In a recent public statement, Sen. Dan Innis blamed Democrats for your rising property taxes. I have one question for the senator: Which party do I belong to?
He can’t answer that, because he doesn’t know. Selectboard and school board members, and budget committees in New Hampshire are elected on nonpartisan ballots — no party label appears next to our names, ever. Blaming “Democrats” for local budgets doesn’t describe reality. It insults every elected official, Republican and Democrat alike, who shows up to Town Meeting trying to run a budget on a shoestring.
And we’re not inflating anything. From 1970 to 2009, the state shared roughly $25 million a year with towns to offset local tax base it took for the Business Profits Tax. That aid was suspended in 2010, and last year the Legislature and Governor made it permanent, repealing revenue sharing outright. Add the state’s 35% share of municipal pension costs, cut to zero by 2013 over a Democratic governor’s objections, and you have 15 years of the state quietly handing its bills to towns — decisions made by a Republican trifecta, not by selectmen here.
Meanwhile, lawmakers cut business taxes by up to $1.17 billion since 2016 while signing “no new taxes” pledges. Nobody voted on a tax to cover that gap; it just showed up on your property tax bill. A cost shifted onto your bill without a vote is a tax increase, whatever you call it.
Even Innis’s own fix proves the point. He wrote that Republicans passed legislation to cap “the Democrats’ municipal spending.” Read HB 1300: the caps apply only to school district and SAU central office budgets — not general municipal spending, not classroom instruction. It’s a cap on the same nonpartisan school boards he’s blaming, requiring a 3/5 supermajority to adopt.
I’m tired of the finger-pointing too, senator. If you want lower property taxes, the fix isn’t a ballot cap on nonpartisan officials — it’s restoring the aid Concord spent 15 years cutting.
Bebe Casey, New London
The writer is a member of the New London Selectboard.