Op-Ed: Avard Always Comes Through For Nashua And District 11

Press release from the NH State Senate:

July 9, 2021

Sen. Kevin Avard is always fighting for New Hampshire taxpayers, whether it’s state taxes or their local property tax bill.

Because of the tax reforms championed by Sen. Avard and his fellow Republicans over the last several years, New Hampshire’s economy is among the strongest in the country. In fact, our state’s unemployment rate is now lower than when the COVID-19 pandemic began. The recently approved budget cuts taxes on New Hampshire employers, reducing the Business Profits Tax and Business Enterprise Tax, and increasing the threshold for filing the BET to $250,000. That will provide immediate relief to New Hampshire’s small businesses and help create more high paying jobs for our friends and neighbors.

This budget also phases out the Interest and Dividends Tax on savings and retirement income, helping our seniors. We protect Main Street businesses who received loan forgiveness under the Paycheck Protection Program from an unexpected tax bill and lower the Meals and Rooms Tax for the first time in decades to give a boost to our travel and tourism industry.

We promised to address education funding, and we delivered. The COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges for our schools. Because enrollments were down last fall, our school funding formulas would have provided less funding for districts next year. We promised that this would not happen, and we delivered. We have fixed the funding formulas and protected $67 million in state aid going to our local schools.

This budget also provides $30 million in building aid for new school construction projects, and $35 million under the Relief Funding Plan targeted to school districts with the most pressing fiscal need. Overall, this budget increases education funding by $102 million over current law for a total of $2.2 billion.

This budget expands school choice, creating Education Savings Accounts for low-income New Hampshire families who need more choices for their children’s education. School choice helps students who need options to fulfill their educational opportunities.

This budget provides relief to property taxpayers at every level. We send back $100 million under the Statewide Property Tax. We also share $188 million in Meals and Rooms Tax revenue with cities and towns, an increase of $50.5 million over the last budget, and for the first time protect that revenue sharing with a dedicated fund. We also increase funding for county nursing homes by $29.1 million, providing relief on the county portion of your property tax bill.

Faced with rising property tax rates, Nashua voters long ago approved a cap on city spending. But big spending politicians keep finding ways around local tax and spending caps. This year, Kevin introduced a bill to strengthen enforcement of municipal tax and spending caps. Gov. Sununu recently signed this bill into law, providing new protection for Nashua taxpayers.

Kevin has been fighting to expand net metering for years, giving cities and towns the chance to save money by generating their own electricity, and selling surplus power back to the grid. This year, Kevin led the charge to expand municipal net metering, lowering property taxes, while protecting residential ratepayers and creating more clean, green energy.

It was important to Kevin to strengthen our state’s anti-discrimination laws, ensuring that no one is considered inferior, superior, or oppressive because of their inherent characteristics. Using the framework of our existing anti-discrimination laws, we have given parents and public employees a legal recourse should they face such discriminatory concepts in their schools or public workplaces.

The people of Nashua and the towns of District 12 should be proud that Sen. Kevin Avard is working for them in the New Hampshire Senate.

Sen. Chuck Morse (R-Salem) is Senate President. Sen. Jeb Bradley (R-Wolfeboro) is Senate Majority Leader.

This press release was produced by the NH State Senate. The views expressed here are the author's own.