He's ready.

Okay, I'd like to call a meeting of the budget review committee to order.

It's Thursday, March 19th, 2026 at 7 p.m.

in the aldermatic chamber.

And we are duly noticed in two places, including the city's website in accordance with the requirements of RSA 91-A colon 2 2.

Would the clerk please call the roll?

Alderman Paula Johnson.

Alderman Derek Teavo.

Here.

Alderman at large Alicia Greg.

Here, I am at home under the web.

But I can hear everybody and nobody, there's nobody in the room.

Alderman at large, Hosana Kelly.

I'm here.

Alderman at large Michael O'Brien Sr.

is present.

Alderman Tim Senate, the vice chair.

I'm here.

And Alderman Richard A.

Dowd, Chairman.

Present.

Okay, you have one, two, three, four, five.

Six present, and you have a quorum.

Also in attendance is Mr.

Tim Cummings, administrative service director.

He is also online.

Michelle Welsh, the assessing manager, and Mr.

Steve Hamilton.

Also, for Alderman in attendance is Alderman Trish Clay.

Okay.

Even though it's on the agenda, we will not have any public comment at the beginning because there is no action being taken on anything this evening.

So now we have a discussion this evening on an accessing update.

I'll let uh Director Cummings introduce our speaker.

Great.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

And for the record, Tim Cummings Director of Administrative Services.

And first, let me uh apologize for not being in person.

I had a family issue arise that I had to home for this evening.

So thank you for allowing me to participate via via Zoom.

With that being chairman, this evening, uh I pleasure to introduce uh not just uh Michelle Welch, our uh assessing manager, but our consultant who we retained a couple of years ago to help us in the assessing department, uh Steve Hamilton of uh Whitney Consulting Group and him and and his colleague Bob Gagney and Bob couldn't be with us this evening.

Um have led the assessing office over the last year, a year and a half or so, and I thought it would move us to have them come before, give you just a general update, talk a little bit about uh best practices within the assessing industry, maybe sketch out a little bit about a vision for move the assessing department in the city of Nashua forward, talk about whatever relative relevant uh hot topics there there may be within within assessing.

Uh this would be just a good hygiene type issue for us, as I thought uh the board would would welcome a discussion with our as they don't appear before you do before appear before the board of assessors uh more regularly.

So thought this once a year type check-in would be would be a good thing.

So at this mr mr.

Chairman, I think it'd be a good uh good opportunity for me to hand it over to uh Steve, who who should be able to lead the discussion, and of course I'm here to assist the lawn board.

Steve Michelle, if you want to take a seat and be more comfortable.

Uh or who's gonna start up.

I uh let Steve start.

Okay.

Good evening, Mr.

Chair Alderman.

Thank you so much uh for having me here this evening.

Um I have been lucky to uh be helping Tim and the city uh work through some pretty deep issues within the assessing department, uh helping to make sure that the important tasks of assessing can be completed.

Um, especially within the wake of a um a large disruption in the distribution of work within the assessing department.

Uh there were a number of uh departures from the staff in early 2024.

Uh we came in to analyze the operation to make sure that uh we had a plan that would allow the city to cover all of the responsibilities and make sure that the important tasks of assessing could be completed.

And to that end we put together an analysis and a report that details a way forward that allows the city to be able to achieve the necessary tasks of inspecting properties that have been newly renovated or newly constructed, making sure that the city could attend to the process of abatements that had been filed on behalf of taxpayers, making sure that they were adequately defended at the Board of Tax and Land Appeals, and to support the city solicitor's office in those cases that were pending in Superior Court.

There were a large number of cases at the time that we came on board.

And we also made sure that we could help the city provide for a consistent revaluation to occur.

They completed a revaluation of the city in 2020.

2024, yeah.

And we helped to make sure that they had applied the best practices, interacted with them on a regular basis in order to make sure that the city was getting the best possible product.

We also helped to make sure that they had fully documented the process that they went through in that revaluation.

The recommendations that we made to the city through Tim and to the Board of Assessors was that the clearest path forward would be to have a combination of additional personnel to replace some of the people who had left the city and the department and also to provide for contracted services to bridge the gaps that would be there and have been there.

One of the things that is great challenge, not only for the city of Nashua, but for the entire state of New Hampshire is that there is a lack of qualified and certified assessors in the state of New Hampshire.

There are fewer assessors than are needed to fill the available positions.

Many communities have had a very difficult time hiring full-time personnel because of this lack.

Now this is not something which has occurred in a vacuum, and there are a lot of people who are working diligently to try and address that shortage and build back a deeper bench of available people to fill these positions.

But this combination of both employee-based and contracted-based is so far working fairly well to make sure that all of those needs are met.

But really, this is um retail work.

Um people call in on the phone, they they want uh to have somebody uh to answer their questions.

They they show up at the window, um, they will have uh demands.

Uh they'll want to make sure that they can understand the whole process and have answers to their questions.

So we focused first on making sure that we could build up the administrative shortage within uh the department, which uh has been working uh fairly well.

Um but like all uh positions in in government these days, uh it seems that um we can only hold on to people for so long.

Um so to that end, uh the next stage of uh evolution of uh helping the assessing department restore itself to its full potential is to focus on more of the professional staff in developing uh the professional staff that's there to their fullest potential, uh, but also at a point uh and I would expect that it would be within the next um within the next year of looking to fill some of the highest level positions uh with uh professional full-time people.

That's in essence what uh what we have done.

We've recommended that uh two-stage, two processes at the same basic time, focusing on administrative.

We had great success.

Uh Michelle is a testament to uh the success that we had uh filling the positions on the administrative side, uh, but the assessing side where it requires certification and a lot of experience to be able to uh do the work for the city, it is um lagging.

And we've had some some success and some setbacks.

So a success is that um one of the uh professional people in the organization who is an assessor, um, is now certified at the next to the highest level of sort of professional certification, and she moved up from an assessor assistant to a certified assessor.

That's uh that's a good thing to have happen.

Um the downside um we had uh uh identified a person to uh join the ranks in the in a lower level professional capacity, and um he had decided to move on to a different um a different position last summer.

That position has uh been challenging to uh uh to fill.

Uh but we're hopeful that um that something will break on that uh very shortly.

Getting people in and helping them to move up the certification ladder is uh a worthy effort, and it's probably the best and sharpest way through this shortage.

My company, Whitney Consultant Group.

Uh we work with 22 other communities in the state, and we're doing just that in a lot of those communities.

We're helping uh people who are in the middle of their professional development achieve the highest levels of certification.

We do that for our team members.

We have uh 14 um employees and include Bob Gagney as one of our most respected and valued team members, uh but we have uh a large number of uh people that were developing in our own way uh to be able to serve the communities that we're in as well.

But we do that with the employees within the communities that we work with.

What we try to do is build the best and most efficient team that we can to undertake the task.

Most people, if they walked into the assessing uh department here in the city, they would have a hard time distinguishing uh between my team member uh Bob Gagney and the employees within the department.

Um we work together, we integrate in on a large team basis.

So that's um uh 40,000 foot uh view of uh how things have been developing, and if I've left anything out or missed anything, Michelle.

No, so we did fully have a full admin staff as of recent.

However, we do have an employee that is retiring the the the end of April, so we'll be down in admin side staff.

Um we did currently to today make an offer to an assessor one, which is a basically a the the the lowest level that you can start at.

Um so what we're we're hopeful that he will accept the actual position uh that has been vacant since June.

Question I have is is how how many what's your total staff right now including yourself?

That there's five of us to total right now.

And your one short no, we we're will be we we we are currently too we will will we will be two short okay and did the the other only other question I have is did the change in the is your people are unaffiliated?

So no, uh uh all all my all my team members are are union in employees.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

You ready for other questions?

Sure.

Any questions from anyone Alderman Kelly?

Uh I guess my question is on Sisters Budget Committee is as we are looking at figuring out the plan for your staff, what does it look like when we're you know covering the gap with other contracted services until we get them, and what does it look like when you get to full compliment in terms of uh cost?

So via cost, I like like Steve had mentioned.

Um our next goal for for the for the c for the coming year would be to hire somebody that has at least a certified assessor so that we can kind of di divide the actual work that is being done via our current certified assessor and vi vision who is out doing commercial inspections.

Ideally we would love to hire a commercial assessor, but the the actual chances of that being slim be because of the the the lack of commercial assessors with it within the state of New Hampshire if I might um there is in um I think uh there was circulated the organization structure analysis report that we completed that was dated December 19th of 2024.

Uh there is some detailed uh breakdown of uh budgeted costs and predictions of uh those costs over uh over time uh included in that in that report.

Okay.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um I'm gonna be honest.

Um I saw the uh agenda and I saw what was on it, but when I had met with Bob Gagn, um I don't know, about a couple months ago, I think it was, yeah.

He had mentioned that at the time he was also going to be doing a presentation in regards to exemptions and credits.

Um, and I met with him because myself um it was actually um Alderman Clemens um brainchild, but myself and um Alderman Johnson are also part of it, where we were going to um try to construct legislation that would um give an automatic um increase to the credits based on the CPI and and so on, if they hadn't been up to the max.

Um that would specifically be the veterans because only veterans have credits, but we'd also tried to figure out how we could work exemptions that could be based on the ebb and flow of assessments going up or going down.

So if we had a crash and so on.

So when we met, uh Bob said that he had been working on a plan about the exemptions and so on, and that it would be brought up here.

So I was a little, I must admit I'm a little disappointed.

I don't know if Mr.

Hamilton or can speak to that.

Um so I have no detailed information about that.

I I don't know.

Tim, did you receive uh a report from uh Bob on that issue?

I I did not.

Okay.

Uh yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh so I did not get any detailed.

I think it would be good if maybe someone was to speak to that.

Also, what some of the best practices may be in terms of how you do it.

Um my conversations with Bob that seemed to be more where he was focusing his his sentiments or his thought process, but I I don't know anything more that.

With more detail be available talking with the assessing board, board of assessors rather than I don't think so.

May I thank you?

Um so I can tell you that the reason for this conversation was that oftentimes um we do a reassessment.

I know we're not going to do a reassessment this year, we're gonna be skipping the two years this year.

I understand that.

And I thought that was actually gonna be discussed too, the reasons why.

Um but the normally when we say we increase the assessing the assessments, we we don't increase exemptions until after the fact, which gives those people, the seniors that kind of lag.

Um so they'll have a sudden jump in their um in their taxes.

So we were talking about creating a trigger that when we increase the assessment assessment, or for that matter, if suddenly there was a decrease in the assessment, that this would trigger an automatic change.

So we didn't have to necessarily put through legislation every single time, and that it would kind of wax and wane with that, um, and it would be better for the residents that we're getting that.

And I really thought that was the conversation was going to be happening because it's a very important conversation, so that we don't have it's because we're not doing a reassessment this year, right?

Am I correct?

Okay, we're not doing a reassessment this year.

Yeah, it it's not an emergency, but it's a conversation that really needs to happen.

Um it was going to be tied into the legislation that I spoke to that myself and my colleagues were going to be putting through.

We've decided to let the exemption portion of it lag so that Bob could bring forward his ideas and so on.

So I don't know if Mr.

Hamilton could speak to best practices on that.

Mr.

Chair, and my apologies.

I thought you were hoping that I would be able to give you dollars and cents and recommendations this evening, which I'm not prepared to do.

But I am fully prepared to talk through the best practices and the kinds of recommendations that we make to cities and towns uh that we serve when it comes to exemptions.

So uh the two issues that are always critical on uh exemptions for the elderly, for the disabled, and for the blind are the impact that a revaluation might have on the um amount of exemption that's granted to a person who receives it, uh making sure that there's a way to index if you were uh the benefit amount to the increase in uh value of most properties, and a lot of times we look at um even more succinctly the increases of the pool of properties that people who receive the uh the exemption, what their experience is.

So that's something that we recommend um should occur within each of the revaluation efforts.

Okay, and there is um there's quite a bit of uh calendar uh left to address those issues before uh the next uh revaluation.

The qualification for income and assets are set hopefully on a regular basis uh because a person's ability to um uh to qualify really shouldn't change through time uh based on uh increases in things like Social Security benefits.

Um what we uh often do for our communities in response to policies that get adopted by uh Alderman or city counselors or selectmen is to provide them with information on a regular basis uh for them to be able to um understand what the impact of inflation might have done to a person's ability to afford their taxes, and so um oftentimes we look to uh CPI, we look to other inflation um adjustment um uh indicators, and we uh we have um made recommendations to a number of communities to uh to attend to that on a regular basis.

We look to other inflation um adjustment um indicators, and we uh we have um made recommendations to a number of communities to uh to attend to that on a regular basis.

Follow-up?

Uh yes, um more information.

So the legislation that myself and Alderman Johnson and um Alderman Clemens will be trying to put forward will take in consideration also the um the income as well as the assets and put the CPI to that as well as to the credits that haven't been fully realized.

Um I know we have this real iffy one going on with whether or not the State House changes that $750 and gives it back to the disabled veterans.

We'll have to work on that when we get to it.

But um, so we will be putting that we just couldn't put the exemption into it because we didn't know what uh Mr.

Gagnon or you know what the best practice was, and right we wanted to have a full discussion on that.

If I might yes, go ahead.

So um automating the process by which we would bring a recommendation.

That's that's an easy thing.

Umating a calculation of a new limit.

Um I'm not sure that that would um that would work on uh on an annual basis or a regular basis, even.

I think the concept is good, and I'm glad that getting a head start on taking time to evaluate it and and it probably for implementation would be in the next when the next evaluation uh happens, and we know the the input that that would for budget purposes from additional revenue to the city versus the cost of of the of this incremental change.

But uh it's good that we get a lot of time to think about that.

House planning uh yeah, uh we were joined uh by Alderman Paula Johnson at 732.

Thank you.

All in the Senate.

I'll defer to all the Alderwoman Keller.

She had her hand up before me during the previous cycles.

All right.

Okay.

I just wanted to inquire.

I don't know how I missed it, but the someone mentioned that we are not doing the assessments like we were supposed to this year, uh, which I was surprised by because I thought the whole point was that we were going to do it every couple years so that people didn't have large increases in the assessed value of their homes or commercial properties.

Can someone speak to that?

Yeah, happy to, Mr.

Chairman, if I may.

Thank you.

And and Alderwoman Kelly's absolutely right, and that's something that I would like to continue to encourage.

Um, and I I hope we as a community continue to work in that in that direction.

Uh with that being said, couple issues arose that I I sent a communication a few weeks, maybe a month or so back that kind of outlined this, and I apologize if I if I missed folks.

Um, but it basically outlined that that we weren't going to be able to do the reval this year.

Uh two drivers to um one um the market slowed.

Uh we're not seeing the uh the the appreciation that that we typically do.

We normally bigger reasons than us, so um, there certainly isn't that the the necessity that we had originally when we when we certainly uh started to keep uh up the idea of doing the rebows more regularly.

Secondly back our contractor and working with them, the group that we have under agreement with us that already um uh uh filled up uh their queue and their scorecard was already taken, however, you want to describe it.

Um little disappointed to learn that uh but understanding, especially after the comments we heard to start this evening about the the lack of um assessors uh available in the marketplace.

This is a realistic constraint that we that we all within uh in the state have to have to work with.

So, you know, for those reasons, um you know that was the big Iber.

I will also note, and this is a subtler detail that folks need to be aware of is we're also going to be working towards moving towards uh a new conversion of our of our of our appraisal system, our assessing system, and uh vision would be the would be the software that we're gonna be gravitating to needing to do that takes about six months in advance to get that preparation work in place, and so we will be looking to do that and hopefully start that some next year.

So we'll be in good stead to continue with the reval.

So there was multiple issues there as to why we needed to push it off, and uh and hopefully that addresses the question.

Alderwoman Kelly.

Uh thank you.

Just follow up.

I know that there was legislation to put on um people's tax bills when we were going to do assessments.

Are we gonna let them know we're not doing the reassessment?

Yes, absolutely.

We will make sure that that is absolutely clear.

All right, thank you.

Senate.

Thank you.

This is maybe a two-pronged question from Ms.

Welsh and uh Director uh Cummings.

Um you had mentioned that the staff in the assessing department is all um union represented, is that correct?

Minus myself, yes.

Minus yourself, but that would that would be any of your assessors one, two, three, so on and so forth.

Correct.

And currently we only have one uh assessor, two.

Okay.

Um the the reason I ask is um and this is just throwing something out in the air just to gauge the um I guess the applicability of it.

Last year we had um we had approved a uh an agreement um between uh the Board of Alderman and the uh union representing the Department of Public Works, um, they were experiencing similar difficulties in getting um heavy operators uh for some of their machinery, and uh that agreement allowed them to hire individuals um who didn't have the licensures yet needed to do that and afforded them a year to obtain those.

I I'll fully admit that I don't know the process of becoming a licensed assessor in the state of New Hampshire.

But I was just sort of thinking aloud here, wondering if that is something that would work within your department.

I know your staffing team is much smaller than the staff of the Department of Public Works, but maybe hiring somebody to fill in in one of those administrative capacities while they work towards that licensures.

Is that something that either of you see as a possibility?

Ms.

Welch?

I'm I'm gonna let Steve Hamilton handle that question.

Stamped in in New Hampshire, in order to do the work of assessing, you have to be uh certified.

There are four levels of certification.

Uh the beginning of that process is uh being certified to inspect properties, measuring and listing uh the features of all of the property.

In order to get to the highest level, which is assessor supervisor, um for which I'm I'm certified at that level, Bob Gagney is certified at that level.

Um that requires a minimum of five years experience.

And so there are two other intermediate steps in that process.

But to get started, you really just have to notify the office of professional licensure and certification that you are training towards being a measure or enlisters.

So it is very common uh to have entry-level people come in with no uh necessary certification.

But to fill those higher level positions, those certifications are required by law.

And those are the those higher level ones are the ones you're experiencing the most difficulty finding uh candidates for here in the state.

Yes, and Mr.

Chairman, if you don't mind um so interestingly, um it at the three lower level uh certifications as measure enlister, um, assessor assistant and assessor, the numbers are increasing in each of those categories when we look at it over a uh five or six year period.

But the assessor supervisor, maybe those of us that have a little more gray um, and perhaps because of that uh the numbers are declining uh precipitously.

Um and so that's really where the uh biggest difficulty is in hiring it's at that highest level, but it has had an impact all the way down the chain.

Okay.

Well, thank you for uh thank you.

And Mr.

Chairman, if I may.

Yes, go ahead, Director Cummings.

No, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge Alderman Senate's comments because literally that is the exact same conversation I actually had with Michelle Welch.

So he's on to something there.

Um better news than then what we're saying, but you know, it is an issue that I think we need as a community to work through.

And when I say community, I mean it's a state issue because of that that supply constraint is is certainly affecting not just Nashua but a lot of uh a lot of the municipalities.

I just have a follow-up before follow-up.

Yeah, um thank you for um for validating that, Director Cummings.

Um I I know that there are trades throughout the nation that are struggling with what we're seeing here just with this micros and with the assessors, and really I just I I think as as a board as a city, um there are different departments we need to get creative in in ways of attracting those candidates and fostering them so that they can stay and grow within the organization.

Um obviously that's gonna look different for every department given the size of the staff and the requirements for those licensors or certifications, but um I just want us as we move forward to be thinking creatively in that respect so that we can accomplish the ultimate goal, which is getting ourselves to full compliment.

Thank you.

A little devote.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh it's kind of a mess, isn't it?

Um so a little disappointed that our our vendor that we pay couldn't fit us on their scorecard.

Now, saying that I would have probably pushed to try to prevent us to have having a uh revaluation this year just because uh things are gonna continue to go up.

So in some ways it's uh they say serendipity, I guess that uh serendipitous that we're not gonna have it.

Um like all the all the women Kelly is uh I hadn't read that or I hadn't seen that either.

So I was I was uh perplexed by that that we didn't have that.

Um so uh the press is here, so you know I'm sure people could start hearing about it tomorrow or or tonight in the uh uh on social media.

Um so if we're not gonna have it uh this year, does that mean we have it next year, or do we have it two years from now to keep on schedule?

Or we don't have any we didn't create an ordinance or a resolution.

We kind of just said we'd like to do it more often.

Um just kind of curious when that next date or that not it doesn't have to be an exact date, but kind of like years out wise.

Yeah, director Cummings?

Sure, thank you.

And uh again, Tim Cummings, direct director of administrative services.

Have a crystal ball, not going to be able to answer it hard and fast.

Um the trajectory I see us on, though, and this is obviously working in in cooperation with our contract, is we'll need to get the the software system in place first.

Um we'll need to do that about six months in advance of uh of us starting the um the revaluation.

So you know, I I would anticipate us doing a reval 28-ish time frame.

If we are doing the software in 27, um then we would do the we would do the reval in in 28 or something to that effect.

Of course, um that needs to all be vetted through our board of assessors to ensure the market actually is saying that.

I believe the market will say that, but that's truly should be a policy-driven decision and and making sure that we are repousing more regularly.

And I'll also note for the record, because we just did the reval statutorily, we're compliant.

So what what we're doing is ensuring that we're trying to make sure that we are appraising uh our properties more regularly from a market perspective and from uh uh and from a fairness perspective perspective as well to ensure we're taxing people the the correct amounts.

So um uh that's but at least at this kind of seeing the landscape um uh Alderman Tebow, uh hopefully that answers your question.

Oh follow-up.

So um thank you for that, Director Cummings.

Um I mean, for the state we have to do every at least every five years.

So the clock's ticking, we have four years left.

Does that sound right?

Roughly, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Hollow and Kelly, then Alden O'Brien.

All right, I had a few questions.

Um to maybe admit that I don't understand how you become an assessor.

I'm interested in when you move up to the I think you said gray-haired people who can do the higher levels.

Is that a time like you have to have done it like a doctor doing it for this many years, or is it like you just have to take the test?

No, you have to you have to take a test and you have to uh prove that you have at least five years of experience.

Okay, so it's both of us.

And those experiences have to be indexed to the kind of work that you're going to be doing.

And uh a way to think about it is um that the ability to uh achieve that certification level.

That doesn't that's not the end of the training and preparation to take on the responsibility of uh something like the assessing in the city of Nashua.

Um you could think about it if uh if I were uh a structural engineer and I had built a highway bridge um and designed that I wouldn't be designing the Golden Gate Bridge as the next project.

Just because you have that certification doesn't always mean that you're prepared to do the work.

So that experience, that guidance, that mentorship is critical in making sure that uh people get prepared to do that work.

Yep.

Um can we only take from New Hampshire?

Do you have to be like an assessor in New Hampshire?

Or can we look at like communities over the border?

So um other communities, other states have uh different laws, and there are uh things that you have to do in order to comply with the uh certification standards in New Hampshire, but your experience might uh might well um carry through to uh to New Hampshire, and there are other there are people who come here from other jurisdictions and successfully certify.

Follow-up?

Ah, thank you.

That's sort of what I was thinking, especially if we have to stay in New Hampshire, we're what of two cities that are quite big, right?

Um so my other question was around our salaries.

I know we just did a salary study, but are our salaries competitive to help you as you're trying to fill those top level positions?

You can be honest.

It's a union contract, so correct.

So we we we really don't have the ability to be competitive because they are union contracted positions, so it's whatever that the union contract said.

So when we did the salary study, it did not apply to anyone in your department.

Correct.

Uh that's right.

Because you're that's correct.

You're the only unaffiliated.

Okay.

You don't have to answer anymore.

That's right.

Okay.

I have one more question.

Okay.

Uh this one's for Director Cummings.

Um, given that we know we have to get the um you said vision software on board before our next assessment.

I just would love to know how much in advance we need to get um to our contractors so that we get on their dance card for that year.

Director Cummings?

Uh yes, thank you.

So it's the same contractor, so we would be working with them with the understanding that so we would get on their dance card.

So it's it'd be the same group.

So they'd know in an advance that they wouldn't be too booked out for us.

Correct.

That's right.

Right, thank you.

Alderman O'Brien.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh Mr.

Hamilton, my question is gonna go to you.

Uh you said that uh to get in the higher positions, you need five years experience.

Do you actually need the five years?

Because where I'm coming from, I was a state rep for 16 years.

I can personally guarantee you the MAD 400 do not get everything right up there.

And I sat on the EDA committee for something like six years, which this would probably come under the e DNA committee, because we looked at the certifications and everything else.

Do you think it needs to be five years?

Should we if this is a state problem, it's not just Nashua, it's probably Manchester, it's probably Salem, and even God forbid Boswell, you know, but uh should we look to change our system?

So Alderman O'Brien, you raise excellent points, and I alluded earlier to efforts that have been underway at the state level.

Um in uh December, I was part of a round table discussion that included uh municipal managers, it included uh members of the general court, it included members of the assessing standards board, it included uh all of the members of the New Hampshire Board of Tax and Land Appeals, it included a member of the governor's staff, um, and uh and myself and two other assessing professionals, um, including Bob Gagney, who who serves here, um we met to try and uh test out those kinds of things that might uh provide for some relief on that.

The difficulty is that um it isn't just um about the time in the seat, it's really about having the knowledge to be able to interact with uh with taxpayers, help them to understand the process, interact with uh governing bodies uh with aldermen and select boards, uh helping them to understand the processes.

This is um complicated and challenging uh work and it requires uh knowledge, it requires experience uh in order to be able to confidently carry it out.

Now, um not every not every person have to has to be perfectly prepared.

Um and that um a lot of ideas came out of that round table discussion in order to see if there are ways.

Um and I hope that um when when you were a member of EDNA, and I may have been representing the commissioner of revenue in front of your committee.

Maybe that's why you look so familiar to me.

I'm glad you didn't forget me, sir.

All said any other questions seeing none.

All right.

Um thank you very much for your presentation this evening, and the information was very helpful.

And um we will move forward uh uh with Director Cummings and go from there.

Thank you, Ms.

I got one one thing.

Sure.

Go ahead, Director Cummings.

Thank you.

I just wanted to kind of telegraph for the board that I'd like to come back in a couple weeks and have a conversation about how we assess LITEC properties.

I think that that's uh um uh and in particular how how we are uh expecting pilot payments uh for LI tech properties.

But there's been some work done relative to a specific RSA.

This city in Ashua should learn a little bit about.

I'd like to have the assessing team come in, talk to you about that.

Bob Gagney, who's not here tonight, uh certainly could put in better detail, but I think it would be very beneficial to ensure that you're aware of this tool that you have available to you uh in lieu of pilots that we've been doing over the years.

It's uh something that I wanted to kind of flag, put on your radar, and hopefully come back before you for uh for a policy type conversation.

Thank you.

Yeah, uh if it's something that's going to be um as I envision, something that's more uh knowledge for the entire board.

It probably should have a special full board meeting so that everybody on the board of Alderman can get that information.

Um the coming through the budget committee usually involves something to do with with budgeting something.

Um and uh I was going to ask you the question is the vision software in the FY 27 budget requests, yeah.

Yes, yes, Mr.

Chairman, and uh yes, happy to work with uh Donna or whomever to get the meeting scheduled uh however appropriate.

But I did want to kind of flag it for folks.

Sounds good.

All right, communications, there are none.

Unfinished business, there's none.

New business resolutions, there's none.

New business ordinances, there's none.

Table and committee, there is none.

General discussion.

Alderman Senate.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um I just wanted to put it out there.

I know we received the um the draft schedule of the um departmental review meetings for the uh and it is a draft.

And that's kind of where I'm going because I I don't know if it was just a c calendar complication or maybe a calendar oversight, but it looks like we start on the 16th, and then we skip a complete week, and then we really hit the ground running smack dab in the middle of um the school vacation week.

Uh with some pretty heavy-hitting departments.

Donna checks her schedule, and if there were meetings all that week from other committees that can't be moved or canceled, then we we can't have the conflict, uh, especially if people are on two different committees.

So sure, and that's she is said I'm not sure which it actually is.

And the other thing might be that none of the divisions were able to meet that week.

Wow.

So she's balancing that whole question between availability of the budget committee, availability of the divisions.

So it's not an easy thing to do, and she's and it's a draft, and she's still working it because we have to hear back from everybody and see if there are any conflicts.

And not accusing anybody of doing anything maliciously or anything.

I I'm just putting it out there for anybody who may not have noticed it, because um, I mean, I know I'm not the only one with kids here, but I know anybody with kids, that can be a complicating week.

And we could that school vacation that might have been one of the reasons.

Yeah, I just I'm on vacation.

Well, that the well, that's the thing is in in the midst of school vacation week.

We have a handful of heavy-hitting meetings with uh I'm seeing HR, administrative services, police, fire, all during that last week of April.

So if we had several members of the budget committee that can't make those meetings, you need to tell Donna that that information that went out was also supposed to be to the budget committee members that say if there's a conflict so that she can.

I'm just putting it out there because I'm not concerned.

I'm just telling you that she's she's handling this, so I mean uh we've had questions every day on schedule, but it's that's why it's draft.

We we're still moving the pieces on the chess board around.

Fair enough.

Okay.

Any other general discussion?

There's no reason for public comment because there's no public remarks by Alderman.

I think we pretty much covered that.

Two hands up Alderman clean.

Um first off, I want to um uh thank your indulgence uh for the topic that I had brought up.

I do believe that that too is a conversation that should happen with the full board, and um I didn't really foresee that it was this, which is why I was quite surprised when Mr.

Gagnan told me that he was um going to be uh bringing it to the budget committee.

Um and I and I've asked Director Um Cummings if he could also add that the exemption conversation as well as um kind of all the um changes that he talked about some changes with the the way assessing is being done, and I really would love to have that conversation again.

It's not for for the budget here.

I'm just kind of putting that out.

Have that conversation on the difference between how assessments for residential properties versus businesses are done and so on.

I think it's a real important conversation for us and the public to understand.

The the the assessment rate, I mean the tax rate has to be the same by state law for all properties, but the way it's assessed can be done differently.

So thank you.

Okay, uh Mr.

Chairman, can I I apologize for interrupting, but I do want to just make sure something's very clear because if we have press there this evening, I it's correct.

What I was referencing was lie tax, right?

So lie tax affordable housing projects, not not necessarily commercial businesses, and I understood that.

Very good.

Johnson?

Thank you very much.

I just want to say um I apologize for being I really don't apologize, but I had a What Five meeting tonight, and I ran over as fast as I could, and it was a very productive meeting.

Um I understand assessments, I understand that, and I think people should hear how commercial industrial is assessed versus residential, and I think that's a very important piece because it is usually assessed differently.

I understand a lot of this, and I you know, and I also would like to hear from assessing what they're seeing as far as the sales so far, because the market is kind of flat right now.

There's not a lot of homes on the market.

Um, you know, senior citizens aren't selling.

You know, you see them.

I've seen two in my neighborhood.

Um, but this um season hasn't started yet.

So that's something that we want to really look for as we're getting more into the springtime.

How many more houses are going on the market in the areas because that's gonna give us an indication where the market and the assessed values are going.

If they're gonna be rising quickly like they did, or you're not gonna get those multiple office like you did before because of the costs and the interest rates, and that's gonna play a big part on it.

So I think that's something assessing should keep us abreast of a little bit on how the market is going in the city here.

Thank you.

I know.

Where are we gonna go?

All right, nothing else.

Alder Mobrien, you have her yes, I do.

I'd like to make the motion to adjourn.

Um, the rule?

Yeah, I guess.

Yeah, uh Alderman Johnson.

Yes, Alderman Thiago, yes.

Alderman Gray.

Yes.

Alderman Kelly, yes.

Alderman O'Brien votes yes, Alderman Senate, yes, and Alderman Dows.

Yes.

Uh motion passes.

We're adjourned at 8 p.m.