Is Nottingham Over-Taxed?
A comparison with Northwood, Deerfield, Lee, Auburn, Fremont, and New Ipswich
Given Nottingham voters’ stunning rejection of the town’s operating budget and warrant articles for highway improvements and increasing the Fire Chief’s stipend, the question arises, are the citizens over-taxed?
This article cannot answer that question. There are those in town who strongly believe the citizens are overtaxed and those who strongly disagree. There are no objective measures for these issues. What we do know is that a narrow majority of the voters decided that they were overtaxed and therefore they rejected the proposed operating budget, leaving the Board of Selectmen to struggle to reduce their proposed 2024 spending by over 5%.
In addition to knowing the voters’ sentiments, it’s also possible to find out what towns similar to Nottingham spend their budgets on. Comparisons with similar towns may be informative.
Using data from Wikipedia, I looked for towns with similar population sizes and median incomes to Nottingham to create this set of comparables.
Some towns I considered but excluded were Barrington and Raymond (much higher population), Brentwood (much more affluent), and Wakefield (much less affluent).
I ended up having to exclude Hillsborough, Epsom, and Chester because I could not get usable data for those towns.
Comparing the tax burden per capita of the 2024 proposed operating budgets, Nottingham is taxed a little less than average, but it joins with Northwood and Deerfield in having its proposed 2024 operating budgets rejected by the voters.
Looking at 2023 spending, where did Nottingham spend a lot relative to other towns? Let’s consider some major categories of spending.
General Government
Nottingham spends a lot on general government relative to similar towns. General government is a large portion of the town’s total budget.
Within the category of general government spending, one subcategory stands out: legal expenses. Nottingham was not only the highest spender on legal expenses in 2023, but it seldom spends less than $30k per year on attorney’s fees, whereas only one other town in this comparison set spent more than $30k in 2023.
The general government section of the budget has many subcategories. Here’s the detail about Nottingham’s general government expenses.
What does Nottingham spend a lot on that similar towns don’t? Let’s look at Auburn, Deerfield, and Northwood.
Auburn
Deerfield
Northwood
Although these towns vary considerably with regard to what they spend money on, it appears that Nottingham spends a lot more on two things other than legal expenses:
Election, Registration, and Vital Statistics
Personnel Administration
Safety
Nottingham is about average in spending on safety, but when it comes to fire and ambulance, the range is large. Nottingham spends triple what New Ipswich does per capita but much less than half what Auburn spends.
Details on Nottingham’s spending:
Public Works
Nottingham seems average about spending on public works. Auburn and New Ipswich must be doing something very different from Nottingham regarding how household trash is dealt with.
Details on Nottingham’s spending:
Library, Parks, and Recreation
Nottingham is at the high end of what similar towns spend on parks and recreation but on the low end of what towns with libraries pay for libraries. These, however, are small parts of town budgets. It’s only about 3% of Nottingham’s budget.
Details on Nottingham’s spending:
Conclusion
The above budget comparisons create more questions than they answer, but it’s interesting enough to see that some towns similar to Nottingham manage to spend much less than Nottingham does on some major budget categories.
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Data used in this article were compiled from:
https://www.nottingham-nh.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif3611/f/uploads/ms-737_signed_01292024.pdf
https://www.townofdeerfieldnh.com/sites/g/files/vyhlif4316/f/uploads/ms737_-_revised.pdf
https://www.fremont.nh.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif3146/f/uploads/tn_ms737_24.pdf
https://www.northwoodnh.org/file/4530/Budget_as_Posted.pdf
https://www.leenh.org/sites/g/files/vyhlif776/f/news/2024_ms-636.pdf
https://www.newipswichnh.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif4766/f/uploads/2024_ms636.pdf
https://www.auburnnh.us/sites/g/files/vyhlif2751/f/news/doc012924-005.pdf
I might be able to shed some light, here. Nottingham is one of the few towns where the Town Clerk is not also the Tax Collector. It is also one of the very few towns whereby only one person at a time is working in the Clerk’s office. Having said that, the majority of Town Clerks/Tax Collectors are paid much higher wages than Nottingham’s and many of those receive benefits. Lee, for example, just raised the rate of pay for their Town Clerk/Tax Collector to $65k per year with two people working every shift. Barrington increased the salary of their Town Clerk (who is not a Tax Collector) to approx. $75 per year, sometimes with 3 people per shift.
The line item to pay these people may be placed into another category altogether.
Please refer to the 2023 Northwood Town Report for further details on actual wages and compensation. Two people working each day. Page 109 specifically. https://www.northwoodnh.org/file/4581/2023_TOWN_REPORT.pdf
For reference, I was paid $36,534.02 in 2023. See page 70 of the Nottingham Town Report. https://www.nottingham-nh.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif3611/f/uploads/2023_town_school_annual_report_web.pdf
The Deputy Town Clerk was also working for Planning/Zoning and transcribing meeting minutes in 2023, therefore I do not know the exact amount that was allocated to the TC office.
Note; The Nottingham Tax Collector has 5 hours per week scheduled in office and was paid $13,990.50 in 2023.
I grew up in Nottingham and went to school there.
Now I live in a mirror-image town in Massachusetts - my property taxes are higher than Nottingham, and I pay income tax. (I am not complaining.)
My current town has a population of around 5k. We have a volunteer fire department, one store, and a high quality K-8 school. Our town government is a select board, school committee, and other volunteer-run boards and committees.
Our town has simply none of this drama. Is it a utopia? No. Do people keep an eye on government officials and board meetings? Yes. Are people called out sometimes? Yes. Are there bad faith actors occasionally? Yes. However, it is overall such a more respectful environment to be in, and so much more functional than Nottingham has become. Our town meetings and board meetings are boring. The budgets are passed. People gripe when our tax bills go up, and life goes on. We abate taxes for those in need, and have a plan for the elderly that want to stay in their homes and not get priced out. We have a community chest to help those in our communities in poverty. It's the concept of living in a society!
Never the level of anger that you see in Nottingham right now.
Why should I care? I still have people I love in Nottingham, some at the school. My folks have lived in Nottingham for 40+ years. I want them to be safe and have the resources available to them when they need them. Who would want to work or volunteer in this town with how divided and divisive it has become? I saw a facebook comment basically insinuating that the building inspector shouldn't be surprised if he got shot for going on the wrong property. Who knows what really was going on there, and perhaps it does warrant a discussion. But the current discussion is a much poorer reflection on the accusatory party than they seem to think...
It is a shame. The rhetoric is going to keep causing a cycle - who is going to want to work or volunteer for these boards & positions that keep things running, or have the chance to fix things, when there is so much anger, no benefit of the doubt, and just constant bashing with absolutely no constructive feedback offered?
It'll get worse before it'll get better. There is a small group of loudmouths to blame. I hope for my relatives still there in my hometown that people can look around at what is important, and realize that working together is needed, and offering constructive feedback is what is best. Simmering down is desperately needed...