Board of Aldermen 11-13-2018 Page 2
President Wilshire declared Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr. duly elected Vice President of
the Board of Aldermen for the remaining 2018-2019.
Oath of Office administered by Corporation Counsel.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
First | wanted to join you in just extending again my condolences to Brian McCarthy’s family; Gloria, Kim,
John and Alicia. Many of us attended his wake and his funeral over the weekend, these were very sad
events because Brian served the City for 25 years, longer than any member of the Board of Aldermen has in
the City’s history. During that time, he accomplished many things for the City. He was devoted totally to
Nashua, to our schools, to our downtown and | know that | speak for everyone and | am sure you will have
your own words as well, but | speak for everyone when | say we will miss Brian.
Next Madam President, | wanted to mention the revaluation and the assessments, of course the tax bills are
out. The revaluation which was required by the State DRA by State Law is hard for a lot of people because
some people’s taxes went up and some people’s went down. We have to feel empathy for those whose
taxes went up as a result of the revaluation. The revaluation does not bring in any additional money; what it
does is reallocate the tax burden as between the 29,000 properties in the City of Nashua based upon
market conditions based upon the fair market value of each individual property. What the revaluation
means and requires under State Law is that all properties be taken to 100% of fair market value. Because
of the strong housing market that we have seen over the last 5 years, the average home went up around
23% in their assessment, more equity in the house. But on the other hand that can affect the property
owner's taxes as well. For those whose properties went up less than 23%, they did pretty well, some
people’s taxes actually went down. Others, whose assessments went up more than the 23% are seeing
higher taxes as a result. We did work together to pass a 1.6% increase budget to help mitigate the effects
of what we could see coming for at least part of the community, those whose properties went up a lot.
| also wanted to direct your attention to the memo letter from CFO John Griffin which addresses many of the
questions raised on a communication that appears later in the agenda. | did want to point you to an
attachment to CFO Griffin’s memo or letter which is the most recent review done by the DRA, the State
Department of Revenue Administration of the Nashua Assessing Office. The Department of Revenue
Administration oversees everything, they have authority over assessing state-wide, they adopt procedures,
they have a manual, they inspect, they evaluate the performance of the various assessing departments. In
addition, they did evaluate and supervise the work of KRT in doing the revaluation.
If you look at this report, it evaluates 14 different things here; and it gives 14 different numbers, 12 of which
are zeros, one of which is a one and one of which is a two. It says that every number should be below a six,
meaning that had the Assessing Department gotten 14 fives, that would still be good or acceptable. Now
the lower the score the better, it’s not the higher the score the better. So even though a 70, 5 x 14 would
have been acceptable, maybe a good score, the DRA awarded the Assessing Department a total score of 3.
So they got 12 zeroes, 1 one and 1 two, nearly a perfect review.
So certainly everything can always get better and we can always strive to improve which is what we are
doing in the Assessing Office in terms of including building permits, making sure everything is reviewed,
making sure that everybody gets a fair hearing. But, at least according to the DRA which is giving the
Assessing Department just a few months ago, virtually a perfect score, they are doing a pretty good job.
Now again, are there errors somewhere within 29,000 properties? Possibly. But they will continue to work
as hard as they can to make sure that everything is done is properly, that the DRA standards are met and
hopefully next time they are evaluated, they won’t get a 3 against a possible 70, but will get a0. Maybe next
time we will get a 2 or a 1 instead of a 3, but | consider a 3, when 70 is good or acceptable, quite a good
score. And again, we are working to improve things, always. But at least this is an independent verification
that many of the things that they are doing down there are proper and meet DRA standards.
