Special Board of Aldermen 6-13-2022 Page 18
left under the cap. In my tenure here, the exclusions were looked at more of an override. So there was kind of a
challenge to not want override and not want to exclude. So that’s what | lived with from ‘13 to ‘17 and then the
spending cap was deemed unenforceable by the courts. Thank you.
Alderman Lopez
If (inaudible) be present, Attorney Bolton. Earlier we were talking about has the City ever actually exceeded the
spending cap and it was sort of described that previously there were ordinances put in place to kind of dodge the
spending cap by redefining what went under it, but | also believe that | understand that we can’t do that now. Is that
the case?
Steve Bolton, Corporation Counsel
Yes.
Alderman Lopez
So we can’t take the short cuts that the previous Boards took and we probably shouldn’t have in the first place.
But then my second question was, | think to Attorney Bolton but maybe to CFO Griffin, we were talking about
overrides with regards to Infrastructure or maybe exclusions with regard to infrastructure improvements. So if we
build a fire station, then we could potentially get ten votes and do that but what about personnel expenses? Would
those be considered part of the budget that can’t be removed from the spending cap so would we be able to afford to
staff those firefighters?
Steve Bolton, Corporation Counsel
That might be a problem. Now right now we’re $113 million away from hitting the cap. So right now you might be able
to squeeze it in but we may not always be in the same fiscal circumstances. So yes, personnel expenses are not
capital. They’re ordinary expenditures and there’s no exclusion for that.
Alderman Lopez
Thanks for clarifying.
Alderman Dowd
Just a couple of things. | think every cities in New Hampshire their Charters are different. They’re not all identical,
correct?
Steve Bolton, Corporation Counsel
That is correct.
Alderman Dowd
In Manchester, this is the first year in a number of years where they haven't overridden whatever cap they have. So
their cap isn’t working too well either.
Having been around for a while, | can tell you that the road structure in Nashua - let me use a different term - went
downstream severely and that’s why we have spent | think it’s $75 million to bring the roads back up to speed. We
have sort of promised that we would allocate enough money after this bond is done to stay ahead of the roads
because because of the cap, we weren’t able to do the road paving that we were supposed to do. Other infrastructure
failed. When we replaced Nashua High with the current Nashua High South, | can tell you from personal observation
that building was in terrible, terrible shape. The only thing that we were able to survive for the new buildings was one
wall and the stairwells. | don’t need to go in a lot of detail.
The other thing it hurt was CERF. They had developed this CERF program because our vehicle replacement under
former Mayors because of the spending cap went to hell in a handbasket. Even the CERF isn’t up to where it should
as we've explained several times. So the cap has not been a friend to anyone. It boils down to pay me now or pay
me a lot more later. When we built the two high schools, we built them to last. If you go in the high schools now, they
