Joseph Cormier: Concerns about Moultonborough and impact of the tax cap

To The Daily Sun,

With town and school district meetings on people's minds, another possible petition are the new New Hampshire tax cap laws.

Not legal advice, but the Legislature with SB 383 and HB 1105 and signed into law RSA 32:5-b, -d, -e, and -f effective in 2024, changed how voters can have a say on local taxes (RSA 32:5-c became effective in 2011).

School districts, especially, might come under scrutiny. Here in Moultonborough, the school board last year came under fire for perceived wish lists, as opposed to necessities. In fairness to the school board, the Moultonborough school system had been lacking to keep up with repairs and capital expenditures. Then, all repairs and capital expenditures seem to come to light at once. There was some voter push-back during the public hearings, and the voters got some resolve and the school district got “needs” funded.

Back to tax cap, the first test of the new tax cap was Kearsarge Regional, an SB 2 entity that had its school district deliberative session on Jan. 4. It was overwhelmingly rejected. What may have actually been rejected was the per student expense. Too low. Not a rejection of the tax cap process. What if the tax cap had factored in a per student increase, with all other items capped? Would the tax cap have passed?

RSA 32:5-b, II: The tax cap shall be either a fixed dollar amount, a fixed percentage, or a multiplication factor applied to the amount of local taxes raised by the town or district for the prior fiscal year as reported to the department of revenue administration, subject to adjustment as provided ...

Statutorily: “... increase or decrease the amount of any appropriation or the total amount of all appropriations." is prior and current law. How often has that been done or known?

Joseph Cormier

Moultonborough