Bill would let towns reinvest community power revenues in local energy projects, proponents say

Senate Bill 590 would let municipalities create revolving funds to hold non-tax revenues generated by municipal electric aggregation programs and use them for local energy services and projects.

Prime sponsor Senator Donovan Fenton told the Science, Technology and Energy Committee that the measure is intended to give towns “a clearer, more flexible way to reinvest non-tax revenues from their electric aggregation programs back into local energy solutions that help lower costs for residents and businesses.” He emphasized the bill explicitly preserves existing statutory limits that bar the use of local taxes for community power programs.

Supporters from the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire and municipal officials described modest, opt-in rate adders that some towns have used to accrue discretionary reserve funds and said the revolving-fund mechanism is a familiar municipal vehicle that would let towns act faster on opportunities such as matching federal grants. Dena Dennis of the coalition said some communities have a few thousand dollars while larger towns have “tens or hundreds of thousands” accrued, and that moving those amounts into a town account can be administratively awkward without a clear statutory path.

Dr. Bruce Tucker, who chairs Peterborough’s community power committee, told the panel his town has about $192,000 accrued and explained why, in his view, a revolving fund is a better fit than an expendable trust account: a revolving fund accepts a steady stream of non-tax revenue without needing annual warrant articles to authorize spending.

Opponents raised concerns about transparency and the rights of ratepayers. One commentator told the committee the structure could feel like a “backdoor tax” because customers who pay into an aggregation program have no direct vote on how a town spends the money if it is managed outside the annual warrant-article budget process. Supporters responded that the bill does not change the prohibition on tax funding and that decisions about projects would remain local and subject to governing-body oversight.

What’s next: The committee heard testimony and questions; no formal vote was recorded during the public hearing. Proponents urged the panel to recommend the bill as an enabling, narrowly tailored change to existing municipal revolving-fund law; opponents asked for stronger transparency safeguards or that surplus revenues be returned to ratepayers.