City Council

City Council Work Session June 2, 2025 Present were: Mayor Cone, Councilors Higbee, Theberge, Korzen, Berthiaume, Qualls, Valerino and Morency. Councilor Grenier was absent. Others present: City Manager Phillip L. Warren Jr., Dir. Of Strat. Initiatives and Asst. City Mgr. Pamela Laflamme, Finance Director Holly Larsen, City Clerk Shelli Fortin, Chief of Police Jeff Lemoine, SAU3 District Educational Services Administrator Tammy Fauteux, SAU3 Business Administrator Evan Arsenault, Lisa Connell, Berlin Daily Sun and Members of the Public. Mayor Cone opened the meeting at 6:31p.m. Property Tax Warrant – June 2025 Mr. Warren presented the property tax warrant for period 1 of 2025. He recommends Council approve the tax warrant as presented. Councilor Berthiaume moved to accept the property tax warrant as presented. Councilor Valerino seconded and the motion carried with all in favor. Abatement Recommendation Mr. Warren discussed the abatement recommendation from Sansoucy Associates in regards to CRP NH Smith, LLC. They recommend denying the abatement application for the 2024 tax year due to lack of supporting information provided in the application in regard to the sale of the subject and the estimate of market value provided. Councilor Higbee moved to deny the abatement as recommended by Sansoucy Associates. Councilor Theberge seconded and the motion carried with all in favor. FY2026 Budget Mr. Warren informed Council that the budget as presented results in an increase of $0.57 to the tax rate. For discussion purposes, if you were to keep the tax rate leveled, it would mean cutting approximately $440,000 from the existing budget. If we split this amount with the schools and have to cut $220,000 on the City side, this means cutting a minimum of four positions. The only departments he could see cutting positions from would be the Public Work Department and the Police Department as the other departments are already at minimum staffing. Cutting from both these departments will result in a significant reduction in services and our unemployment insurance would also go up as laid off people would be entitled to unemployment compensation which is pretty much dollar for dollar. Councilor Morency asked where does the $0.57 tax rate increase leave us on road repairs. Mr. Warren responded it leaves us with approximately $150,000 in road repairs. Councilor Korzen asked if there are currently open positions throughout the City departments. Mr. Warren advised the Fire Dept. has four open positions that need to be filled after July 1st as they are currently running short. Councilor Valerino commented he is not in favor of cutting positions. Mayor Cone commented he is not in favor of cutting positions or increasing class sizes as explained by the City Manager, we are already operating at minimum staffing. Mr. Warren discussed outsourcing waste management services and how it would not be cost effective for the City to do so. Councilor Berthiaume questioned why would we pay unemployment dollar for dollar if we already pay unemployment compensation in the budget. Mr. Warren explained this is how Primex rates us. They look at what you spent over a three-year period and rate you accordingly. Councilor Morency commented we’ve already cut as much as we can out of the budget to keep current services and doesn’t feel like cutting positions will help. Mr. Warren commented one of his concerns with cutting positions in education, public works and public safety is we have a very hard time recruiting for these positions. Councilor Theberge commented this budget is fragile and wouldn’t want to cut any further, however he’s been approached by many individuals in regards to paving. People are upset about the condition of our roads. He questioned how it would affect the tax rate if we were to add money back in for paving. Mr. Warren advised that $0.57 is approximately $440,000 so if you put back the $200,000 already cut, you add another $0.60 to the tax rate. Mayor Cone commented this is the year we kind of hit the brakes for a little bit. We have no CIP’s, we’ve reduced the pavement management, everything has been reduced as much as possible and the next step is reducing personnel which he doesn’t feel is a viable option. Councilor Korzen commented we were at $0.57 tax rate increase a while ago when we first did this, then we saved on health insurance and oil rates. How do we get back to $0.57? Mr. Warren commented we were at a $0.87 tax rate increase originally and he had told Council he would get it to $0.57. Councilor Korzen stated he doesn’t have a problem with layoffs and the reason he says that is because he worked for the government for many years and he knows when you start discussing layoffs, they find the money. He keeps hearing that we tried so hard and did all this work, he doesn’t know that we really have. He thinks there are places to find the money and feels that mentioning layoffs is a tactic. He asked if the Police contract was in yet and if this will affect the budget. Mr. Warren responded there is no Police contract yet and it will not affect the budget if it gets voted as is. Councilor Higbee commented he is not delighted with the $0.57 tax increase but can live with it. He is not in favor of cutting positions. Councilor Morency asked if the bond ends next year. Mr. Warren responded yes it ends next year and approximately $400,000 is being retired from that bond. He advised that our non-tax revenues are painfully flat. There is no growth seen in vehicle registrations. Growth will be seen from PILT agreements with North Country Growers at approximately $50,000 and Burgess Bio Power. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of non-tax revenue growth areas on the horizon for us. Our growth at this point is updating residential value. Councilor Berthiaume questioned if we have lots we could sell and market as buildable lots. It can’t always fall on the property owners trying to better their homes. Mr. Warren explained we do have lots that we plan on putting out in the Fall, but the amount we get back from that is negligible and the services increase. We are in a strange real estate market where residential value is increasing so quickly and the commercial/industrial value is dropping. Councilor Qualls asked if solar power was looked into. Mr. Warren explained that the problem with solar right now is you can’t get the power out because of the Coos loop which is at capacity right now. Eversource is working on it, but it’s currently not available at this time. Councilor Korzen commented he doesn’t want to have to layoff anybody. He’s been through these three times in his 25-year career and dodged two of them and took a furlough on one of them to get through it. He just wanted to make this clear. He does believe more things can be done. He mentioned class sizes of 17, what would the effect be to increase this to 20-22 as he believes 22 is the State average. He also discussed the distressed community proposed legislation which could benefit us and give us more resources for the community. He commented he personally can handle the tax rate increase, but knows a lot of people can’t. He will try and push back against an increase as much as possible. Councilor Morency commented the staffing we currently have is based on formulas. He wants tax payers to know we are not just making up positions, what we are paying for is what, by formula, we should have for resources. Councilor Theberge questioned where we are at with attracting businesses which goes hand in hand with affordable housing. Ms. Laflamme commented it is hard to attract businesses when you don’t have a lot of housing or housing is overpriced. This has been a topic of conversation of the Economic Development Board for the last several months. They have been doing small things at this point, started some small- scale marketing to attract smaller businesses. There’s a consultant coming later this summer to work specifically with the Board, the Main Street Program, the Chamber of Commerce on a project in our downtown looking at small scale manufacturing. We are also working with AHEAD on trying to figure out how we can develop some rental housing in downtown. The Hospital, the Schools, the Federal and State Prisons have all said what they would like to see is more single family three-bedroom homes. This is hard to fund as grants don’t pay for those kinds of developments. BIDPA as been very active in the last year about trying to figure out how to do this in a way that is sustainable and affordable. Councilor Korzen asked where are we with the unexpended funds. Mr. Warren responded at this time he is not in a position to answer. He will know once the year is closed. He is cautiously comfortable with the estimated $850,000. He commented an amendment will be needed to the resolution adopting the budget and he recommends doing the amendment at the next Council meeting. Other Councilor Korzen asked what the status of the tennis backboard was and if it was going to be replaced. Mr. Warren responded that at some point it will when he has staff to do it. At this time, they are focusing on the pickleball court. Councilor Korzen questioned if this is something the community could do. Mr. Warren responded if somebody wants to step forward and build it, that would be wonderful. Councilor Berthiaume asked about the score board. Mr. Warren commented that was his next project. It is his understanding that it works, but not 100%. He will look at it himself. He advised he wants to update the wooden Horne Field signs to metal signs as they are in bad shape. Councilor Valerino asked Mr. Warren to hold off a few weeks as he might have other options. At 7:17 p.m., there being no further business in Work Session, Mayor Cone recessed before moving on to the Regular Meeting. Respectfully Submitted, Danielle Rioux Executive Assistant *Minutes are unofficial until they have been accepted by the City Council by motion.