This story was originally produced by the Keene Sentinel. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
As people throughout the Monadnock Region gather next week for annual town and school district meetings, inflation and rising property taxes have residents examining their local budgets with a fine-toothed comb. Town officials are seeking a delicate balance between affordability and the need to provide and maintain essential public services.
Budget-busting health insurance costs and a high price tag on emergency services put burdens on many communities this year. Many towns are also looking for seven-figure appropriations for major infrastructure projects, including new fire stations, municipal water system upgrades and road repairs.
Local efforts to address affordability challenges include some area towns eyeing zoning adjustments to encourage new housing development. And several communities are considering increases to property tax exemptions to keep pace with rising home assessments.
Meanwhile, some towns are considering withdrawing from school districts in hopes of saving money.
Health insurance
Rising health insurance costs are to blame for at least some of the increasing operating budgets in the region this year. That’s in line with a nationwide trend that experts attribute to inflation, an increase in prescription drug costs and market forces such as hospital and insurer consolidation.
In Troy, voters will consider a $3,408,574 budget, an almost 13 percent hike from the figure they approved last year. Town Administrator Jeremy Bourgeois attributed the increase to rising premiums, including a 6.9 percent increase on health insurance and 5 percent increase on dental.
Several school districts are also contending with this issue. The Keene School District, for example, is proposing a $79 million budget that’s roughly 4 percent higher than the figure voters greenlit last year. Keene Board of Education Chair George Downing attributed part of that rise to health insurance and salary increases.
In the Monadnock Regional School District, where voters slashed the proposed operating budget to $36 million — nearly $1.8 million less than the budget that voters approved last March — health insurance costs rose by almost $1 million, district leaders said at the Feb. 1 deliberative session.
Officials also attributed higher health insurance costs to budget hikes in the Jaffrey-Rindge, Winchester and Hinsdale school districts.
Emergency services
Few issues exemplify the delicate balance of a town’s needs and its residents’ purses better than the rising cost of emergency services. Most people agree that police, fire and EMS services are essential, but the cost of personnel, vehicles and infrastructure associated with those services has driven up many local budgets.
Area towns where police, fire or EMS service costs contributed to proposed budget increases include Hancock, Jaffrey, Rindge and Troy, according to town officials and budget documents.
In Rindge, voters will consider adding to the police budget once again by approving a 10th police officer, at a cost of about $93,591 in the first year.
An article on the Hancock warrant asks voters if they want to study the possibility of a regional police department shared with neighboring Greenfield. Hancock Town Administrator Jonathan Coyne said the move could save the town money, but noted the study would focus more on whether doing so could help with staffing and resources.
Several area towns are looking down the barrel of fire station repairs or replacements.
In Swanzey, the need for a new fire station to replace the one under town hall — one of three in town — is a repeat feature of town meeting. A proposal will go before voters this month for the seventh time in as many years. The $3.96 million proposal, which needs a three-fifths majority to pass, is a cheaper version of the $5.28 million station proposed last year.
Hinsdale voters have to mull the purchase of land for a new fire station again after the decision of a September special town meeting was ruled invalid by the N.H. Department of Revenue Administration. The roughly $400,000 appropriation would allow the town to buy a plot of land at 59 Plain Road for the project.
Rivers and roads
In Acworth, a road damaged by flooding in 2023 could be repaired with funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency if voters approve. The town was awarded roughly $1 million for the Derry Hill Road project.
In Alstead, two bridge replacements are on the warrant. Each of the bridges on Hill Road and Comstock Road would cost upwards of $1.8 million, with much of that coming from government grants. The Hill Road bridge is on the state’s red list of municipally owned bridges in critical condition.
Hancock is looking to raise $465,000 to repave roads in town, and Jaffrey officials want to add more than half a million dollars to a capital reserve fund for paving, as well as $120,000 to one for bridge rehabilitation.
Richmond is asking voters to raise $105,000 to topcoat a 2-mile stretch of Fish Hatchery Road. Finishing that road would cap a multi-year effort to repave the road.
Something in the water
Jaffrey residents will vote on whether to raise the final $1.6 million needed to build a water treatment plant that will remove manganese and PFAS contamination from public well water. The article, which needs a three-fifths majority to pass, would add to the $10 million already approved for the project, the majority of which comes from grants and loans.
The Swanzey selectboard is asking voters to approve a plan for the town to buy and improve the privately owned West Swanzey Water Company, which serves about 200 households. The $6.4 million plan would be funded by a low-interest loan from the state with significant principal forgiveness. The loan would be paid off by users of the system through water fees.
Chesterfield officials are asking voters to spend about $20,000 to drill a new well for town hall. The current well has become contaminated with road salt, a town official told The Sentinel, and drilling a new well is cheaper than buying water purification equipment.
In Hinsdale and Marlborough, voters will consider appropriations to bring the towns’ water systems into compliance with the Federal Lead and Copper Rule.
Efforts to address costs, housing crisis
Across the region, voters will be asked to weigh in on proposals that could help address the housing crisis and cost of living increases.
In Marlborough, Sullivan and Gilsum, residents could approve an expansion to discounts on the assessed value used for calculating property taxes. A similar exemption could be increased in Troy.
In Chesterfield, a ballot question could amend the town’s zoning ordinance to allow detached accessory dwelling units, sometimes know as “in-law apartments,” on lots larger than two acres. If approved, the measure could help increase the town’s housing stock. In Troy, proposed amendments aim to bring the town’s zoning ordinance on manufactured homes in line with state law, making it easier to expand manufactured home parks.
School district withdrawals
Alstead officials are asking voters to decide if the town should ask the Fall Mountain Regional School District to study the feasibility of Alstead leaving the district. If that study happens and a withdrawal plan is developed that wins State Board of Education approval, voters in the entire school district, which also includes Acworth, Charlestown, Langdon and Walpole, would vote in the future on Alstead leaving.
Voters in Langdon and Walpole are also being asked if they’ll direct the district to conduct a feasibility and suitability study for withdrawal from the Fall Mountain district. However, Langdon’s article notes that even if it is approved, the measure would become null and void if Walpole residents vote down the feasibility study article in that town.
Rindge voters have the chance to ask for a study on leaving the Jaffrey-Rindge Cooperative School District.
The petitioned article to study leaving the school district is similar to one that passed in the town in 2019. The committee that formed as a result reported in 2020 that it would be more costly for Rindge to leave the district than to stay in it. The town of about 6,000 has been part of the combined district since 1969.
Voters in the ConVal School District will consider whether to allow two of the district’s nine member towns to withdraw.
Dublin and Francestown began exploring the possibility of leaving the ConVal district after a proposal last year to change the district’s articles of agreement. The proposed changes, which failed at the polls, came amid a drop in enrollment, and would have allowed for the closure of elementary schools in Dublin and Francestown, as well as in Bennington and Temple.
For more information about meetings and ballots in local towns and school districts, visit KeeneSentinel.com/Vote
Sentinel editor Liora Engel and reporter James Rinker contributed to this report.
These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.
