How does government work on the local level in New Hampshire? That is a very simple question, but often most unknown.
Town of Henniker is a Traditional Board of Selectmen Open Town Meeting;
- This is the traditional, “pure democracy” form of town government, where you the voter, can acting town meetings, thus you are a member of the Legislative Body. All registered voters are members of the Legislative Body.
- Budgetary and other questions are put before the voters in the
form of warrant articles (prepared by the selectboard or governing body), the merits of which are DEBATED and then VOTED ON by the voters who attend the annual meeting.
Since New Hampshire is not a Home Rule State, The powers of the Legislative Body are regulated by laws passed in Concord and often challenged in court. Here are a few examples;
- Town meeting cannot usurp select board’s statutory authority to assess property for taxation, Winchester Taxpayers’ Ass’n v. Winchester, 118 N.H. 144 (1978), or to abate taxes, Hampstead v. Plaistow, 49 N.H. 84 (1869).
- Town meeting cannot prescribe subdivision regulations, which must be adopted by the planning board. Levasseur v. Board of Selectmen of Hudson, 116 N.H. 340 (1976).
- Town meeting cannot overturn decisions of a sewer commission. Cloutier v. Epping Water and Sewer Comm’n, 116 N.H. 276 (1976).
- Town meeting cannot restrict select board’s statutory authority to transfer unexpended funds within the adopted budget. McDonnell v. Derry, 116 N.H. 3 (1976).
The proposed budget must be posted with the warrant, and is considered part of the warrant, giving you notice that selectboard is suggesting an amount if money to be raise and appropriated. To “appropriate” money means to earmark a certain sum for a particular purpose, so that the governing board (selectmen or school board) is then authorized to spend that amount for that purpose over the course of the fiscal year.
Money can be appropriated either through a line item in the budget, or under a separate warrant article. The amount of any particular appropriation (line item) can be amended up or down, or an appropriation can be deleted entirely by the Legislative Body (THAT’S YOU).
However, it is not legally effective to add a new purpose (line item) to the budget. Why not? Because adding a new purpose violates the requirement that all business must be stated in the warrant. The voters can’t take any binding action on a subject matter which wasn’t stated in the warrant (or in this case in the budget).
So there we have it, we have finished our very short first lesson on how are government actually works…
WE THE VOTERS CONTROL THE BOTTOM LINE…DON’T FORGET THAT!!!
OHB, keeping it real…you can be the judge…