Board of Aldermen Page 12
April 26, 2016
that if there is an alternative that might be acceptable | would like us to address it. | leave that out there as a
possibility.
Alderman Schoneman
| want to state again that | never thought that the legislation was done for the intent of bumping it up and | have
the utmost respect for Mayor Donchess and Alderman Siegel who put this legislation together. | expressed my
feelings that it was an inadvertent consequence of something that sounded noble and certainly had noble
intent. | think that the idea of shrinking this down to some other number, we can do it committee and we will
have plenty of discussion there, it could be palatable but | think we need to flush it out at the committee level
plus I’m not sure the $750 is the right number, maybe $350 is the right number if that is the amount for fiscal
"17 that is the amount to be impacted. Again, | think we should do it at the committee level and | would
certainly be amenable to have that conversation.
Alderman Lopez
If | understood Alderman Siegel’s presentation and Alderman Clemons’ we are not abdicating our right to be
pragmatic in making decisions about budgeting, this is just intended to solve a single issue so reducing the
amount of...instead of $22 million making it $700,000; we are still exercising the same authority aren’t we?
Alderman Siegel
To answer that, yes we still have an obligation to be prudent and we still have the issue of a number going up
but my sense in having spoken to people privately and my sense about the way the conversation is going is |
don’t get a feeling that the use of the money is the issue, it’s the consequences to the cap bump and so if that
cap bump consequence were contained and more palatable to those who object then | think that might be a
workable compromise where we can solve some of our problems without introducing side effects. Right now
the legislation transfers the entire amount in one bulk transfer which bumps it all the way up. Remember, as |
originally explained this, the whole point of this was to give us three years to solve a problem which hopefully if
we solve it in two years, the point is the expendable trust fund would lapse that money would go right back. If
we allocate it in thirds and we have to approve it every year then by definition we were given that decision up
front and again we don’t have that same gap where people can be concerned that we are going to be fitting all
sorts of magically additional spending. It’s all about solving the pension issue forced upon us by the state. |
am trying to work around that aberration in the way the cap is calculated. That’s why | introduced plan B and |
think it’s worth reasonably vetting at the committee level.
Alderman Cookson
| appreciate all of the comments this evening. I’ve had conversations with Alderman Siegel with regard to the
legislation and | think it’s a good idea. | am more palatable to plan B and | will state so this evening. | think
that we are also in a very unique position as a Board to have two members of it actually be state
representatives as well. | think we have a meeting with the State Delegation on the 5" of May. Alderman
LeBrun and Alderman O’Brien are in the enviable positon of hearing what are concerns are as a Board of
Aldermen and |’m hoping that you are able to represent that position as well to the State Delegation when we
are able to have communications and conversations with them. As Alderman Siegel said, we are not the only
city that is affected by this so | think there is a real opportunity to go back to the state and say zero is not the
answer. We, as a state, have to support more for our cities and I’m not sure that you can say that zero is going
to be your contribution to the cities any longer. This extends to Manchester, Concord and some of the larger
cities that are going to be impacted by the state’s decision not to contribute anything and while you may not
have influence over other city’s delegates, | think that you, as a representative of the State of New Hampshire
have an obligation to take our concerns and express them to our State Delegation as we will also and get that
seed growing so that hopefully we can take a multi-pronged approach to the problem. Hopefully the State
Delegation can address it in another capacity.
