Spending may indeed be elevated over the last 50 years but it's NOT the fault of local governments. Local spending increases are a response to larger forces.

Here's a tidbit:
"During the observation period from 1960 to 2022, the average inflation rate was 3.8% per year. Overall, the price increase was 903.96%. An item that cost 100 dollars in 1960 costs 1,003.96 dollars at the beginning of 2023. For November 2023, the year-over-year inflation rate was 3.1%."

The price of everything combined has gone up 10 fold since 1960. So looking back to inflating taxes since then and claiming local spending is "out of control" is mostly placing the blame in the wrong place. Inflation is mostly caused by ONE major factor, government spending beyond income from taxes, deficit spending. The fault for this lies largely with the Federal government and then with many state governments. Local governments are not immune to the effects. Saying that local governments should refuse to increase local spending to cover inflated costs is absurd. Could you get someone to plow the town roads for 1/10 the accepted modern costs? No. The roads would not get plowed. The kids would not get taught. You couldn't afford to buy new fire equipment or computers or police cars or hire anyone to do anything.

Mostly, local costs have been swept along in a rising inflationary tide that is irresistible.

That doesn't mean that local governments don't try to sneak in the occasional Taj Mahal purchase and citizens MUST be watchful. But the budgets will continue to increase and some required spending will spike a budget here and there. Knee jerk reactions against increased budgets are not helpful.

As to the canard that non residents should be able to vote locally, frankly, YOU don't live here. YOU don't HAVE to live here. YOU could vote down the school budget and YOUR kids wouldn't suffer. YOU could vote down the highway budget and not suffer too much from broken and poorly plowed roads. YOU wouldn't suffer too much from reduced fire and police coverage. RESIDENTS, impacted by these choices should and must make these decisions.

As a result, YOUR taxes will go up, proportionately more than many residents. The funny thing is, people ARE voting to do enter or stay within the existing tax situation. They are voting by making their highly inflated purchases of vacation property or continuing to remain owners of such property. The exploding prices of vacation real estate (and resulting shift of taxes to the owners of such property) and the rising taxes due to inflation have made this more painful but still they are here. That may slow and rebalance in the future as it has in the past. However, the driving forces of inflation will continue to raise local costs and budgets MUST rise to meet them.

Jeffk, while it is true prices have gone crazy in 50 years there have been things added to town budgets that weren't around-at least in such crazy numbers-and one that comes to mind is recreation budgets for the towns. I would like to see a comparison of those from 50 year ago. Now before I get attacked, I love recreation but I question if the kind of taxes spent on it is really a need, not a want. Everybody has their pet projects and that is the issue.

Not all change is good
 

It's more than inflation. The size of government has grown exponentially since 1960. I've used the Laconia schools as examples before. Laconia Middle School has roughly three times the staff than when I went to Memorial Middle School 45 years ago, even though enrollment numbers are much lower. Every school is that way. And it doesn't end with schools, go to the town hall. It is chock-full of staff members toiling away on their computers. Same with the courts. I assisted my family with probating a family member's estate so I have become intimately familiar with the local probate court. The office is staffed by six or so people, and although they are very helpful and pleasant, it appears that one or two would be sufficient. Certainly, given that it takes at least two months to rule on anything indicates that there is an efficiency problem even though it seems more than adequately staffed.

At every level, the size of government has grown beyond what is needed. NH was a state that had limited government and limited resources. It used to heed to Ronald Reagan's famous line "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.'" Government doesn't have a very good track record of solving society's problems.

So while I agree we must adapt to changing times, we must fight against bad change. There are too many examples of present-day government policies that are harming us to list. Those of us who want limited government must go out and vote or participate in the process.

I saw Deval Patrick speak at a corporate event once. He summed it up well in a candid way. He told us that while companies worked to be more efficient and have less people do the work to compete, the government worked to employ people and get votes.

So…bloated government offices with early retirees still on the payroll and dependent on the government is a good thing that the politicians strive to grow to generate more votes.


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It's interesting that Reagan gets cited often when it comes to small government and fiscal responsibility. If you look at the numbers, the number of government employees (and not just the military as they account for about 1/4 of the growth) increases significantly. Moreover, the national debt went from about $900 billion to over $2.5 trillion. Not a criticism of the Reagan years, just an observation.

To me this is a large part of the problem as I am not wasteful nor are the politicians I support. Instead, it's everyone else and all the politicians I don't support...

As to allowing non resident property owners to vote, I say no. I am a non resident property owner in NH and while I would love to have a say, I don't want the wealthy, part-time non residents in my town to vote. I can't have it both ways, so come down on the side of allowing voting in the town (and state) where you are a resident.

We are starting to move this thread into a political scrum.
We should stick to the initial thread of Meredith taxes.
Local politics should be restricted to their own thread and national politics should be restricted all together on the Winni forum, there are other forums for that.

This entire thread is getting taxing….

Dan

We can expect these threads to get more taxing in the new year. :rolleye1:

Not my intent and agree. Taxes, local or not, are a hot button issue. For me, I recognize how fortunate I am that a grandparent had the foresight to buy island property almost 100 years ago. Taxes have gone up as has the assessment. There is no way I could afford to buy today, so i am doing everything I can to fund a trust so my children will be able to enjoy the property without worrying about taxes and carrying costs.

What's the over/under on who get's the last word in? :laugh:

We may be on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but you are a good dude. That's a very nice thing to do for your kids and grandkids. I am sure it is a sacrifice, but well worth it in my opinion. Good job!

The tax collector always gets the last word in.

The assessment numbers are interesting because they show the ebb and flow of what the general population views as valuable through the window of the market.

When did you become a tax collector? :laugh:

Very admirable, many properties change hands because families are split up all over the country and it places a financial burden on the ones that can't use it.

I'm very fortunate that through good decisions by previous generations I am in a position to help the next generation. My thought is that by putting the property in an irrevocable trust, perhaps with a dissolution clause that can be enacted at some point in the future, with funding to cover the carrying costs, or at least a good portion of them, the property does not become a burden on the next generation and instead can be enjoyed by all.

I'm not smart enough to do this myself so am working with a lawyer who specializes in this type of thing. I figure it makes sense to do so now when everyone gets along!

For those interested in researching historical town and school district spending, UNH hosts a repository of digitized annual reports which in some cases go back many years (Meredith from the mid 1920s).

I think you mean a 72% assessment increase...
A property that saw a 63% assessment increase in Meredith would be paying almost the same portion as it did before. The only increase would be what they voted for at town/school meeting and what the county had to procure. These being much lower than 72%

As you can see in the Meredith assessment averages, Island properties may have already reached their peak. The average growth in that category was lower than the average for the town.

It doesn't mean that taxes will not increase, but other then the outcome of the court hearings, the actual taxation should begin to moderate in years going forward.

Laconia's CPI-Urban tax cap helps limit exceptional budget growth even in the other towns within the county. CPI-Urban was unusually high; we hadn't seen that since the late 70s early 80s.

Garcia, May you live long and prosper. This is not a one year project, and now is the time to get grandchildren to fall in love with the lake. Happyu to chat offline.

No. Our assessment increased 97%. Pre-re-assessment annual RE taxes = $13.1K (paid in two installments/year). Post pre-re-assessment annual RE taxes = $11.5K (installment 1) + $11.1K (estimated installment #2) for a total of $22.6K or a 72% increase.

Our place is small. 92% of our assessment is based on the value of our land - .30A.

If the average base assessment was 63% increase, and your assessment was a 97% increase, then your taxes should have gone to $17.6K

If you paid half of the $13.1K in July, roughly $6550, your current bill would be for the remaining $11K

Your annual taxes would be $17.6K

The July is an estimate base on previous assessment and budget.

Your new annual tax would be $17.6K, old $13.1K, with an actual increase of $4.5K

Not that this should make you feel better... but that is the math.

Barring a new assessment, a failure of the Legislature to fix the State ED, or some new expenditure at the town/county that is extraordinary... the July bill should be about $8.8K

The property would be assessed around $1.76M

Well, if that’s the math then, yes, you have made me feel at least a little bit better, John. Thanks.

There's something...demoralizing about "everyday" taxes. We're in Florida for the week, and EVERYTHING is taxed—food, products, admissions, etc.—and it's awful.

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Exactly Think!…and why would us Granite Staters want “awful” in NH?….we don’t!

Dan

Well, to return to constitutionalism, they are going to have to decide what taxes get raised. $500M a year doesn't just appear out of thin air.

If they decide to get rid of SWEPT, so the return to donor towns doesn't happen... the sum would be nearly double.

Getting a billion dollars out of our current sales and income tax regime would transform life in NH in unimaginable ways.

The overall per capita would not change... the overall sum wouldn't change... just the means of reaching the overall sum.

Casinos would be a good place to start. Think of all the money that people now spend at out of state casinos.

spend better, not more
 

The trend more and more is to rely on taxes when we want to buy something big. Not so long ago, if folks wanted something they got together and raised the money from those who were interested. Many fire trucks have been paid for by Ham and bean suppers. Locally, we replace fire equipment every 15 years or so. "It's past its useful life" But some other town buys it at salvage, fixes it up and is very proud of the truck and the volunteers who made it possible. Reputedly, the top public high school in the state is the Academy of Science and Design in Nashua. No band, no varsity sports. They teach languages (14 last I heard) with Rosetta Stone and native speakers who are hired part time. And when Town meeting starts to get frugal, the school boards respond by saying, "OK. We'll eliminate football" and they get whatever they want. There are strong lobbies out there, and they aren't pushing for better academics.

We have casinos.
I live in Belmont. The casino is right down the road.

Even the Lottery, which has its revenue added into the State Adequacy Grants, doesn't produce significant amounts of money when the overall picture is taken into consideration.

And the State would only derive revenues, as it does now, from food sales.

Past proposals (all failed) included huge licensing fees and a lot more hotel/room tax revenue projections. However, nobody talked about increased administrative costs, policing, other municipal services that come out of a town budget.
NH still suffers from newbies who want to change what is working well instead of learning from our experience.

They failed because they failed to see two issues.
One, the casinos already exist... they just don't have the budgets to spend a lot on increasing marketing because we don't have ''whales'' - we have small time retail players that cost more to service.

The second issue is that constitutionally, the State would need legislation that is constitutional. The proponents of casinos were not willing to go in that direction.

This true. But none of what you've brought up is included in State mandates to local districts. We have a mandate to teach five (?) credits of a second language (English is the State Official Language), but do not have to employee a teacher(s) for more than that one additional language.
The State cannot be expected to pay for band or sports teams. Only its mandates.

The Legislature seems to think that if it makes a mandate, but doesn't call it part of education, that it doesn't have to pay for it at the State level.
This is either a complete competency failure of our legislators to understand the NH Constitution, or just a complete refusal to keep their Oath to the NH Constitution.
We have seen this for a long time on lots of issues... this one just gets the most media traction as it impacts such a large portion of the mechanism by which taxes are raised to reach what all those legislators want.

How would structure a big ticket sales tax? Would it raise enough money without shifting purchases to other States? And what would be the odds of new tax taking hold in NH?

My friends in the legislature are always aware of "Article 28-a" issues when working on new legislation. The catch 22 is that 28-a was passed in the early 80's as I recall. Anything that was mandated prior to that is grandfathered and there is some loose interpretation of what that means. To my knowledge, no school district or town has taken the issue to court. The issues around schools all came from "cherish" not 28-a as far as I can tell.

Good news: I believe this is the last year for the interest and dividends income tax which is being phased out, unless the legislature changes their mind in the 2024 session.

I foresee some juggling on the Rooms and Meals tax which is higher than surrounding states, but appears to not have a negative impact on tourism. Nevertheless, I think this is our biggest "sales tax" which Concord denies because it is not a "general" sales tax. As Gov. Thompson said "Low spending means low taxes".

Apologies to the OP for getting away from Meredith taxes. I'll try to behave myself moving forward.

I believe the Court focused on ''duty''; since the Legislature had already taken upon itself to set standards and mandates prior to the 1982 adoption of Part First Article 28-a

The Legislature created the State Board of Education in 1919, and empowered it with the ''management and supervision of all public schools''

The adoption of Article 28-a in 1982 only grandfathered programs that were not changed in any way.
There is no educational mandate that has not come after or been modified since that time.

Part First Article 28-a was add just after Governor Thomson. His ''Low spending'' was to move it off the State budget and place it locally; and that wasn't just education. Before the adoption of that article, doing so was completely constitutional. Had it been taken the ''Low spending'' comes from not mandating programs, Article 28-a would not exist today.

This last round had a lot of Article 28-a in it. Edelblut argued that though the State mandated - and did not pay for several things - he felt that those were not within the adequate education definition. I think the judge was amazed that our Education Commissioner had no clue that a mandate had to be paid for regardless of how it is ''defined''.

They got themselves caught on capping the grants by arguing that no inflation had occurred - seems the lawyer had a bad habit of screaming about the ''Biden Inflation'' on Facebook... and then making a statement that no inflation had occurred.

Then they got caught trying to explain how any of the State taxation is not redistributed with some donor towns and some receiver towns. I seem to remember reading the transcript asking if the money from business in a certain town are only return to that town rather than distributed to other towns.

By the way, that was a suggestion that I placed into effect. State Senator Gallus took it up before the study committee determined the north country would see a strong drop in their share of the proceeds.

The size of our State government is directly relate to the legislators... even now the LSRs have a whole bunch of mandates and modifications they want to make on education and other factors.

Somehow I doubt they will come to the conclusion to just simplify the mandates. Just like the local boards add the ''extras'' because of emotion, the Legislature is not immune.

How they raise the money - even though the same overall amount will actually be spent - will be interesting.