Hanover Happenings Alex Torpey, Town Manager

In this episode I sit down with Ellen Bullion, Finance Director, to talk some budget!
We start off with a basic Budget 101 - revenue/appropriations, operating/capital, how the budget leads to the tax rate, and some differences between private and public sector budgeting.
We then move on to cover a very broad overview of the FY25 budget, and the "Top 12" highlights of things to keep an eye on in the FY25 budget that was approved by the Selectboard on April 1st, and endorsed by the Finance Committee.
What we cover in this episode will be largely mirrored in the Town Report as well.
Then we discuss the many backup documents that contain more information if you want more on any specific topic. We summarize some of the key ones below. The available backup documents can all be accessed at hanovernh.org/budget:

A full Excel Workbook of the budget. This is broken down by department, includes a summary tab, and tax rate calculation tab. You can see down to the account level across the organization.
All slides and videos from the budget presentations. These include department presentations and plans, budget highlights, social service applications, and more. It’s a lot of information – three meetings of more than three hours each.
All items not included in the budget. Over $600,000 of evaluated budget requests were not included in the budget due to affordability constraints. This memo outlines what items weren’t included, why, and what may be evaluated in future years.
Updated Undesignated Fund Balance tracking. These include a revised tracking sheet that looks at the ‘surplus’ funds in each of the Town’s funds.
A new draft template for tracking personnel levels. This draft of a new tracking template includes information such as FTEs, headcount, PTO utilization, and more, meant to give a sense of the staffing levels and pressure on the organization and trends over time.
Retention and Recruitment memo. This is a somewhat more detailed memo on the Retention and Recruitment issues and personnel costs.
The full report of the newly formed Capital Improvement Program Committee. This is the first year that Hanover has been in compliance for capital planning, and the multi-stakeholder group that reviewed the capital requests has an even bigger job in coming years to incorporate all of the cost items that haven’t been included before. This is the Town’s most transparent capital plan so far, and you can read the full report (it’s long) or the summary.
Memo summarizing the FY22 audit and related issues. The FY22 was recently completed, and identified a number of serious, but resolvable, issues in how the Town has been conducting accounting practices. Through collaboration with the Finance Committee and Selectboard, this resulted in a new accounting position added to the Town organizational chart to both help fix these issues and prevent issues from arising in the future.
A summary of the union contracts. These are the first multi-year contracts in some time, agreed to through a more collaborative approach, and in line with the updates policies and programs offered to all Town staff.
Links to the Town’s Master Plan. These documents are important planning documents, and one of the goals in the FY25 budget was to not only connect budget items to the Selectboard’s goals, but the Master Plan as well.

 
 

In this episode I discuss the importance of civic engagement and recap a project several dozen state and local officials worked recently to produce a produce a free, nonpartisan guide on how to boost participation at Town Meeting. It was covered on NHPR and you can download the guide at nhtownmeeting.com.
In the episode we cover the phrase “Authentic and effective public engagement” and why it’s important to have shared definitions of terms such as these. We go through some of the reasons behind the handbook, and then go through the five best practices we identified, as well as some quotes from local officials in NH and VT who have put these in practice in their communities. This all should help give some background to why these sorts of efforts are so important to the Selectboard and all of us in the Town government in Hanover.
Press release below:



State and local officials work together to increase Town Meeting participation in NH
Two weeks after New Hampshire's 104th first-in-the-nation primary, the focus now shifts to another hallmark of state leadership: Town Meeting. As more than two hundred New Hampshire communities gear up for this traditional event, they celebrate one of the world's purest forms of democracy, where residents directly participate in legislative decisions from budgets, zoning, and more. Through this process of governing, often joined by shared meals and community awards, Granite Staters sustain the small-town unity that historically has been such a big part of our state’s culture of involvement at the local level.
Despite its roots in the 1600s and a cornerstone of local engagement, Town Meeting still faces challenges similar to those affecting civic systems nationwide, with declining attendance worrying officials who champion its significance. In response, a nonpartisan coalition of state and local officials has compiled a handbook that aims to make some well- tested best practices more widely accessible.
“I came to New Hampshire with a requirement to work in a town with Town Meeting.” Hanover’s Town Manager Alex Torpey, who moved to the Upper Valley from New Jersey in 2022, explains the impetus for the project. “I’ve been fascinated with the process for years, and since coming here, have learned so much from the experience of others who have been leaders in their communities for years or decades. I also heard a lot of differing ideas from people about declining numbers, and what the rules and best practices are, which we wanted to organize and provide to anyone interested.”
The best practices were sourced from nearly two dozen Town Managers, Clerks, and Moderators in New Hampshire, as well as Vermont, through organizations such as the Municipal Management Association of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire City and Town Clerks Association, as well as independently. The handbook was reviewed by the New Hampshire Municipal Association, New Hampshire Secretary of State, and the New Hampshire Department of Rev

Hey folks, this is your Town Manager Alex Torpey here with a bit of a late update for December and Happy New Year, and January 2024. How it's 2024 already I have no idea, but we'll have to save that for a different podcast.
 
A lot has been happening in the last month, though much of that has been really on the staff side, both working on turning the data and feedback from our retention and recruitment study into proposals and then budgeting them out and working with our collective bargaining units and staff and selectboard to move forward, so with that and a few persistent vacancies in some key positions, we've all been a bit flat out and probably will continue to be like that until we get the budget adopted by the Selectboard in March.
 
Here's some of what we covered in our meetings in December and January:
 

We discussed some budget, finance, and audit updates, which I'll come back with an up to date summary as of January 23rd
We held the final public hearings and finished some cleanup on a bunch of easements that had been sort of floating around for years, using the RSA 41:14a process that was approved at Town Meeting last year
We discussed and the Selectboard, as well as Planning Board, reviewed and sent letters to the state legislature regarding the religious-use exemptions
We discussed some election requirements for the primary, appointed volunteers, and then had our election on January 23rd
We completed a bunch of other logistical business which you can find online if so interested, the 2024 calendar, minutes, donations, unanticipated revenues, banners, and the like
We did finally grant the tax exemption to the Friends of Hanover Crew, if anyone was following that, where they updated their bylaws to be in compliance with the advice our attorney gave us as what was needed to grant such the exemptions.
Proclamation for retiring employee
Plus my Town report, including

HR Numbers in/out
HR Retention and Recruitment

This is your Town Manager Alex Torpey with another spotlight episode.
In it, I sit down with Heather Drianan, Director, Dartmouth Government Relations, Jim Alberghini, Director Dartmouth Institutional Events & Logistics, and John Sherman, Hanover Parks and Rec Director to talk about....
This winter, check out free, public skating (BYOS(skates)) at the Dartmouth Green! Thanks to a new collaboration between the College and Hanover Parks and Rec, the rink will generally be open to the Dartmouth community and general public during daylight hours, weather permitting, starting early January. Learn more about it and the behind the scenes work to get it ready in this special spotlight episode.
If you have feedback about the project or suggestions for the future, you can email Dartmouth's Conferences and Events at conferencesandevents@dartmouth.edu, and if you would like to reserve the rink for an event, please reach out to Hanover Parks and Rec at parksandrec@hanovernh.org.
 

Hi all, this is your Town Manager Alex Torpey here with your November update. We covered a lot of ground in November, and in this episode I'll provide updates from:
11/6 and 11/27 Selectboard meetings:

Nonpublic on 11/7 to discuss staffing and compensation potential proposals
A number of important budget updates over both meetings:

Discussed and set ARPA allocations (and next meeting modification)
Results from SB priorities/goal setting workshop
24/25 tax rate guidance
Finalized FY 23/24 tax rate and tax bills due

Set several public hearings via 41:14a
Completed various donations and other business, including recommendations from the advisory board of assessors, (with one outstanding pending an update from the organization), amended bridge loan documents, accepted donations and others
Discussed natural burials ordinance proposal

My monthly Town Manager monthly report, with updates on:

Upcoming events
Human Resources and personnel
Budget/finance
Housing, redevelopment, and planning
Transportation and mobility
Downtown Hanover
College/Town
Other updates

Hanover PD CALEA Accreditation award
NHMA conference takeaways
Town Meeting engagement project


Resources and links:

11/6 and 11/27 agendas
ARPA allocation memo  (Page 15)
FY 24-25 budget timeline overview (Page 20)
Modeling memo (Page 21)
And modeling spreadsheet  (Page 25)
SB Aspirations document (Page 54)
23/24 Tax rate setting document (Page 6)
CALEA award letter (Page 58)
Monthly Report (Page 9)

In this special episode I sit down with Allie Levy of Still North Books and Bar talking about some of the great value in supporting local businesses this Saturday, November 25th for Small Business Saturday in Hanover.
Supporting local businesses has so many benefits - aside from keeping money in the community, shopping local helps create and support good and well paying jobs in the Upper Valley, reduces the environmental footprint of your shopping and so much more.
Parking is free throughout Hanover on Saturday. Park once, and get outside and walk around and support local!
Here is a selection of some of the businesses in Downtown Hanover offerring Small Business Saturday promos:

Main Street Kitchens
Von Bargen's
Red Kite
Still North
The Fourth Place
Indigo
Ivy Edit
Lemon Tree
And more

You can also purchase new gift cards through the Upper valley's Local Luv gift card program!