Tuesday night, Doug and I went to the Belknap County Public Hearing on the proposed budget. To say that I was not amused is putting it lightly with respect to the actual outcome.
Why? Essentially (and without getting mired in NH minutia), the County Commissioners had set their budget and then the County Convention (the 18 NH House Representatives from Belknap County) added additional monies to the expense side of the ledger. Without revenues to support it.
OK, to be truthful – there is a source of revenue – taxpayers. The Commissioners and the Convention all highlighted that the budget was up only 3.92%. Before Tuesday night, that meant that taxes in the County had to go up 13+% (seemingly there was a "deal" so that the increase is now just 10%).
Well, why the background? Some of those in our local area may recognize the name Greg Knytych – the new Ward 1 Laconia City Councilor – aka "The Blogging Councilor". He’s a ‘Grok friend as he has been on our Meet The New Press radio show and we assisted him getting his blog site up and running.
And he has blogged about the meeting here asking for people to show up and did a bit of explanation (emphasis mine):
The financial impact to Laconia is the equivalent of 7 or 8 city employees being laid-off. Mayor Matt Lahey and City Manager Eileen Cabanel have met with County Officials and they aren’t being specific about the reasons for the increase but they insinuate that it is due to the recent legislation regarding the state payments for the Nursing Home and the caps put in place by Health and Human Services. I don’t completely buy this excuse because there is a “Hold-Harmless” clause in the legislation signed by Gov Lynch.
Note: Laconia has a tax cap in place – their rate of increase is (simplistically) limited to last year’s tax revenues, an increase of the CPI inflation rate, and the assessed value of new building. Period. AND, they had already set their budget before the County numbers came out – all but scrapping up against the tax cap limit.
That all said, you know what’s coming – Yup, there’s a BUT coming up! Methinks Greg and I are going to be having "a discussion" as there needs to be a pointing out a thing or two to Greg. So, let the blogging debate begin (next post)!
