[Skip]

Originally Posted by GWC...

...If all property were treated equal, same valuation regardless of location, then I would understand her point. However, shorefront property is valued and thus taxed higher and this scenario provides the community with a benefit from abutting the Lake....

A couple of things to remember....

When you send your money to Concord it goes into the State's general fund, it is not earmarked specifically to any agency....the Governor & the legislature appropriate the funds where they feel necessary.

Same goes with summonses, except the revenue generated from them goes to the Court having jurisdiction.

As for a community having lakeside property, no new revenue is generated by the higher appreciated homes along the water. That is a common misconception about how the property tax system works in this State. The community in question has an annual budget. The budget is paid for (in most part) by the property taxpayers. Your portion is determined by the tax rate mil multiplied by your assessed value. In the case of the lakeside homes in Wolfeboro, Laconia or Gilford this simply means that the higher assessed homes on the water contibute to a larger portion of the pie than the homes away from the water, however the size of the pie stays the same. The pie only increases in size if the local legislative body bakes a bigger pie, which they usually do on a annual basis!

The total taxes a community collects is driven up (or down) by how much the community spends and therefore needs to raise, not by the assessed value of the community. If you want to control property taxes in any community the solution is simple but rarely heeded. You just have to control (and in most cases reduce) spending! It's simply as simple as that.

Anyway, the property tax system is a whole 'nother thread.

In the case of the NHMP, you have to ask your State legislator why the State does not shift more funding to this agency. One of the multitude of reasons may be because the folks at Safety that are responsible for the overall budget request for that Department do not go to bat for it, feeling that any additional funding for Safety has priority elsewhere. Yes, we are all aggravated by the boneheads out there, but imagine you are sitting in Concord dividing up the pot. Do you dump a lot of money in an agency that oversees a recreational activity that overall has an excellent safety record with minimal injuries/deaths per thousands/millions partaking? Or do you shift limited funding to landbased agencies given the reprehensible carnage (and ever increasing violent crime rate) we still have on the highways of this State? Remeber, almost all residents of this State can relate to crime or problems on our byways/highways. Right or wrong, those of us with boating in our blood and the demand for more NHMP are still in a significant minority in this State. Most people in this State with the ears of their local legislator really cannot identify with the issues we relate to daily here with our warterborne adventures!

That said, what I believe the Clerk is protesting is the fact that if the State takes every cent of the registration fee from her community, there is no guarantee that any of that money would find it's way to the NHMP. Most likely, the NHMP will find itself lucky (outside of grant money) to even receive even funding this bufdget cycle, and could even find it's budget cut or having to shift more of it's resources to the seacoast. If so, the surrounding towns on the big Lake (and other waterside communities) will find the burden of providing some or all of the safety services falling on their respective shoulders, with less money in their general fund to pay for same.

Example. If the $81,000 Gilford received last year were put in the State's general fund via the boat registration process, that $81,00 could be eventually applied to landscaping services at the Statehouse instead of a nickel ever finding it's way to the NHMP. In the meantime, to maintain the same level of municipal services in Gilford, the Gilford taxpayers would have to tax it's citizens an extra $81,000 to make up the difference.

I think that the local legislators realize this dilemma and that's why they have refused to earmark all registration fees to be deposited in Concord.

I salute them, it's one time that they have kept their hands out of the cookie jar!