County government very much underfunded in recent years

To The Daily Sun,

Budget time has arrived again in Belknap County. For the past four years, a majority of the delegation has each year made substantial cuts in the budget recommended by the Board of Commissioners. This year, by a four to three vote, a majority of the delegation's Executive Committee is recommending that the delegation pass a county budget in an amount substantially below that recommended by the county commissioners. All four Executive Committee members opposing the commissioner-recommended budget are delegation members who have consistently voted to cut previously recommended budgets. This time, their proposed cut is 5 percent, from $31,248,984 down to $29,655,840 (a cut of almost $1.6 million). Parenthetically, in a January 28 letter to The Laconia Daily Sun, Marc Abear (former delegation member and principal architect of the 2017 and 2018 budget cuts) expressed support for those urging the cuts. Put in simple terms, the gist of their position is that the county population has not grown, therefore no meaningful new money is needed for the operation of the county.

This argument would make some sense if the amount of prior funding had, in fact, been adequate. In our state, comparison of county budgets is a good litmus test of funding adequacy (or excess) since all New Hampshire counties have the same operations and responsibilities derived from the state Constitution and statutes. If a county stands out as significantly low or high, when compared with other counties with similar populations, such a deviation should be examined.

Evaluating the adequacy of Belknap budgeting is straightforward. Our state has six counties with populations of less than 100,000. Belknap County's population is in the middle, as two have larger populations and three have fewer residents. Logic suggests that Belknap County budgets would fall somewhere near the middle. When one examines the numbers, the deviation that jumps out for our county is not just significant — it is absolutely shocking.

There is one low budget outlier in the lesser populated counties from 2013 through 2018 and it is Belknap County. In 2013, the budgets of the other five other lesser populated counties averaged $33.8 million, Belknap's budget was $26.1 million, or $7.7 million below the average. From there, it's from bad to worse: 2014 average $34.8 million, Belknap at $25.6 million, a difference of $9.2 million; 2015 average $35.8 million, Belknap at $26.8 million, a difference of $9 million; 2016 average $36.5 million, Belknap at $27.1, a difference of $9.4 million; 2017 average $37.2, Belknap at $27.5, a difference of $9.7 million; and 2018 average $39.2, Belknap at $29.2, a difference of $10 million. For the last 6 years, Belknap County has averaged funding of $9.2 million less per year than the other lesser populated counties of the state. To say that Belknap County has been inadequately funded for the last six years does not do justice to the situation. To urge that the county needs no new money because the population has not grown is delusional.

Budgetary incompetence was identified when Moody's Investors Services, Inc. downgraded the county bond rating by two full notches in 2018. Moody's explained its downgrade: “Given the county has the smallest budget in the state, even while ranking sixth in population, the potential tax base remains unrealized.... While the county has the financial flexibility to increase property taxes instead of drawing on its reserves, it currently lacks the willingness to do so.... The negative outlook reflects the expectation that the county's financial position will worsen over the near term as the county continues to operate without a structurally balanced budget.”

As a result of the Moody's downgrade, Belknap County was unable to issue its own bonds. Instead, we had to join a multi-government bond issue of the New Hampshire Bond Bank to obtain the long-term financing for the construction of our new Community Corrections Center and the old jail renovations. Moody's report told the world of investors that the county is unwilling to invest in itself, why should you invest in it? That message is out there for all to see. Certainly any business of significant size is going to check out the financial condition of a location it is considering. A new business has a number of reasons not to come to Belknap. Until our financial outlook brightens our credit rating will discourage new businesses. Lack of a strong workforce is already a problem. Without an business community our young people will continue their exodus. As businesses stay away and young people leave, our population continues to rapidly age. Unless these disturbing trends are reversed, the future of our county is bleak. And a real crisis looms on the near horizon: who will bear the cost burden of the growing eldercare needs?

Any Belknap County citizen who looks at our county budgets as investments in the future, which in so many important ways they are, has to be troubled. Coos, the poorest of our counties, has invested $208.4 million in its county over the last six years; Sullivan, the next poorest, has invested $188.8 million during the same time frame; our neighbors in Carroll County have invested $177.1 million, while Belknap County's investment was $162.5 million. We can and must do better. That is not to say that we necessarily need to have a budget equal to the smaller populated county average. Every budget recommended by the county commissioners for the last four years would have continued our county having the smallest budget in the state. I am confident that we can continue in that position — we simply need to get closer to the norm. $10 million less than the average county budget simply does not get done those things that absolutely need to be done. Voting “no” is not a political ideology. Saving a dollar today that costs $5 two years from now is not fiscal responsibility. Hopefully, our current delegation will support the commissioners' proposed budget and will give us a chance to build a better county for the future in a fiscally responsible way.

Hunter Taylor

Belknap County Commissioner

District 3

(Alton, Center Harbor, Gilford and Meredith)

Alton