Highlights from Mayor Craig’s budget address

Sign Up For Our FREE Daily eNews!

Screenshot 2021 03 30 200400


MANCHESTER, N.H. – On Tuesday, Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig provided the annual mayoral budget address to provide an overview of the proposed budget for the upcoming Fiscal Year 2022 city budget.

The mayor’s remarks can be found here and the proposed budget can be found here.

Here’s an overview of the highlights from the mayor’s speech, with page numbers in the budget proposal provided where applicable.

Overview

  • $44 million over the next two years from American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) can help recovery in regard to COVID-19 budget shortfalls
  • The state has reduced their share of funding for pension costs. The city is paying four times more for state pension costs and eight times more for city pension costs versus FY’ 21. (Page 6)
  • Money was not taken from reserve accounts during the pandemic and the city retains an AA credit rating.
  • The Assessors’ Office estimates that at the end of the current 2021 revaluation process, the property tax rate will decrease from $24.66 per thousand dollars of valuation to $18.10 per thousand dollars of valuation.
  • The Office of Youth Services is saving the city money by moving its office space into the West Side Library, eliminating rental payments, an example of cost-saving measures across multiple departments.
  • The budget does not include funding for expiring collective bargaining agreements, summer concerts, membership to the Southern New Hampshire Regional Planning Commission or the New Hampshire Municipal Association. It also does not provide funding to reinstate the Office of Economic Development.
  • Mayor Craig is asking the BMA provide additional money from the anticipated fiscal year-end surplus from the rainy-day fund to the severance reserve. She says the severance reserve is underfunded due to the reduced pension assistance from the state.

School Department

  • The FY’ 22 school district budget is $173.1 million, a figure within the tax cap, but $11.9 million less than FY’ 21 primarily due to reduced equity aid, free-and-reduced lunch aid and the previously mentioned downshifting of pensions. Approximately $20 million comes from sources other than appropriation not subject to the tax cap. (Page 19)
  • Approximately $26 million in federal ESSER funds are being utilized in the school budget for a variety of proposals and more funding is on the way from the ARP
  • $4.7 million in bonding for Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) is included for five new school busses, playground replacements, catching up on deferred maintenance on athletic grounds and other projects.

Health Department

  • While the mayor will continue encouraging the health department to seek outside grants, she believes that the fact that 60 percent of the department’s funding comes from grants may not be sustainable. She is urging the Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BMA) to allocate funds to the Health Department’s reserve fund.

Public Works Department

  • The FY’ 22 budget reinstates money for seasonal employees for programs like the Fun in the Sun program. (Page 9)
  • Public Works Department Director Kevin Sheppard has been ordered to identify $69,000 in the FY’ 21 budget to reinstate the weekly yard waste pick-up schedule until the end of June. However, the BMA will need to identify $161,000 within the FY’ 22 budget to continue weekly yard waste removal services after the current Pinard Waste Systems contract ends at the end of the fiscal year.
  • There is $4.5 million in bonding for road repair, with 43.8 miles receiving some type of surface treatment. (Page 21-22)
  • A total of $1 million is allocated for sidewalk improvement, and the 50/50 residential sidewalk replacement program will continue.

Police Department

  • A $1.25 million COPS Grant has added ten new police officers, a new police substation at Veterans’ Park and an Arms Park substation thanks to help from Dean Kamen.
  • Community Development Block Grants may be put toward police officers place in specific areas of the city.

Fire Department

Other Departments

  • The mayor is proposing to bond the construction of a historical trail beginning at the corner of Granite and Canal Streets among other park and trail improvements (Page 18). $1.4 million is included in the budget for the expansion of the Riverwalk and Heritage Trail, repairs to the Livingston Pool and other projects.
  • Approximately $1.12 million in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grants are being used and have been used for rapid re-housing of homeless and at-risk families, rental assistance, and emergency homeless shelters among other projects.