I believed my neighbor when she wrote me that she could not afford $500 more on her property tax bill from spending increases by the city council and the school board in Concord.
She lives in a modest home on a fixed income. She has lived here her whole life and loves this city, but she isn’t sure what she is going to do when the newest increases kick in.
Like many others, I understand. Every single person who lives in Concord, be they owners, renters, buyers, business owners — everyone — is hit by the rising property taxes. I’m sure you know: Property taxes are the principal way we fund public institutions and services in our state. It’s the way we raise money and pay for things here. Leaky school roofs, pool lifeguards, trash pickup, potholed roads, on and on. Those taxes just keep climbing, with no relief in sight, just to keep up with maintaining what we already have.
What I wonder is: As my neighbor and many others around New Hampshire are fighting hand-to-hand combat to get city councils and school boards to trim costs and lower expectations for new projects, where is the outrage over this crummy tax system that relies almost solely on the value of your property without consideration for our incomes or ability to pay? If people had to vote on this unfair system today, I doubt they would.
Our political leaders have not been heroes, as the past and present show us. I remember when Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a former governor whose support crossed party lines, had the approval of both the Senate and House for an income tax and vetoed that bill. And today we have Gov. Kelly Ayotte who repeatedly pushes the myth that we shouldn’t “Mass-up” New Hampshire, as if anything that Massachusetts does is bad for us, including their tax system.
No, our political leaders have not been profiles in courage.
I am not going to go in-depth about what’s happening on the national level, except to note that while New Hampshire gets a lot of federal money to support a number of our important basic services (think Medicaid, roads and schools as examples), we like to tout how independent and frugal we are without ever acknowledging how much we depend upon the Feds. Again, don’t look for political leadership and honesty in Washington about the significance of this money for us.
I don’t think I’m asking for a whole lot when it comes to the public services our city can provide us with our tax monies – towns and cities have been providing these things for centuries, and it’s an integral part of being a thriving community where people want to live.
My three kids went all the way through Concord public schools and are now launched. They liked their educational experience here. So did I. I love how I can get on my bike and find beautiful places to ride with decent roads. I like having parks, hiking trails, a municipal golf course, tennis courts, good quality water. I enjoy the growing vibrance of Main Street. I appreciate that once a week people pick up my trash.
There are so many things I like about Concord and New Hampshire, but the tax system is not one of them. It hurts all of us. It hurts the most vulnerable among us. It is so unfair. It is limited. And that tax system is leading us to a crisis. We need to look at better, more progressive ways to raise money from our citizens instead of a system that was suitable for the 1700s but not the 21st century.
We need another way to share the costs of maintaining a beautiful city that benefits all of us.
Margaret Landsman is a retired ESL teacher at NHTI. She has lived in the South End of Concord for 34 years and in New Hampshire for 42 years. Her three children went through the Concord public schools.