Budget committee hears Community Development’s FY27 request as hydroelectric operations face criticism

The Nashua Board of Aldermen’s Budget Review Committee on May 13 reviewed the Community Development Division’s proposed fiscal 2027 budget, with Director Matt Sullivan attributing the division’s roughly 9% increase to contractually obligated salary and benefit increases, a projected 10% rise in the local transit (NTS) contract and several staffing adjustments.

Sullivan, the city’s community development director, told the committee that nondiscretionary salary-and-benefits costs are the largest driver of the request and that the transit contract estimate emerged from a recent RFP process. “The largest constraints in this year’s budget is the impacts of salaries and benefits, which are contractually obligated or controlled by outside forces,” he said. Sullivan said the city’s local allocation represents less than one-fifth of NTS’s overall budget and that preliminary vendor responses supported a roughly 10% operational cost increase.

Why it matters: the division’s budget affects public-safety inspections, housing enforcement, planning and neighborhood-improvement projects and contributes to the city’s overall tax-rate picture. Committee members pressed staff on concrete dollar effects, noting that percentage changes can obscure absolute fiscal impact across departments.

Staff and line items Sullivan detailed several specific requests: preservation of a $30,000 “neighborhood improvements” line created from prior participatory budgeting; a stipend to add environmental-program oversight potentially filling a deputy role; and the conversion or restoration of several code-enforcement and building-safety hours. He said some urban-program positions are federally funded and have historically been presented outside the main budget book.

On building safety, Sullivan described an unusual staffing situation: one full-time building official on indeterminate medical leave and use of retired part-time support (Mark Collins) up to 20 hours per week to cover duties. Sullivan said the budget contemplates Collins continuing through FY27 as part-time support and that the city expects the full-time employee to return and the part-time arrangement to end.

Code enforcement manager Nelson Ortega told the committee his office is handling hundreds of inspections and hundreds of cases, and that case complexity has increased. Ortega said the department is considering restoring a long-standing part-time officer to full-time status to address backlog and more-complex cases.

Transport and revenues Sullivan said the FY27 request includes a 10% increase to the city’s local NTS allocation to cover anticipated higher operational contract costs. He added that recent fare increases are included in the revenue projections but unlikely to fully offset the expected contract increase; he warned that, absent an increase in local allocation, the general fund could face a service funding gap later in the year.

Hydroelectric operations under scrutiny Hydroelectric operations drew the sharpest public comment. Resident Fred Tebow presented an engineering-style memo disputing the financial case for the city’s plants and asserted the facilities are losing money. “Your hydroelectric operation is losing a lot of money… Terminate it,” Tebow said, summarizing his analysis that cited low turbine efficiencies and bond-service costs.

City waterways and sustainability manager Deb Chisholm responded with operational numbers and context: she said FY26 revenue to date was just over $1.1 million, that one turbine at Mine Falls has been down since November but is under repair, and that the department’s FY27 proposed revenue target has been increased to about $1.6 million. Chisholm also explained that a private contractor (Essex Hydro) performs operations and maintenance and that the city pays the contractor a percentage of revenue (15%), making both projected revenues and contractor costs relevant to net results.

Committee members and staff noted closing the dams would stop generation but would not instantly erase debt-service obligations or other fixed costs tied to the facilities and contracts. “We still have the bonds. We have to pay the debt service on the bonds anyway,” the chair observed during discussion.

Transparency and personnel concerns Public commenters raised personnel-policy and transparency issues, including a whistleblower matter and questions about an inspector who the commenter said was moonlighting. Laurie Ortolano pressed for clearer written policies governing inspectors’ outside work and for clearer salary-line detail. Sullivan and managers acknowledged opportunities to improve written policy documentation and said some operational policies remain embedded in codebooks or the city’s administrative rules rather than in a single personnel policy document.

Votes at a glance - R-26-028 (remove/table discussion): The committee removed R-26-028 from the table for consideration and later voted to table R-26-028 until the next budget meeting by roll call; the vote recorded five ayes and no recorded no votes (motion carried, R-26-028 tabled).

What’s next Staff said they would provide additional detail on staffing counts, salary distributions and program-specific clarifications (including urban-program funding flows) as the budget review process continues. The committee adjourned at 8:27 p.m.

Sources: Statements and materials presented to the Nashua Board of Aldermen Budget Review Committee at its May 13, 2026 meeting. All quoted attributions come from meeting participants as recorded in the official meeting transcript.