problem with our budget. Mayor Donchess did have the department do
simulations, and some of those scenarios were pretty dire. | think our city is struggling in a lot of areas, and
this isn’t the time to cut corners and start taking shortcuts.
Alderman Wilshire
| think the damage to the city is going to happen if you vote with Column A. The problem is when the Mayor
asked the departments to come in at a 1.4 and he saw what those cuts were going to be, I’m sure they weren't
cuts that most of our constituents could live with. I’m not going to ask my constituents to live with cuts to the
education system, to police and fire, when they are already bare bone budgets to begin with. | am definitely
going to support Column B, and thank you, Alderman Siegel, for that scenario.
Alderman Clemons
| find it interesting my perspective in comparison to my colleague, Alderman Schoneman. He mentioned the
school budget going up. | think actually the final number was 2.03 percent of an increase. I’ve said in that
respect I’m not going to support that budget. I’m not going to support the Mayor’s budget when it comes in if it
includes the layoffs that are in there that are proposed in that school budget now and a few other things.
That’s because | believe that we, as a city, can do better. The economy has never been better in Nashua. It
really hasn’t. The unemployment rate is 2.7 percent. The stock market has never been better, yet here we are
with that economy and we're talking about how could we possibly fund our schools. How could we possibly
keep all of the current fire stations open. How could we possibly keep the number of police that are out on the
street at their current level. Yet, in the private sector we’re prospering.
There’s a fundamental disconnect. Former Alderman Teeboom put the nail on the head. We have a spending
cap. We can raise taxes as much as we want on people. And we do. We over tax people. How many
millions of dollars do we put back towards next year’s taxes so it defers the amount of money that that year’s
taxes go up?
| had a public conversation with the Board of Education president. He explained to me the different costs that
are going on on the school board, and how year after year the cost for special education goes up and up and
up. Those are things that we have to spend money on. You can’t deny a child’s education. So if it costs the
city $100,000; $200,000; $500,000 dollars to send that child to a particular special school because of their
special needs then the city has to pay that cost. Unfortunately what that means is we have to find other areas
where we can make up the difference. It is an unfunded mandate from the federal government. It is an
unfunded mandate from the state government.
We see this from everything. We see this coming down from Concord with the pension system. We see it with
special education costs. Things that we have no control over. Yet, we have a spending cap and those things
come under the spending cap.
It’s not right. It’s just not right. Not in this economy. When | first got elected in 2008 to the Board of Aldermen
and in 2009 when the economy crashed, ya, that was tough times. Those were tough times. That’s when we
had to make the difficult decisions. And | was proud to be on this board at that time and make the tough
choices and vote for a few budgets that Mayor Lozeau proposed because they didn’t lay people off. And those
were the most difficult times that this city has faced in the last 20 years, the last 50 years. We didn’t lay
anybody off. We did that because it was the right thing to do. Now we're faced with a budget that’s probably
going to come in and lay off people when the economy has never been better. | guess that’s good for them
because that means they can go out and probably find a job. But it is not the right thing to do.
