The Union Leader published the following commentary by Granite State Taxpayers Chairman Jim Adams on November 2, 2015.
Manchester Voters, Hold Your Elected Officials Accountable
On November 8, 2011, the voters of Manchester overwhelmingly, by a thirty percent (30%) approval margin, authorized an annual increase limit to spending based on inflation, a Budget Spending Cap. This is a legally approved common-sense budgeting requirement for the Mayor and Aldermen to respect and follow. It is also the will of the taxpayers of Manchester. The Spending Cap in essence limits budget and spending increases to the rate of inflation, and provides a legal check on the growth of spending. It also provides a method where it can be overridden upon approval of two-thirds of the Alderman. The intent of having an override clause as part of the voter-approved limit or cap on spending which was added to the city charter was to allow for dealing with extraordinary, and one would say emergency, one-time spending situations. Regular contract negotiations with City and School employees are certainly not extraordinary or an emergency.
We have elections to determine the will of the voters, and they passed a spending cap in 2011. A spending cap that is ignored by officials is no spending cap at all, and those who override it in the absence of some extraordinary event, are ignoring the will of the voters
This year, the Board of Alderman has once again cast the tax cap aside. They voted to override the Mayor’s veto and approve a contract with pay increases over three years ranging from 7% up to 18% for Manchester teachers. This was done over the objections of Mayor Gatsas, who fought to maintain the voters’ wishes to live within the taxpayer-mandated tax cap by his veto of the contract. In contrast, some of the Alderman who voted for override, thereby insuring passage of the override motion, did so knowing that the City Charter obliged them to recuse themselves due to conflict of interest.
The advocates for these raises would be very hard-pressed to find working men and women, the taxpayers of Manchester, that have received a raise anywhere near what the School Board and Aldermen have approved. In fact data shows that wage growth has been nil over the past few years. The Manchester taxpayers depending on Social Security as the lion’s share of their retirement income were recently notified that there will be no increase in Social Security payments for next year. In the past year, there was a raise of 1.7%. That increase, by the way, is within the scope of spending increase permitted under the Manchester spending cap. How do people in that situation make up the difference in their tax bill as it inevitably has to be raised to accommodate this additional spending?
Granite State Taxpayers is a non-partisan organization with the mission to inform, educate and motivate New Hampshire taxpayers. Our main goal is to support and defend the taxpayers from interests that are too eager to increase spending and constantly raise your taxes. Too often and too easily budgets seem to reflect the fact that elected officials fail to seek out efficiencies or other strategies that constrain spending. In short, they need to act more frugally, like they would if they were spending their own money, not other people’s money. Of course, they aren’t spending their own money; they are spending the money earned by the taxpayers of Manchester. Without spending cap laws, which require respect for other people’s money, budgets and taxes can run up in an uncontrolled fashion.
Awarding raises at rates well above the impact of inflation is not only a poke in the eye of every taxpayer, but, absent some offsetting efficiencies, it is a total disregard for the taxpayers’ wishes as expressed when the Spending Cap was passed. In the private sector, when a high-level official ignores the wishes of their employer, they get fired. This year’s city-wide election will be an important opportunity for the taxpayers of Manchester to elect a Mayor, Aldermen, and School Board members who are willing to prepare budgets and live within those budgets as directed by the voters through the spending cap and CPI, and not negotiate pay raises for city employees at rates 2 to 3 times the amount of the Consumer Price Index.
So, on election day, remember Mayor Gatsas’s veto and the other Aldermen who voted to live within the tax cap by supporting that veto.
Granite State Taxpayers acknowledges the importance of providing appropriate compensation for public employees. We must, however, do so within a context of common sense and reason regarding spending. The people negotiating employee contracts and city budgets must always remember that it is the taxpayers, the hard-working men and women of Manchester, who, in the end, are responsible for paying for these increases.
And to that end, Granite State Taxpayers recommends that the voters should hold to account those Aldermen and School Board members who were responsible for ignoring the spending cap. After all, it is your money. Do the right thing and vote the big spenders out.