Granting raises to county employees will boost local economy

Published Date

To the editor,
The article about the county budget in Tuesday's Laconia Sun paired well with the letter by Curt McGee in the same issue. The "problems" seem to be the proposed increase of 8.9 percent in the 2013 county property tax and the authority of the County Commission over specific line items in the budget.
Reneging on the three percent merit raises for eligible county employees would not solve the unacceptable increase in the property tax. But granting the $95,000 in raises that we are talking about here would actually help those employees while boosting the local economy. The employees who received those raises would surely be spending that money here. As we know, the spending we all do in the community, buying goods and services, gets magnified in the local economy.
Using more of the fund balance, as Mr. McGee suggests, would have the desired effect of lowering the proposed county tax so that there would be little or no increase over last year's rate. The debate would properly center around how much of the fund balance to use to lessen the impact on the tax rate. Property tax problem solved? I think not.
So what is the real "problem" here? To me, an outsider, it appears that some members of the County Convention want to exert their political power over the County Commission at the expense of the deserving county employees, regardless of whether that would solve the property tax issue or not. It won't.
Anne Rogers
Meredith