Mayor Ruais unveils budget proposal for FY 2026
Comes in 2.33% under Tax Cap, and Delivers essential services in cost-effective manner
Saves taxpayers nearly $1.5 million, rejects $1 million in spending requests
MANCHESTER, NH – Mayor Jay Ruais unveiled his budget for FY2026 on Thursday during an address to a special meeting of the Board of Mayor and Alderman. His proposed budget comes 2.33% under the Tax Cap that has been set at 4.27% for Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26).
Commenting on his spending plan overall, Ruais said, “I am proud to report that FY26 marks the second budget in a row where we have come further under the Tax Cap than any other previous Tax Cap budget. It meets the needs of our city, while also protecting taxpayers. Our singular focus is on the delivery of essential services in the most cost-effective manner. Budgets are about making choices, reaching compromise and finding balance. In doing so, we identified nearly $1.5 million in savings and rejected over $1 million in spending requests.”
Ruais described his fiscal plan for FY26 as reality-based, saying, “I concentrated on the things we could manage, and the things that were under our control.” He added, “The conversation at City hall is squarely focused on how few dollars we spend, without crossing that red line into cutting the essential services our citizens depend on every day.”
The mayor credited the city’s department heads for, “working tirelessly to provide the information needed to produce a plan that delivers for the city, and making the budget effort possible.”
Excerpts from the Mayor’s Address:
Protecting Taxpayer Dollars:
“This budget protects and provides for our taxpayers in the following ways: We do not spend a single city dollar on hiring new employees. Outside of statutory requirements, and contract increases, every department, accept Police, is level-funded. MPD received an additional $1.175 million. On the city side, we identified nearly $1.5 million in savings, and rejected over $1 million in spending requests that would have increased the tax rate.”
Limiting New Spending:
“The vast majority of new spending in this budget is from areas we have either reached consensus on as a city, or are required to by contract or law. There was a consensus on the Board of Mayor and Aldermen that we needed to bring our city employees to market rate, which, when adding in all total costs beyond salary, amounted to approximately $7 million. We are faced with increased healthcare payments for our city employees, which is estimated to cost $400,000. For perspective, that number was five times higher in last year’s budget. Additionally, we’re required by state law to cover increased costs for the Welfare Department which totaled an extra $300,000. Contracts held by our various departments increased by $79,000, and we’re allocating $1.175 million in additional dollars to the Manchester Police Department. That’s it. That’s all the new spending on the city side.”
Being Responsible Stewards of Taxpayer Dollars:
“As a city, we must live within our means. We must also continue to supply critical city services. We can accomplish both of these directives because they are not mutually exclusive. Expectations are high here. We must continue to deliver these services with consistency, pride and professionalism.”
“Another important piece to responsible budgeting is about getting creative in finding ways to provide services without balancing that on the back of taxpayers. Which is why we are:
Using the Opioid Abatement Fund to fund Hope for NH Recovery services. Utilizing this same fund to offset costs for Squad One, an essential, lifesaving unit, within the Manchester Fire Department. Tapping the Affordable House Trust Fund to expand transitional housing in the City of Manchester. Auctioning off 15 vacant city lots raising $1.13 million for the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. A second auction will be coming this spring. Using a new grant coordinator to find state and federal dollars the city may be missing out on.”
“We also realized savings in our utilities, and salt, eliminating funded vacancies, and gave DPW the ability to haul containers in house, instead of paying for an outside vendor.”
Focusing on Safety and Essential Services:
Ruais noted that of the 18 city departments, three make up roughly 80% of city spending: Police, Fire and DPW. “When putting the budget together, I have a few foundational components that I think we can all agree on: If someone calls the Police, they should have the resources to answer that call. If there is a fire emergency, the Fire Department should be able to respond swiftly and Manchester residents want their trash picked up, potholes filled and road paved.”
Police
“On top of the current 3% Cost of Living Adjustment, this budget allocates an additional $1.175 million to the Department to assist in their efforts to further reduce crime and take care of our officers.”
“The Manchester Police Department recently released their Annual Report which showed a 15% reduction in crime. They reported 4,753 arrests, 854 City Ordinance Violations, and 2,086 traffic summonses all while maintaining a citizen positive satisfaction score of 85% of those they had direct contact with. A tremendous testament to the leadership of Chief Marr, AC Loui and all the men and women of this extraordinary Department.
Fire
“For the first time in our City’s history, we were awarded the SAFER Grant, totaling $3.7 million to fund the hiring of 12 firefighters which will dramatically increase our ability to respond to calls. As our city continues to grow, we are committed to protecting our residents, visitors and businesses from any and all threats. This grant will only last for three years, and then we as a city will have to pay for these new firefighters. To address that, and set Manchester up for fiscal success, our budget begins building in the dollars we will need in year four by allocating $200,000 this year to responsibly plan for when these federal dollars go away. Safeguarding those who defend us is a priority, and for that reason we are also including $100,000 for lifesaving protection equipment for the Department.”
“In 2024, the Manchester Fire Department responded to 28,794 calls for service and 55,712 units were deployed. This equates to receiving a call every 18 minutes of every day for 365 days a year, a truly remarkable statistic speaking to their own heroism on our behalf.”
DPW
“This budget makes filing potholes and polishing up our parks a priority. Last year, the Department of Public Works completed 1,798 requests regarding potholes, almost 5 per day. This does not include the ones they fill on their own, without a request. Long story short, they’ve been busy. DPW also completed over 43 miles of roadway improvement including preservation, maintenance and rehabbing. That was with $5.3 million worth of funding. This year, pulling from four different areas in the budget, we will allocate over $7 million to our roads throughout the city.”
“Additionally, through our bonding budget, we are allocating $300,000 to retrofit our playgrounds, $300,000 toward paving our parks, $250,000 in deferred maintenance for our parks and $150,000 in lighting. I also want to highlight Alderman Barry’s leadership on behalf of the Wolfe Park Recreation Complex, and thank Aldermen Vincent and Thomas as well for their efforts. In this budget, between bonding and CDBG, we have included $500,000 to begin the work of making this dream a reality.”
Lighting up our Downtown
“One of my priorities is lighting up our Downtown. When you look at other downtowns, many of them are lit up like the 4th of July. They’re warm and inviting. A well-lit downtown says come enjoy a show, have dinner, take in a concert or baseball game…in the process, you create beautiful memories. In Manchester that means, The Palace Theatre, The Rex, SNHU Arena and Delta Dental Stadium along with great restaurants. To that end, we will invest $100,000 in lighting up our downtown from our Cash CIP.”
Paying City Workers at the Market Rate:
“This budget also accounts for the generational opportunity we have to bring our city employees to market competitive pay. This will go a long way toward filling our current vacancies across the city as well as retaining our workforce in today’s competitive world. There was a consensus on the Board of Mayor and Aldermen that we needed to bring our city employees to market rate, which, when adding in all total costs beyond salary, amounted to $7 million. This means, among other things, that our city will be run more efficiently, it will be safer and our potholes will be filled more quickly. We will also ultimately realize savings as our spending on overtime will decrease as we attract and retain our employees.”
Making Progress on Affordable Housing:
“[We] are the number one hottest housing market in the United States which is clearly a sign that people want to live here, and we’re making positive improvements, it also puts upward pressure on housing prices.”
“Focusing on bringing in more housing, and more specifically affordable housing is incredibly important. Which is why we are allocating $1.16 million in federal HOME funds to Neighborworks Southern New Hampshire in order to finish the Pearl Street Lot project. This will allow us to increase our supply of decent, safe and affordable housing units in the city. This is slated to bring 125 affordable units into the city in the near future.”
Helping Seniors, Children and our most Vulnerable
“The budget I’m presenting tonight is also dedicated to helping our seniors, children, and the most vulnerable among us. Money from the FY26 Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG) has been allocated to support a variety of critical programs: $42,600 to Meals & Wheels of Hillsborough County to provide meals and support to 200 homebound elderly individuals. $63,000 to Amoskeag Health and Helping Hands Outreach to provide health care to 300 uninsured individuals and licensed alcohol and drug counseling to 55 individuals.
$15,000 to CASA and $9,000 to the Child Advocacy Center of Hillsborough County for support services to 276 children that have suffered the effects of abuse and neglect. And, $9,000 to Big Brothers Big Sisters of New Hampshire.”
“These funds will go a long way toward giving a hand up to the most vulnerable in our community, while also lifting up our community partners. I will be the first one to say we have more work to do, but we should be deeply proud of the progress we continue to make in this city.”
Making Progress on Substance Misuse:
“One area that has kept our first responders busy over the last decade is the scourge of addiction, and overdoses. We are blessed to have Director Thomas, the ROAR Team and our entire Health Department who have been doing God’s work to tackle this challenging issue.
I recently celebrated 15 years of sobriety, and I am so proud of our city, community partners and our partnerships with the State of New Hampshire because we can report that overdoses in Manchester fell last year by 21%, and overdose fatalities fell by 24%.”
“While this is cause for celebration, we must double down on our effort to further address and reduce overdoses. It also means we have to keep our staff in place to continue the advances we are making across the city in public health. In our budget, we are transferring two Community Health Nurses and a Public Health Specialist off of ARPA funding, and onto our Health Services Reserve Account. These individuals play a vital role within our community and are essential components to our healthcare continuum.”
Making strides with Homelessness:
“Homelessness, as we know, has been a chronic issue in Manchester, which is why since being sworn in, we have undertaken 18 different initiatives to address it. I’d like to take one minute and read you into my thinking regarding a recent action taken by the Executive Council.
Yesterday, the Council voted to unanimously approve $500,000 in state funding for the Beech Street Engagement Center and Shelter. As I’ve previously discussed with this Board, these dollars will take the shelter through the end of the summer.”
“All of this brings me to today’s message: The state funding we’ve received is a vital bridge. Because the need remains urgent, I’ll be asking this Board on Tuesday to approve contracts that will allow us to allocate those dollars swiftly and responsibly. We can see an end to this emergency need, but we are not there yet.”
Budgeting for Education:
“The budget I am proposing for the Manchester School District is $236.4 million, this includes an extra $2 million. We are reducing the district’s budget request by $9.5 million, while still providing a record level of funding for the coming fiscal year.”
“Funding for public schools has been an important topic of conversation across the state.
When I was sworn in, MSD’s baseline number was approximately $227 million. Over the last two fiscal years, the School District has requested roughly $16.7 million more. Last year, through the budget process we appropriated $1 million. This year I am proposing we allocate an additional $2 million. That represents a reduction in their request of city dollars of $13.7 million. Last fall, the Manchester School District received $6.5 million in State Adequacy Aid. These additional dollars did not increase the tax rate.”
“In summary, if these numbers tonight are the final allocations from the BMA, the School District will have received $9.5 million more dollars than they had prior to this Board being seated, but have seen their requested amount reduced by $13.7 million. This is a balanced approach. $9.5 million more dollars received, $13.7 million less than requested.”
FY 2026 Budget Highlights
4.27% Allowable Tax Cap:
- Mayor’s Budget is 1.94%
- 2.33% under the allowable tax cap
Municipal Spending:
- Total City spending is $200,606,398
- Includes nearly $1.5million in savings
- Rejects $1.1million in spending requests
- Level funds city departments, except for an extra $1.175million to the Police Department
- Not one city dollar towards hiring any new employees
- Covers $400,000 in increased Healthcare costs
- Covers $300,00 in increased costs per law for Welfare Department
- Includes $79,000 in additional Contract costs from various departments
- Includes $7 million to bring city employee salaries to market competitive rates
School District:
- Budget increased by $2 million; Total appropriation is $236,499,925
- A record level of funding from the city for the new fiscal year
Capital Improvements: Roads, Sidewalks and Parks:
- $7 million in road infrastructure and improvements
- $750K in park renovations, upgrades and maintenance
- $500K to begin the Wolfe Park Recreation Complex
Affordable Housing:
- Allocates $1.16 million of federal funds to finish construction of 125 units of affordable housing on the Pearl Street parking lot.
CDBG/ESG/Home:
- Funding to Families in Transition and Waypoint to address homelessness for families and youths: $149,800
- Funding to Fun in the Sun summer camp for students in grades 1 to 7: $50,000
- Funding to Office of Youth Services Summer programming benefitting 75 youths: $10,000
- Funding to demolition projects to take down unhealthy structures: $100,000
Community Improvement Program (CIP):
- Funding to Meals on Wheels to help 200 homebound seniors: $42,600
- Funding to Amoskeag Health and Helping Hands Outreach: $63,000
- Funding to CSA $15,000 and the Child Advocacy Center $9,000
- Funding to Big Brothers and Sisters $9,000 and Girls, Inc. $10,000
- Funding to MEDO for increased downtown lighting: $100,000
First Responders:
- Funding for lifesaving protective gear for MFD: $100,000
- Allocates $200,000 to start salary fund for 12 firefighters hired with federal grant that will expire
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