O P I N I O N
THE SOAPBOX
Stand up. Speak up. It’s your turn.
The easiest vote last Tuesday night would have been to hide behind Manchester’s tax cap and pretend that the city’s financial challenges could somehow solve themselves.
Instead, 11 aldermen—including Republicans Norm Vincent and Kelly Thomas—chose leadership over political convenience.
Their vote to override the tax cap and approve Manchester’s fiscal year 2027 budget was not an easy decision. It was not a popular decision in some circles. But it was the responsible decision.
Faced with rising healthcare costs, police contract obligations, infrastructure needs, and growing demands on our schools, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen confronted a simple reality: governing requires balancing ideals with facts.
Mayor Jay Ruais himself acknowledged that a default budget would have required the city to draw heavily from healthcare reserves, potentially jeopardizing Manchester’s credit rating and creating greater financial problems in the future. The approved budget restores funding to city departments, keeps the West Side Library Branch open, addresses police recruitment and retention challenges, invests in road improvements, and provides additional support for Manchester’s public schools.
Critics have characterized the vote as a betrayal of taxpayers. I see it differently.
The true betrayal would have been knowingly adopting a budget that failed to meet the city’s obligations, weakened essential services, and shifted even larger costs onto taxpayers in the years ahead.
No one enjoys paying higher taxes. I certainly don’t. But responsible government requires honesty about the costs of maintaining a safe, educated, and functioning community.
The aldermen who supported this budget understood that reality. They chose fiscal responsibility over slogans, long-term stability over short-term politics, and the needs of Manchester residents over ideological purity.
That deserves recognition—not condemnation.
NH State Rep. David Preece represents Manchester in the New Hampshire House of Representatives and is a longtime urban and regional planner who previously served as executive director of the Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission.
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