Board of Selectmen Meeting December 4, 2023

Tax rate announced. Police Station certification requirements cause Food Pantry to lose their entrance.

Town Tax Rate

If you’ve heard the news that Nottingham has declared bankruptcy, it’s true. It’s just that the news is about the Nottingham in England, not the one we live in.  Meanwhile, here, the 2023 property tax rate has just been announced.

The tax rate has increased by 12.2%. Most of the increase is associated with school taxes, with the local school tax rate increasing by 11.6% and the state school tax rate increasing by 41.8%. The portion of the taxes that the Board of Selectmen is responsible for increased by 6.9% and comprises only 18.8% of the total tax. School taxes comprise 77.3% of the total tax.

The town has $2,363k in its fund balance, a statistically average amount for NH towns of Nottingham’s size. Selectman Morin noted that the town could tap the fund to reduce the tax rate for one year. The tax rate could be reduced by ten cents for each $80k drawdown of the fund. He recommended that this not be done. The other selectmen concurred. 

Tax bills will be mailed by the end of the week and will be due January 10.

Budgeting

The board continued work on cutting the 2024 budget. The initial budget proposal called for $5,418k in spending, a $568k, 11.7% increase over 2023’s approved budget of $4,850k. Extrapolating from last year the 4% capped figure is $5,044k, although the final figure is expected to be adjusted upwards due to additional revenues. So far the board has identified $147k to cut. It needs to cut about $470k to meet the tax cap.

Deliberative Session

The Town Deliberative Session will be held on Saturday, February 3, 2024, with a bad-weather date of the following Saturday, February 10. 

Police Station and Food Pantry Entrance

An inspection of the Police Station identified problems in the facility that could prevent certification. In particular, one door that has since the late 1990s had shared use between the Police Station and the Food Pantry has had to be converted to the exclusive use of the Police Department, causing substantial operational difficulties for the Food Pantry, whose volunteers are almost entirely people over age 60, requiring greatly increased effort to move food from where it is now delivered, and creating special difficulties for the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter holiday food distributions. The Food Pantry currently assists 35 Nottingham families. Relocating the Food Pantry to the Old Town Hall is being investigated as a possible solution. 

Right-to-Know Requests

The Town Administrator said that the town had received over 50 right-to-know requests this year. It has been time-consuming for staff to do the research and redactions necessary to fulfill these requests. It has been additionally time consuming to convert paper documents to the electronic formats desired by requesters. Such format conversions are not required under state law. The board asked the Town Administrator to propose a policy that would address these issues. 

Recycling Center Issues

• The Recycling Center’s well failed. The problem was determined to be a clogged filter. The water supply has since been restored.

• A new trailer for collecting and transporting aluminum cans will be acquired for the Recycling Center at a cost of $4.9k.

Highway Garage

A storage container is being rented for $400 per month to be used as a temporary break room at the Highway Garage.

Veterans Tax Credit

Due to a change in state law the town needed to have a need vote at Town Meeting to retain its veterans tax credit. This did not happen in the 2023 meeting, but the board will correct this at the next meeting. However, 37 properties in town eligible for a veterans tax credit will not receive the credit this year unless the board creates a tax abatement, which by law it is allowed to do for “good cause,” which the town attorney says is applicable to this case.

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