Mayor, City Manager Talk State of the City [VIDEO]

Mayor and City Manager spent the morning of March 16 discussing the state of the city of Concord with business leaders from the .

The two spent an hour and change sharing lighthearted and serious moments, as well as anecdotes, data, and spreadsheets, showing those enjoying scrambled eggs how the city was crawling out from underneath the stress of the Great Recession.

“I’m happy to report this morning that the state of the city is strong and continues to have a solid foundation from which to build,” Bouley said. “It doesn’t mean we don’t have challenges ahead. But I believe we’re in a good place, moving forward.”

Bouley said that the council had agreed that balancing the budget and expanding Concord’s tax base would be the focus of 2012. The city, he said, had seen a number of new projects constructed in recent years, including the and other projects. When the upcoming Bindery project is completed, 477,000 square feet of new construction will have been built on South Main Street since 2007, Bouley noted. None of the projects, he said, would have been constructed without the help of the , a multimillion project some criticized for being too large. Bouley said building bigger had turned out to be the correct decision in the long run.

“We took a chance and took a risk and it’s paid off today,” he said.

Bouley said zoning changes had been made to reflect changes residents were looking for and city departments had created opportunities for efficiency during stressful budgetary times. Other employees, including the and departments, were seeing an increase in the volume of calls, even though staffing was not increasing. Fire officials were learning new skills while the police were cracking down on burglaries and solving crimes, like the , quickly. The , Bouley said, while not as busy as past years, due to the lack of snow, was working in other areas of improving street repairs, water conservation and recycling, including air quality changes coming to the wastewater treatment plant.

Aspell spent the bulk of his time going through some of the city’s finances including how the council and officials improved the city’s bond ratings and built reserves back up during the last four years. During the mid-2000s, the city saw a downward spiral in its fund equity balances that caused the ratings agencies to take a closer look at the city’s finances and downgrade the city, causing higher bond rates to occur when borrowing. But by 2009, Aspell said, the city started to build back reserves in order to improve credit ratings.

On municipal tax rates, with home values in decline, Aspell said the council made the decision to try and limit tax increases for the average home each year to no more than $40, from one year to the next. When compared to other cities, Concord was fourth lowest of all other cities in the state, above Laconia, Nashua and Rochester. A Concord home placed in Keene, for example, would pay about $800 more per year, he noted.

On a national scale, Aspell pointed to a chart featuring other “micropolitan” communities between 10,000 and 50,000 ranked by Policom Corporation. Of the 576 communities, Concord was ranked fourth in terms of economic strength, while offering competitive average incomes, stable home values, and accessible housing costs.

“We are ranked with the elite in terms of the country, of communities our size,” he said. “It’s amazing what we’ve been able to do … this isn’t the city of Concord, this is you.”

But at the same time, not everything is perfect.

Aspell noted that the city had made a number of cuts in staffing departments and there isn’t much left to cut. Revenue generation on investments is way down, as much as $1.8 million less than previous years. Car registrations, a line item the city has always historically relied on for budgeting, was also down. Permit revenue has gone up but still down compared to previous years. As well, a lot of the new construction that is taxable is down. New housing construction is also down from previous years. This past year, Aspell said, it was the lowest in 50 years.

At the same time, Aspell said, expenses have flat-lined. From 2007 to 2011, the general budget has remained relatively even. Expenses in other departments, like water and sewer, have also been reduced as compared to past years.

“The city council has made a real concerted effort to reduce expenses,” he said.

On the capital front, Aspell said the city was looking at a number of new projects, including reconstructing the Sewalls Falls Road Bridge, at bout $15 million. The city will cover 20 percent of that cost, with federal and state money covering the rest. The , Phase 5, will start next month. The city is also looking at studying the third phase of . , he noted, was paying for half of the cost of studying the viability of the project, for a 2015 or 2016 start date, “if the community wants us to move forward on that,” Aspell said. The cost would be about $9 million. Other projects include traffic signals will be installed at Main and Pleasant streets and the was looking at becoming a year-round facility, including winter recreational sports.