By NH State Rep Mike Sylvia
Did you ever wonder how politicians use statistics to sell their budgetary schemes? It’s the same old song and dance; lies, damn lies, and statistics. Perhaps your daily paper is reporting that the Belknap County Delegation has reduced your tax rate. Yay!
Whatever you do, you should ignore the 2018 tax rate increase of 15%; that might warp your thinking. And please disregard the $3,000,000 that will sit in the county coffers earning interest; instead of being wasted by citizens doing frivolous things like making repairs to their homes, buying food or paying for luxuries like electricity. No, that money needs to be available to the county ‘just in case’ they find a better use.
It cost about $28.5 million to run Belknap County in 2018; well, more or less. Actually it was less. That $28.5 million includes a gift to the Community Health Services Network, LLC of $1.2 million; well, sort of. Actually the county intends to give away only $800,000 (more or less) and pocket the remainder to bolster that very important ‘fund balance’. So a little quick math (common core is optional) will tell you the county actually spent $27.3 on county services.
The Belknap County Delegation appropriated $30,002,772 to fund operations for 2019. My calculator says that that is an increase of 5.2% over the $28.5 ‘spent’ in 2018. Let’s take a moment again to ignore a couple of inconvenient facts; $400,000 of that $1.2 million ‘gift’ was stuffed under the mattress, and the other $800,000 wasn’t a cost of running the county, oh and they have only planned to give away $720,000 in 2019.
Perhaps you will be reading about a modest increase in the county budget? Maybe the headline says “Budget In Line With Inflation”; inflation is running around 2.5%. In order to massage the numbers to get a budget in ‘lock step’ with inflation you just have to go back and look at the budget for 2018 of $29.2 million. That works out great, they nailed it, a modest 2.7% increase from budget to budget.
Now, for heaven’s sake, do not suggest that the difference between $29.2 (2018 budget) and $28.5 ‘actual’ spending (disregard mattress stuffing) is budgetary padding. That is operational savings, statistically proven savings.
