For Concord City Councilors, making layoffs to reduce next year’s budget jump proved to be a line they would not cross.
Seeking to avoid layoffs, the council moved to dip farther into its rainy day fund to cover operational expenses than originally proposed by the city manager, and with some dissent, approved a 2027 city budget that is estimated to increase the tax rate by 4%.
“The fact that we have a budget that came to us at 5.5 [percent tax increase] was already pretty austere,” said at-large representative Judith Kurtz. “I’m not sure that the community wants us to fire people… People are going to be struggling and unhappy regardless.”
For Ward 9 councilor Kris Schultz and others, firing existing staff was too severe a move.
“We all have our Rubicon,” she said.
The council did approve some direct cuts from the initially proposed spending plan, voting to freeze a half-dozen vacant non-police and non-fire department positions – mostly part-time posts in the parks and recreation department – nix bagged leaf collection, and cut one of the three deputy chief of police positions.
The assistant chief position is currently vacant as Barrett Moulton serves as acting chief. In the event that Moulton were not selected as the next chief, the council determined that they would revisit the decision.
These moves together accounted for about $492,000 in reduced spending, or a little less than one percentage point off the increase.
From there, the council voted to direct City Manager Tom Aspell to find another chunk of reductions, to settle at a 4% tax increase. They gave him the option of dipping further into their rainy day fund, up to $1.2 million instead of the $850,000 he initially proposed.
Aspell’s amendments brought the total amount of rainy day funds put toward the operating budget to $1,025,000. The most significant of the cuts the manager brought to the council were an unspecified staffing change in the human resources department, reducing hand-shoveling downtown after snowstorms, and cutting Hoopla, a library program offering audiobooks in dozens of languages.
Using rainy day funds to cover recurring operating expenses means the city could face a larger tax increase next year. The debt payments for major city projects and 5% annual pay increases tied to new union contracts were the main drivers of this year’s increase, which will not subside in the coming years.
A majority of councilors felt the move was worth it, especially given the uncertainty of tax spikes as a result of the ongoing citywide property revaluation.
An update on the revaluation from assessing director Jonathan Rice forecasted a continued tax burden on homeowners.
“Because the residential real estate market has been substantially more active than the
commercial/industrial market, it is anticipated that the longstanding trend of residential property owners assuming a greater share of the overall tax burden relative to commercial/industrial properties will continue following revaluation,” he wrote in a report to the council.
A push for a smaller tax increase of only 2% gained some support, but not enough to pass. Under the proposal from At-Large Councilor Amanda Grady Sexton, the reduction would have still avoided any staff cuts in police or fire. Getting there would have dealt a major blow to other departments and services, Aspell warned.
“To get to two without touching police and fire, this is not going to be Concord anymore,” he said.
Fred Keach, another at-large councilor, agreed that the quality of life and services offered in the capital city are a defining feature and a reason many people choose to settle and stay.
“They want the services and they want all of that to go with it, and there’s a cost involved,” Keach said. “I shouldn’t say it, but if you want to live in Franklin or Pittsfield and have that level of service and pay lower taxes, then go for it.”
In the budget workshop Thursday night, the council also made the following changes to the spending plan:
- Making safety improvements to the southern end of Broadway, near its intersection with South Main Street and Rockingham, for $70,000 in highway reserves.
- Giving Capital Area Transit, the free bus service that operates both fixed and call-in routes in the city, an $89,000 boost from the economic development reserve.
- Continuing an event grant program from previous years, also from the economic development reserve, but at a reduced amount of $100,000.
- Pushing off a handful of small-scale improvements at the golf course until next year.
- Pushing off improvements to fire stations
The move, made by Kurtz, to hit 4% passed 9-6. The vote on the budget was taken by voice: Councilors Stacey Brown and Michele Horne voted ‘no,’ and a few councilors didn’t vote at all on the final approval. After the meeting, Horne said she couldn’t back the budget because the tax rate increase was still too high.
Without the revaluation, this budget is estimated to increase the city portion of the tax rate to $10.58 per thousand dollars of assessed value, or a roughly $160 increase on a home valued at $400,000. But the exact tax rate will change after the revaluation.
New property values will come out later this year, and a new tax rate will be set, meaning the $10.58 rate would change before 2027 tax bills arrive.
