Property Taxes and Local Control - March 2026, The Evergreen

Property Taxes and Local Control

Government powers should be exercised by the lowest level of government possible,

since one has more influence over their town government than over county or state

government… and NO influence over the feds.

Local control can be great: each local government chooses different policies, their

citizens have control over those choices… Local governments narrowly focus on the needs of

their citizens, so they deliver tailored solutions, instead of a broad policy imposed from above.

BUT the power to make decisions locally MUST be balanced by the responsibility

of paying for those policies. Many complain about high property taxes, and incessantly

demand that the state pay for their local expenses.

Asking people who have no control over your local expenses to pay instead of

you is immoral, and fiscally irresponsible - there is not enough money on Earth to pay for the

budgets people will vote for if they don’t have to pay those tax bills themselves.

Whoever pays for the spending should decide what to spend. If you want local

control, pay for the expenses your town approved. If you want the state to pay instead, agree to

surrender your local control.

So what should you do about your property tax rates? Vote in your March elections.

Turnouts in March are typically abysmal - the vast majority of voters stay home, since

they cannot control local spending by voting on town and school budgets. Our poorly written

default budget law is often abused by boards and administrations to take choice away from

voters by setting the default budget (that gets approved if the regular budget fails) to be

around or even above the proposed budget. Which, by the way, is how voter

disenfranchisement really happens in New Hampshire.

But every voter should vote in the Board of Selectmen and School Board elections

- those are the elections that decide your property tax burden in the long term.

In the short term, a newly elected board inherits a budget prepared by the previous

board and long term administrator contracts, designed to prevent them from bringing in new

leadership (Durham has a 6 year contract for their Town Administrator - a new board couldn’t

even make a change before their own terms expired).

Union contracts are also negotiated for a number of years, including yearly raises that a

new board cannot touch until the contract expires. And if a new union contract is not approved,

the union will simply keep their expired contract in force indefinitely.

Property taxes took decades of excessive growth to get out of control, and relief cannot

happen immediately. By electing fiscally responsible School Board and Board of

Selectmen members and giving them long term support, you can slow down the rate of

growth in town and school budgets, and finally get back control over your property taxes.

Daniel Popovici-Muller

Windham State Representative,

Vice Chairman, House Finance II Committee

Member, House Education Funding Committee

(603) 267-4142 (call or text)

dpmwindham@gmail.com