CONCORD, N.H.-State lawmakers retained a bill recently that would increase the college’s current $170,000 payment to the town an extra $293, 375, variable by the number of students living on campus each academic year. House Bill (HB) 610, drafted by Plymouth’s State Representatives Deb Naro and Mary Cooney, points out the differences between what town residents and college students pay for town services such as police, fire, ambulance and dispatch, and calls for an equilibrium between citizens who pay for these services and those who use them.
HB610 was retained by the House Finance Committee on March 3 for further investigation. This does not mean the bill was knocked down, which was the intent of several opponents and committee members, but will remain alive until January of 2004 while a Senate committee learns what economic effects a college has on a town. Naro will be serving on this committee if passed by the House Legislature.
Naro drafted the bill to “establish some equitable cost sharing.” Her belief, along with other HB10 sponsors, is that the college has grown at a faster rate than the town, putting some stress on town services. “There’s a large impact on municipal services as far as public safety goes in the town by the presence of the college.”
Naro talks specifically of police, fire, ambulance and dispatch services rendered by the college while paying only a fraction of the cost. According HB610’s fiscal note, the cost for these services is $1,392,148, but the college only pays $170,000 while taxpayers cover the rest.
The bill fails to mention, however, that the college employs it’s own police force and guarantees payment for ambulance usage when an on-campus student requires medical attention. According to Vice President of Student Affairs Dick Hage’s testimony opposing the bill, “payments and other indirect services to the town totaled approximately $500,000. In addition, the college maintains its own police department at a total cost of $675,000. The college police department is a full-service, highly trained, armed police department that fully meets the needs of the campus and provides direct, frequently first responder, and routing backup police services for the Town of Plymouth.”
Because most of the college’s current payment is directed toward dispatch and ambulance services, the bill aims the financial increase more at police and fire, according to Naro. Her reports show that most of the incidents and arrests made by Plymouth Police Department are individuals between the ages of 18 and 24, and occur in off-campus neighborhoods on weekends. And a report from the fire department shows that 30% of calls are in response to the PSC campus, with many more in off-campus neighborhoods. Naro admits that the college recognizes its effect on the fire department and makes a payment to the town, but she says that payment is “not proportional to the population.”
Tax-exempt citizens on the college’s tax-exempt land are absorbing all of the responses to on-campus students by police and fire. Hage pointed out that the college only represents a small portion of the tax-exempt property in Plymouth, and the bill does not address use by other facilities such as public schools, town, state and federal owned property, or religious establishments. “[HB610] unfairly fails to address the numerous non-college tax-exempt properties in the Town of PlymouthÃIt is targeted at college students. That’s really what it’s targeted at,” Hage said.
Naro recognizes that there are other tax-exempt lands in Plymouth, but says that this bill isn’t just about land; it’s about people. “A church is tax-exempt, but they don’t have a resident population. A third of [Plymouth’s] population is tax-exempt-the on-campus students.”
Still, those who oppose the bill speculate that it is directly aimed the college, citing the use of public safety services by other tax-exempt properties and visitors to the town, including churches and the regional school system. Many are seeing this as a tax for the college to pay the town and wondering whom else they will try to tax.
“What we’re proposing is not a tax, it’s a fee,” Naro continues, “a fee for actual services rendered. Just as students pay for services through mandatory fees, that you may never use, that the college provides. The same holds true for life and safety. I don’t think there should be anything at a higher priority than our safety.”
Opposition and support of the bill are coming full force from both the college and town, respectively, as arguments continue on the necessity of this bill. Town members claim that the college has outgrown the town and, according to Naro’s testimony in Concord, “the town has suffered financially at the hands of Plymouth States’ great success. As its undergraduate student body has grown, so has the need for services the town must provide.” Hage responded by saying that even though the town hasn’t grown as fast at the college, it has grown and the complaints are unwarranted. In addition, he showed a study entitled “The Economic Impact of Plymouth State College On The Local Economy of Plymouth, New Hampshire” from May 2000, displaying how the college brings in over thirty million dollars to local businesses and through housing and employment.
Regardless of how much money the college brings in, Naro still wants to see equal payments for the services. “I strongly believe that House Bill 610 is a responsible solution to a long-standing economic problem which the Town of Plymouth did not create and cannot resolve on its ownÃIt’s not just an individual responsibility, it’s a collective responsibility.”
Members of the college administration and leaders of the University System of New Hampshire are all against the bill, calling it, in Hage’s words, “an unfair and unwieldy precedent.”