Board of Aldermen Page 12
May 10, 2016
Alderman Clemons
In committee | was on the fence about this legislation. | ended up voting for it; to recommend final passage but
| have real reservations about charter schools in general. | think that they syphon money off of the district for
the benefit of the few and then the rest of the population that is left behind has fewer resources to invest in the
school. One of the things that | have been thinking about this is if we do create this tax incentive, does that
mean that Nashua then becomes a place where people want to set up future charter schools because they
have the tax advantage. To me, | don’t want to see us become a magnet for charter schools which | think are
a drain to public education. For those reasons, | am not going to support this legislation.
Alderman Wilshire
l’ve been supportive of charter schools, however, | feel if the parents want to make that choice and put their
kids in charter school then there should be a cost to them for that. The person that owns the building pays the
taxes but that doesn’t mean that they don’t pass that cost along in another way. | think taking anything away
from our public schools is just not right. At this time | can’t support this legislation.
Alderman Lopez
| think Alderman Siegel said a couple of times that the landlords wouldn’t take the tax revenue and that it would
go to the schools, that doesn’t clarify whether or not it would lower tuition; it sounded more like it might go
towards administrative or facility improvements which again, that kind of does go back to the landlord
depending. | think Alderman Clemons made a good point about the possibility of us opening an all you can eat
buffet for charter schools and while | like the balance that Nashua has right now | wouldn’t want to see us
become a market place for education in that particular way. Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja made a good point
about our school district paying for the special needs of our Nashua residents that are attending charter
schools in other cities. Do we actually know if all of our three charter schools are exclusively for Nashua and if
not, is that something that we could attach to this? Like if you want to qualify for this program then you need to
serve 80% of your students from Nashua.
Alderman LeBrun
| do not know the percentage. | do know that the percentage is greater than 50%.
Alderman Lopez
Attorney Bolton, can we actually make that amendment?
Attorney Bolton
My opinion is that this is a take it or leave it proposition. The enabling legislation from the state says you can
do it or you don’t have to do it but imposing conditions upon it is not an option granted to the city.
Alderman O’Brien
| Know that we as a city have compassion. We have reduced taxation in the example of elderly exemptions.
However, when we have that exemption we have a whole host of rules that seems to go hand and hand. |
don’t see any rules here, | see an idea but it’s open ended. | also don’t see a sunset clause so this will be a
drain on the tax dollars in perpetual. We just received the budget and | see looking over the shoulder of the
Board of Education and | see the custodians possibly losing their livelihood and | hear the Mayor tonight saying
that there are questions about feeding children with the lunch program. With these things dangling out there
and this is one of the worst budgets that | have seen; to make an exemption in taxes, that’s almost as grieves
as going over the spending cap. | don’t think this is the time in this economic climate to reduce any taxation for
anybody.
