By Patrick Adrian Staff Writer
CLAREMONT — The Claremont City Council will push its budget decision for fiscal year 2022 to the eleventh hour, figuratively and possibly literally, with councilors still reluctant to approve the city manager’s proposed path to reach an additional $150,000 to $200,000 in appropriations.
The council, saying it needs more time to “digest” newly proposed spending cuts, voted 6-3 to table the budget discussion until Wednesday, June 30, the eve of the next fiscal year.
Mayor Charlene Lovett, who opposed the motion to table, cautioned fellow councilors against continuing to hold up a decision.
“If you want to continue with the $1 million dollar [road paving goal] you have got to give up something somewhere,” Lovett told the council.
City Manager Ed Morris is proposing a level-funded budget of $17,850,745 with approximately $11,586,641 to be raised in taxes. The proposal would set the municipal tax rate at $15.72 per $1,000 of assessed property value, equivalent to about $2,358 on a $150,000 home.
But councilors remain at odds over the funding of their own directive: a paving budget goal of $1 million.
As of Wednesday Morris has increased the proposed paving budget to $850,000 and anticipates at least $200,000 in additional revenues from the New Hampshire Room and Meals Tax and the American Rescue Plan (ARP), which will provide relief aid to municipalities reporting at least $1.5 million in revenue losses from the pandemic.
the administration did not have time to add them into the main budget document.
“I’m very confident in these two numbers coming into January that we will be able to find the $200,000,” Morris said.
But some councilors have indicated a hesitancy to rely on anticipated revenues without a guarantee.
Councilor Dale Girard said he worries the city may be overestimating its revenue projections, including having enough total revenue losses to qualify for federal aid.
“I am hoping that the federal government comes out with the [American Rescue Plan] and says to have at it and fix your roofs and streets, but as of today that’s not our luxury,” Girard told Morris.
Several councilors also expressed concern about where the budget cuts are being made, many of which were added on Wednesday and unfamiliar to the council.
Morris explained that he had to work throughout Wednesday to address budget changes, including revenue adjustments requested by the council and additional spending cuts to fund a grant writer position requested by the council.
“I apologized if you expected information sooner but it was a full day’s worth of work for myself, some of the directors and Finance Director [Mary] Walter as well,” Morris told the council. “I haven’t [even] looked at an email today.”
But several councilors said they would need more time to review the list of budget changes.
“I feel bad to call back in staff [for a budget meeting], but I don’t feel comfortable acting tonight,” Councilor Nick Koloski said.
“We weren’t even allowed enough time to look in the budget book to see what we had before,” Girard said.
The council also had to table discussion of new budgets for water and sewer operations and the downtown tax increment finance (TIF) district.
The looming question facing councilors next week is how they will resolve disagreements with the proposed spending cuts in the last hours of the fiscal year.
The council also appears to have a consensus on alternative solutions, with some councilors appearing to want the full $1 million budgeted now and councilors expressing differing views about where the cuts should derive.
On Tuesday, some councilors suggested defunding two vacant positions in the police department budget — one lieutenant position and one captain — which Morris and Police Chief Mark Chase urged strongly against.
Eliminating vacant positions when the department is actively trying to recruit frequently discourages recruits from applying and sends a negative message to the existing officers, Chase told the council. Reducing positions would also conflict with the grant that Claremont received to fund an officer hire, as the grant’s intent is to help add officers.
Morris said the city and council can review position vacancies mid-year, once it becomes more clear these positions will likely remain vacant through the remaining fiscal year.
According to Morris, the city does not need the full $1 million budgeted to start the new fiscal year, as many of these road projects will not go out to bid until winter.
Even in a worst case scenario where the anticipated revenues fail to close the paving budget gap, the city would prioritize the remaining $150,000 to $200,000 for the following year’s budget, Morris said.
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