Somersworth, Rochester petition to get tax caps on the ballot

More Seacoast cities are considering laws to limit taxes, after a controversial tax cap passed in Dover last year. Petitions have been submitted in Rochester and Somersworth to limit tax increases to the rate of inflation or the annual change in the National Urban Consumer Price Index.

The central source of the effort behind tax caps is the New Hampshire Advantage Coalition, a citizen-led organization based in Manchester that is also working on petitions in Manchester, Concord and other cities. 

Timothy Logsdon, a Somersworth resident, said he was contacted by the Coalition about working on the project in his city. He collected the initial signatures needed to get the official petition paperwork. He started collecting more signatures when he had time, but he said it was slow going.

Logsdon got some coaching and more people were recruited to help. In the end, he said, “There were people who wanted to sign the petition who weren’t able to because I wasn’t able to make it out to their homes before we turned the petitions in.”

The petition goes before the Somersworth City Council at its meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 2, after which it will likely become an article on the next general election ballot in November, as long as the procedure was completed correctly and the required signatures are legitimate.

“You could call it a spending cap or a tax cap, because they are directly related,” Logsdon said in an e-mail.

Logsdon said people are losing their homes in the economic downturn, and high property taxes are contributing to the problem. “I don’t think property rights are respected like they once were,” Logsdon said. “If you have to pay property taxes every year or risk having your property taken from you, then your right to own property isn’t respected by the government.”

Somersworth resident Real Roseberry also helped collect signatures, first with a sign by his house and then by going door to door. He said about 400 signatures were collected, while only 229 were required.

While speaking with residents, Roseberry said, he heard their concerns about surviving the winter. “When people tell you this, you know taxes shouldn’t be going up,” he said.

“The City Council has gone wild with their spending,” Roseberry added. He said he was especially irked by a proposal to spend $13 million on land for a new school and another $20 million to build it. He said the current school building could be repaired instead.

Roseberry added that Dover residents revolted against high taxes, and now Rochester has taken similar action against a proposal that would have raised taxes by $4. 

“The tax cap is the best thing that ever happened to Strafford County and the state of New Hampshire, because they’re going to have to be more careful about the way they spend,” Roseberry said.

Rochester Mayor John Larochelle said he would have preferred a spending cap over a tax cap, but he isn’t in favor of either. “I don’t support a tax cap, primarily because it subjects a limitation in the budgeting process for things that are out of our control,” he said.

A tax cap, Larochelle said, forces the city to reduce spending in areas that can be controlled in order to compensate for increases in areas beyond their control. This causes “unintended consequences,” such as a decrease in community services, he said.

“No one wants to spend more on taxes,” he said, “but you have to understand the consequences of under-funding or less funding for city government.”

Larochelle said he understands why people are looking to control the tax burden in hard economic times. But, he added, the city is absorbing costs from decreases in federal assistance to the state that trickle down the chain of government. He said city officials have no control over what the state and county spend. “We have no idea how to plan for that,” he said.

The $4 tax increase that fired up some Rochester residents did not pass, and Larochelle said the City Council then made considerable cuts to the already “frugal” budget. He said some of the funds would have gone toward road repairs and noted that the rough weather makes that expensive.

A public hearing on the petition was scheduled for Aug. 19, and another will likely be scheduled sometime in September. Larochelle said he has some reservations because Dover officials have found it difficult to interpret a tax cap.

Dover City Councilor David Scott, who led the tax cap initiative in his city, said he’s “delighted” that other cities are following suit. If both Somersworth and Rochester adopt a tax cap, he said, the three major cities of Strafford County will be able to put pressure on the county level to control taxes. But, he added, that has to happen by electing prudent state representatives.

A tax cap petition was also filed in Portsmouth, but City Attorney Bob Sullivan said it was rejected because of a technicality. The petitioners were seeking a charter amendment but filed it under revisions, which is not a section of law that allows such a petition. “We never heard from them again,” Sullivan said.