Andrew Sanborn: Citizens deserve a budget with essential services, stability

To The Daily Sun,

New Hampshire ended fiscal year 2025 with a $67 million deficit, the first deficit after years of surpluses. At the same time, the state has increased Rooms and Meals distributions to towns, but only by a few million dollars — not a doubling this year. Meanwhile, the administration has approved tens of millions of dollars in cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, affecting mental health care, shelters, and basic community services.

Despite this tightening fiscal picture, HB 155 moves forward with a major business tax cut that reduces state revenue by roughly $26 million every year. When the state voluntarily shrinks its own revenue while cutting essential services, the burden doesn’t disappear — it shifts directly onto local property taxpayers. Towns are left to absorb rising costs for education, public safety, and human services with no new support from Concord.

Taken together, these decisions point in a troubling direction: reduced state responsibility and increased pressure on local budgets. New Hampshire taxpayers deserve a budget strategy that strengthens essential services and stabilizes property taxes — not one that deepens deficits while cutting revenue and shifting costs onto towns.

And the Legislature refuses to act on court ordered education funding increases. We have fiscal paralysis rather than real fiscal planning. 

Andrew Sanborn

Sanbornton