County commission makes formal request to fund conservation district, UNH co-op, CASA

LACONIA — Belknap County's commissioners will submit a request to the delegation for a supplemental appropriation of funds to restore services provided by the Belknap County Conservation District, University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension and Court Appointed Special Advocates of New Hampshire. 

RSA 24:14-a, pertaining to supplemental appropriations, requires the county delegation — which comprises all Belknap’s representatives to the Statehouse — to schedule a public hearing within 30 days of the mailing or delivery of such a statement.

In finalizing the county budget on March 31, members of the delegation elected to significantly reduce funding for agencies which provide a variety of services to residents of Belknap County. Representatives cited fiscal and budgetary concerns in their reasoning for making the cuts, and opined some of the services provided by those organizations — like water quality monitoring — were redundant.

Representatives cut the budgets for both UNH extension and the conservation district by 50% of their 2024 appropriation, equal to about $125,000. Funding to CASA was cut from $7,500 to $3,750.

“I think the board of commissioners made it pretty clear at those budget hearings that we did not agree, at all, with these cuts, and we considered them to be penny-wise and pound-foolish,” Chair Peter Spanos (District 1) said Tuesday night.

Noting the budget savings garnered by reductions in appropriations to the BCCD, the UNH extension and CASA were minuscule in comparison to the value in grant monies and real services provided to constituents, Commissioner Glen Waring (District 2) made the motion to appropriate $130,000 to those three agencies. It was supported unanimously by Spanos and Stephen Hodges (District 3).

Between the conservation district, the extension and the resultant loss of revenue to residents and businesses in the county, including budget share from the state and federal agencies which also support the extension, the county could lose around $1 million in revenues and services. 

“As I look to the summary of revenues and programs that are going to be lost, you can get to an aggregate number of about $1 million of money that is not going to flow back to the county through grants — because the grant writer ... will not be able to write grants for Belknap County projects, therefore we will not be getting grants for Belknap County projects — for forestry services that would be provided free to our residents,” Waring said.

“About $1 million on the UNH Cooperative Extension side, on the conservation district side, again its grants, its assistance to programs,” Waring said.

“So for their $25,000 cut we’re losing $250,000 of money and funds going back into the county — for $125,000 savings we are giving up $1.2-$1.3 million of real money and services back to the county. I said it at our meeting a week ago, I said it certainly at the delegation meeting: that is just penny-wise-pound-foolish, very short-sided and I cannot understand that logic.”

If the supplemental appropriation was approved by the delegation, the tax impact on a property valued at $250,000 would be about $1.79 total. 

“I’m getting a lot of input — a lot of telephone calls, a lot of emails — asking the commissioners to do whatever they can to make these two specific agencies whole again or at least level-funded from ‘24, which is what the commissioners recommended in the budget that we submitted last December,” Spanos said. 

Numerous community members came to the commissioner’s meeting on Wednesday night, arguing in favor of efforts to restore appropriations to those organizations. One of those in attendance was Brian Beihl of Alton Bay, who expressed particular concern regarding the impacts to safeguarding Belknap County’s environment. 

“I’ve got to say, the loss of the revenue for the conservation district and the UNH Cooperative Extension is so shortsighted,” Beihl said. “I’m about water quality — I live on a beautiful lake — and our whole region depends on clean water that people can fish and swim. And I’m really concerned over the impact of the lack of funding or the lack of the ability to get funding through a grant writer for UNH Extension, so that we can protect runoff. And we had the problems with cyanobacteria last year.”