New Hampshire Cities Grapple With Budget Deficits

Manchester’s top financial official says all the snow we got this year has really cost the city.

In fact, Bill Sanders says this year’s winter storms have colored his view.

Snow is now green to me now, Dave, uh when I see it falling I think it’s just money, just going down the drain a little bit. It’s not as pretty as I once thought it was.

Manchester has spent about 900,000 dollars more than budgeted for snow removal.

That’s nearly half of the city’s projected 2.3 million dollar deficit.

Concord has also exceeded its snow budget by about 650,000 dollars, a significant portion of that city’s projected 5 million dollar deficit.

These cities have also been grappling with higher health insurance and other employee benefit costs.

Fiscal pressures played a role in the Concord school board’s decision to eliminate six elementary and middle school teacher positions for next year.

But the city’s problems aren’t just limited to the spending side of the budget.

Finance head James Howard says the revenue side has also been disappointing.

For example, not as many residents are registering new cars.

As the vehicles age the mil rate upon which the fee is determined drops. So you got no new cars, fewer new cars coming in at the front end coming in at higher rates, and a reduction in the number of cars.

Concord’s treasury has missed out on about 500,000 dollars of registration fees that it had been counting on this year.

Many other communities in New Hampshire are also feeling the effects of a weak new car market.

And most cities and towns have had to absorb higher costs for heating fuels, as well as for diesel fuel and gasoline.

Much of the excess fuel costs are part of the cities’ snow removal efforts.
Manchester officials say the city is also out 300, 000 dollars of state money, in a mix up over how much the state actually owed the city.

Finance chief Bill Sanders says budget projections have also been missed due to a general real estate slow down.

Building permits are down. New construction is down from what we were hoping. But the existing tax base I’m not aware of any unu…unique situations that have arose….

Both Manchester and Nashua have also saved money on health insurance costs, since each city self insures.

But those savings have not been enough for Manchester, as officials have looked for ways to save even more.

In that light, the Mayor has asked city department heads to limit spending, and hold off on hiring.

In Nashua, there are no calls for a hiring freeze, or even a deficit to deal with.

Instead, Nashua treasurer David Fredette says his city is on track for a budget with money to spare.

Our surplus in the city normally runs to about 3 and a half million dollars annually. Its usually what we have for a surplus. And we anticipate the same kind of range this year.

Nashua typically puts that surplus into a kind of savings account, which the city can draw on during hard times.

Manchester has that kind of fund too, which officials may have to draw on to close its 2.3 million dollar deficit.

Concord officials say they don’t have that option this year, because they’ve already drained their emergency fund to as low as they want to go.

So the city council exercised one of the only options it had left, when it recently approved a potential 5.4 percent tax increase for next year.