Board of Aldermen 05-11-2021 Page 3
President Wilshire
Nice to see you.
Alderman Cleaver
Thank you.
Alderman Harriott-Gathright
| am present, | am in this room alone and | can hear everyone.
President Wilshire
| am present, | am alone and | can hear everyone.
City Clerk Lovering
You have 13 in attendance.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Also in attendance this evening is Mayor Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steve Bolton. Mayor, did
you wish to address the Board this evening?
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
Yes, thank you Madam President. On your desk tonight, you see the Fiscal ’22 Budget, Fiscal Year ’22 Budget that
| am proposing. It is a $290 million dollar General Fund Budget. Now Madam President, | would like to stress
something at the beginning which is if it were not for the actions that the State of New Hampshire has taken, which |
will mention in a minute, if it were not for what the State has done, the City tax rate, based on this budget, would be
flat or actually decline this coming fall. However, as we have discussed the State is slamming Nashua with $11.8
million dollars of increased costs and lower State aid. This translates to a 5 %2% tax increase imposed by the State
of New Hampshire. So | have been working hard with Departments to try to make up for the State’s approach of
using the cities and towns of New Hampshire as their cash register.
Although | am proposing that we offset these State actions by cutting many City Department budgets below the
level of the current year, the total City Budget | am proposing as a result of what the State has been doing, could
result in a tax increase of between 3% and 4%. Again, if the State were to neutralize its actions, the tax rate would
be flat or go down. Now as part of the Budget, | am assuming that $4.4 million dollars of the funds that the City will
receive from the Federal Government as part of the American Rescue Plan, can be applied to offset some of the
reduced school aid. Now the guidelines for the American Rescue Plan funds just came out yesterday, so everyone
across the country is studying those very carefully. But it appears that our estimate that we would be able to use
these funds to replace some of the lost revenue is accurate and therefore that will help us a little bit in offsetting
what the State has been doing.
Now we are still facing a number of major financial challenges. Of course the pandemic, COVID-19 and again the
State’s decision to increase the City’s pension costs by $4.4 million dollars to a total of $29 million. The State’s
decision to reduce school aid by $7.4 million and, of course, the rising healthcare costs for city employees not on
the City’s new HMO plan. In order to offset the State’s tax increase caused by these actions as much as possible, |
asked City Hall and the City Departments to send me budgets that were level funded from the current year, level
funded. | want to thank the Departments that worked hard to help our City taxpayers, our hard working taxpayers.
So the City Hall Budget is down, City Hall Budget as a whole is down 2.7% from the current year. Public Works is
