Public frustrated with no public comment before county budget vote

LACONIA — When the Belknap County Delegation passed the county budget Wednesday night, recommended by the budget review committee, there were only slight changes made by the group.

Some of those changes inform a deeper conversation regarding the views of representatives about responsible stewardship of county obligations and resources, and illustrate a difficult balancing act between that side of budgeting and limiting the risk to taxpayers.

For example, Rep. David Nagel (D-Gilmanton) — who held a press conference about his party affiliation switch on Wednesday morning — struck a pragmatic tone when discussing county appropriations to social services agencies.

“My comment is about the outside agencies, that we uniquely call outside agencies. There’s been a steady decline in the funding of those, it was pointed out by the University of New Hampshire Co-op last year. They all provide valuable resources, we are kind of uniquely situated to be the only county that refers to the Co-op and the BCCD as ‘outside agencies,’” Nagel said. “Most counties consider them integral parts of the county, they provide extremely valuable services, and last year was a pretty difficult year for both of them in terms of funding things, so we did lose things in that. I will not be supporting any budget that does include them.”

Those agencies were level funded from last year after being cut the year before.

“I’m OK with Lakes Region Mental Health [Center], I did talk to them about that, they were OK with that number,” Nagel said. “The Community Action Program also provides extremely valuable resources for our community and I think, for the bang for the buck, these are reasonable dollar figures for us to fully support all of them.”

Rep. Russell Dumais (R-Gilford) at one point moved to authorize funding to each outside agency in the amounts recommended by county commissioners, and Laconia Rep. Charlie St. Clair, the sole other Democrat besides Nagel, seconded it. But those efforts did not pass following discussion and allocations to those nonprofits remained mostly flat.

St. Clair talked about the logical consequences of reducing the county’s overall burden, with a potential downshifting of costs to taxpayers in individual towns. He said residents of his district want things cheap, but they don’t consider funding outside agencies wasteful.

“Everybody gets what they do, and we’ve heard that about water, all of these different programs that go along with these groups, and I think it's really short money,” St. Clair said, referring to lake protection. “I really think that it's short money in the big picture.”

Nagel said those organizations are long-serving, and the county, functionally, through statute, pays their administrative costs.

“For that dollar amount, what you are getting is an individual that brings in a lot of grants and extra money into the community, so you get a multiplier effect,” he said. “A lot of money we spent is spitting into the wind, a lot of money we spend is revenue-neutral, but these are revenue positive, and that’s kind of unusual.”

Rep. Lisa Freeman (R-Tilton) discussed her view of a difficult tightrope state representatives are asked to walk on behalf of residents they’re elected to serve.

“I don’t disagree with Rep. Nagel, or Rep. St. Clair that they do bring value to our community. I don’t believe anybody on this delegation is questioning the validity or the importance of those organizations,” Freeman said. “I’d like people to keep in mind that this is one tax increase, and then there’s a tax increase at your town level, and then there’s tax increases all the way down the board as far as meals and rooms taxes, or any other taxes that we have in our communities, school taxes.

“This is just a smaller piece of an ever-growing tax bill for residents in each of our towns and cities, so I would like that all to be taken into consideration.”

County Commission Chair Peter Spanos (District 1) said for every dollar spent on the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension Service, they return $2 back to the county.

The meeting, during which Belknap's elected Statehouse representatives approved a budget with 4.4% increase in the amount to be raised by taxes, was generally amicable among elected representatives, yet rather contentious in tone between the same and members of the community.

Some in the audience took exception to the format of the meeting — public comment followed the vote on the budget — and expressed frustration with a perceived lack of opportunity for public input throughout the process.

The delegation’s Budget Review Committee met three times leading up to the vote, at the Belknap County Complex. Those meetings were open to the public, and videos available on YouTube. Those meetings occurred during the workweek, in the early afternoon.

“I’d like the chairman of this body to go on record to say you’ve just passed a $23 million budget, without any public input. Would you please go on record as saying that, please,” Rick Demark, a volunteer board member with the Belknap County Conservation District, said.

“We’ve had meetings for months that were open to the public, and that is the best time to deliberate on it and voice your intentions for the budget,” Rep. Juliet Harvey-Bolia (R-Tilton) said.

Rep. Steven Bogert (R-Laconia) said the public had multiple occasions through the budget subcommittee to express their views, and some did; the subcommittee heard testimony from representatives of various agencies.

“Rep. Bogert is right about that, but the group that’s not there to hear what public comment we didn’t get at those meetings is the entire delegation,” St. Clair said. “The entire delegation can watch that on YouTube, I don’t want to say that they all don’t, but I suspect, perhaps, some missed that or did not look at that.

“I’ve always thought it would be much better to get public input before we vote on the budget, just in case somebody’s come up with something new that might make a difference to the delegation to hear,” he said.

“Reducing funding cuts services with conservation, UNH and community services and mental health,” Eliza Leadbeater, a retired county employee, said. “Consider the harm you are doing if we lose these services in the county.”