Board of Aldermen, Mayor Donchess, CFO Griffin, City Attorney Bolton:
Last Tuesday, the aldermaniacs voted to Indefinitely Postpone the ill-conceived Tax Cap R-25-121 (disguised as a budget cap, but in reality, a tax cap).
That is a very good thing.
Hopefully, this Tax cap stays dead forever, for you have to be a financial ignoramus not to realize how difficult it is to achieve a cap on taxes with a tax cap held to the 2011 State Law (see RSA 49-C:33).
For example, when CFO Griffin presented his tax cap calculation against the adopted FY2026 budget earlier this year, he calculated the budget to be OVER the cap by $11.8 million.
Several aldermaniacs spoke of “tweaking” the proposed tax cap. Yes, you can exclude a number of items from the tax cap cited under RSA 49-C:33, such as grants, capital expenditures, service on bonded debt. None of those options were presented by CFO Griffin and his financial staff, and none were examined by “crying and complaining…..we can’t live with a cap on spending” aldermaniacs
The Nashua Spending cap is not held to the 2011 NH law since it was grandfathered by the NH Legislature in 2021 (see RSA 49-B:13, II-a).
If you calculate the Spending cap according to the Nashua Charter (comparing total appropriations between last year’s adopted annual budget next year’s adopted annual budget budgets (no supplements) you’ll find the FY2026 budget is $0.5 million over the cap. Not the fake $33 million under the cap published with the city’s FY2026 budget resolution.
Donchess/Bolton/Griffin have corrupted the interpretation of the cap. Furthermore, aldermaniacs added Grants to the Special Revenue Funds (SRF) Budget in the FY2023 annual and following annual budgets (and Supplemental Budgets), ignoring entirely that the Nashua Spending Cap is exempted. A really stupid recommendation by Bolton and adopted by clueless aldermaniacs that could easily be corrected with the next budget by eliminating all grants from the SRF
So, back to Court…to eradicate the corruption of the Spending Cap by Donchess/Griffin/Bolton, all three named as Defendants.
Fred Teeboom is a former Nashua alderman-at-large.
This email was sent Aug 14th, 2025 to:
Subject: Indefinitely Postponement of R-25-121
To: Board of Aldermen <BOA@nashuanh.gov>
Cc: Mayor Jim Donchess <donchessj@nashuanh.gov>, Citry Attorney Steve Bolton <boltons@nashuanh.gov>, CFO John Griffin <GriffinJ@nashuanh.gov>
.
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