The Mayor's Corner
The Mayor's Corner
On Monday, April 22, the City Council of the City of Somersworth passed the Fiscal Year 2024-2025 Budget. This was a major accomplishment that came after months of tireless work by myself, my colleagues on the City Council and school board, and City and School district staff. As many are probably aware, and as I made clear in the last City newsletter, this budget was a challenge and a puzzle from the beginning. With it being a revaluation year here in the City, we were not able to include new development when calculating the tax cap, which put stricter limits on the amount we were able to raise from taxes without an override. Beyond that, adjustments due in-part to inflation also chipped away at the amount of available flexibility in the budget for non-salary related items. However, regardless of these challenges the City Council worked effectively to develop a Budget that provides the maximum amount of services with the smallest impact possible on taxpayers. I applaud the effort everyone put in, and hope folks understand that these difficult decisions were made after much thought, consideration, and debate. I am pleased that through deep discussion and negotiation we ended up with a budget that seems to best satisfy the needs of our Community.
The agreements made by the City Council included a number of amendments to the Budgets which..
- Increased school funding by an additional $650,000
- Restored spending on City road repairs to $900,000 in order to continue needed maintenance of City roads
- Increased investments in a number of nonprofits that provide essential services within the City, including increases to COAST bus services to help offset rider service fees, additional funding for the Community Food Pantry, and funding for Pope Memorial Humane Society
- Allowed for the hiring of a part-time Police Patrol Officer earlier in the year
- Increased the use of the General Fund - which acts as the City’s savings account - in order to help offset the impact of this Budget on our City’s taxpayers.
Other items that were included in the Budget as presented were…
- The addition of an Mechanic to the Public Works Department
- The hiring of the Deputy Fire Chief for the full year
- Increases to the salaries of all City and School staff to create competitive and adequate wages
- The reconstruction of the High St. sidewalk along the west side, from West High St. to South St.
- The complete rebuild of Constitutional Way
- A Master Plan chapter update
After the final edits are incorporated, the Adopted Budget, which will include the changes and amendments listed above, will be posted here on the City’s website.
The proposed Fiscal Year 24/25 Budget (which does not include the amendments mentioned above) can be found here on the City’s website.
If you have any questions or concerns about the newly Adopted Budget, don’t hesitate to reach out to me or any of the nine City Councilors.