Hunter Taylor: Belknap County budget compares favorably with other counties

To The Daily Sun,

The Belknap County Convention (also referred to as the delegation, comprised of the 18 Belknap County members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives) recently slashed the 2021 budget recommended by the county commissioners by over $1.7 million (from $31,961,320 down to $30,256,185). Delegation leaders have been very vocal justifying their cuts, claiming that the commissioners pad their budget recommendations and that Belknap County taxpayers are paying too much in county taxes. Others have described the delegation action as "political showmanship" with little benefit to the taxpayers. Still others urge that the cuts are simply actions of political extremists pursuing their misplaced notions of "liberty" in dismantling much of county government.

Existing data clearly point to the correct explanation for the cuts. Because all New Hampshire counties provide essentially the same services (nursing home, sheriff, corrections, etc.), comparisons of county budgets explain a lot. Six counties in our state have populations of less than 100,000, with Grafton and Cheshire having more residents than Belknap's 60,000, and Carroll, Sullivan and Coos having fewer. One would reasonably expect the budget numbers to be rather comparable, with the counties having larger populations spending more than the ones with smaller populations.

Let’s evaluate Belknap budgeting, comparing Belknap's appropriations from 2017 through 2020 (using rounded numbers) with the appropriations of the 3 smaller population counties over the same period. In 2017, the Belknap appropriation was $27.5 million, compared to an average of $32.2 for the other 3 counties, a difference of $4.7 million. In 2018, the difference between the Belknap appropriation and the average of the other 3 grew to $5.4 million. The trend continued in 2019 with the gap widening to $5.8 million. And the difference grew even further in 2020, with Belknap's appropriation of $30.8 million being dwarfed by the appropriation average of $37 million for the other 3, a difference of $6.2 million. The 4-year trend is clear, with Belknap County falling further and further behind in available funding as compared to the 3 lesser populated counties.

Against this background, the commissioner's 2021 budget request of $31.9 was hardly excessive. It was $5.1 million less than the 2020 average appropriation for the 3 lesser populated counties (and $20.8 million less than the 2020 average for Grafton and Cheshire). Moreover, the proposed budget would have had minimal impact on Belknap taxpayers. The county tax, a very small component of local property taxes, ranges from 5% to 9% of the total property tax depending on the municipality. The requested appropriation would have cost the average taxpayer with a property assessed at $300,000 an additional $35 per year, under $3 per month.

The meager tax saving produced by the delegation’s draconian cuts is causing chaos in planning county services for the year, with the future of some of these services at risk. Was the delegation protecting county taxpayers, or was their action simply a big step towards dismantling county government services? Is this what the voters wanted when they elected these representatives?

Hunter Taylor

Alton