From the Union Leader…
ROCHESTER – The first of what is expected to be a statewide flurry of tax cap charter amendment petitions was turned into city hall yesterday morning.
The petition, organized by the anti-tax group New Hampshire Advantage Coalition, seeks to amend the city charter to tie the growth of the city’s tax rate to the rate of inflation.
“The time has come for city budgets that are predictable and affordable,” said local resident Cliff Newton, who helped organize the signature drive.
The coalition is working with local organizers to get enough signatures for similar charter amendments in seven other communities throughout the state, including Manchester, and hopes to have enough support to turn in the respective paperwork later this summer.
It remains to be seen whether the petitions will usher in a renewed anti-tax fervor in New Hampshire, but with the economy weakening amid high gas prices and the ongoing credit crisis, officials say voters will be more apt to approve the tax-limiting amendments come November.
“People are just ripe for it,” said the coalition’s Executive Director Tammy Simmons, who noted that taxes don’t drop even though disposable income for many has. “This is where people have reached the point of saturation and they just can’t do it anymore.”
Simmons said amending a town or city’s charter ensures lower taxes whether or not fiscal conservatives are in office.
The Rochester charter amendment is similar to ones already in place in other communities, such as Dover, but has one glaring difference: it is a tax cap, not a spending cap.
The distinction could be an important one because it means local officials will have to wrap state and county tax increases into their calculations when deciding how much their tax rates may grow. It also means they have no limits on spending, allowing for alternative funding of large projects, such as through federal grants.
In Dover, on the other hand, spending is curtailed and, in turn, taxes as well.
Newton said he previously asked all of Rochester’s 13 city councilors, including the mayor, to sign the petition; two did so. One of them, Councilor Douglas Lachance, said he likely won’t vote for the tax cap if it makes it to the ballot because he only supports a spending cap.
“There are a lot of things that the city doesn’t control that could really negatively impact the city,” he said yesterday. “If it’s a bad year and the state and county portions exceed the cap requirement, that actually means the city would have to cut services.” Despite the issues with the tax cap, Lachance said he expects it to gain widespread support.
“I think people are really feeling the crunch, so I would say it’s probably going to be very close,” he said. “If you had that election today, it would probably pass.”
City Manager John Scruton proposed a city spending cap in late April, but councilors tabled the matter to see how the citizen-led charter amendment would fare.
“There are a number of issues included in this tax cap over which the council has no control,” he said, noting that the council has taken no position on the tax cap.
Organizers turned in petitions with about 1,750 signatures yesterday; city officials hope to verify the signatures against voter rolls by week’s end. If the city clerk can verify at least 796 registered voters — 20 percent of the number of people who cast ballots in the last election — then the petition will be sent to state officials for approval.
The Attorney General’s Office, the Secretary of State and the Department of Revenue Administration must all sign off on the language in the petition. If they do and the signatures are verified, said City Clerk Joe Gray, then it will be placed on the November ballot for voters to approve.
The New Hampshire Advantage Coalition is also working to support citizen-led tax cap charter amendments in Concord, Merrimack, Somersworth, Londonderry, Portsmouth and Bedford, as well as Rochester and Manchester.
Michael Biundo, the coalition’s chairman and a longtime conservative activist, said the group has about 80 percent of the signatures it is seeking in Manchester and hopes to turn that petition in by the middle of August.
“There’s no perfect world, but I think overall what we’re trying to get to is to keep taxes down,” he said.