From the Union Leader…
MANCHESTER – A group battling what it says is government spending run amok has submitted enough signatures to place a city spending cap on the general election ballot Nov. 4.
The New Hampshire Advantage Coalition delivered an additional 2,000 names to Manchester City Hall on Saturday, bringing the total approved signatures to 4,036, the city clerk’s office confirmed.
When voters head to the polls to choose a president, a governor and congressional and state representation, they will also be asked to consider tying city spending to the rate of inflation, plus population growth.
“Taxpayers are being hit from all levels right now,” said Michael Biundo, the group’s chairman.
The anti-spending groundswell is behind similar proposals in Concord, Rochester and Somersworth. Biundo is confident the necessary number of signatures will be delivered to the Concord City Clerk’s office by today. Rochester debates a proposed tax cap in a public hearing tonight at 7 in City Council chambers.
Rochester Mayor John H. Larochelle opposes it. He is warning voters that a cap would sap the city of its fiscal flexibility and potentially erode municipal services.
“At some point, you get what you pay for,” Larochelle said.
Such caps have another foe in Granite State Progress, an advocacy group that warns of disastrous results for government services.
Municipal appropriations have grown significantly in larger communities, with some greater than the rate of inflation, according to the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies, an independent and non-partisan research center in Concord.
Manchester’s per capita net appropriations, the amount to be raised by taxes, increased 29.8 percent from 2001 to 2006, for a 5.4 percent annual average, the center reported in its study, “Financing New Hampshire’s Cities and Towns.”
Other cities, with their five-year average followed by annual average for net appropriations, included: Concord, 15.7 percent and 3 percent; Dover, 40.5 percent and 7 percent; Franklin, 18.7 percent and 3.5 percent; Rochester, 46.8 percent and 8 percent; and Somersworth, 50.5 percent and 8.5 percent.
The study was released in February; it was not produced in connection with the debate on spending caps. Donna P. Sytek, who does not have a position on the issue in her role as chairman of the Center for Public Policy Studies, called the cap an artificial device.
“It’s like a speed bump,” she said. “It makes you stop and think.”
A spending cap may make it more difficult for a governing body to do some necessary but not very popular projects, Sytek said.
The New Hampshire Advantage Coalition takes its name from the slogan that celebrates the state’s low tax burden, including having no income tax and no sales tax. The slogan is even prominently displayed on the Web site for the Pease International Tradeport, the state’s business and industrial park in Portsmouth and Newington.
Biundo said the spending cap proposal in Manchester is modeled after existing tax caps in Dover and Franklin.
His coalition is asking candidates to sign a pledge, but Biundo said politicians from any party respect the value of a low state tax burden.
He said that out of about 1,000 people who signed the petition in Manchester, a third identified themselves as Democrat, a third as Republican, and a third as independent.
“It’s an issue I’ve always felt goes across party lines,” Biundo said.