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Upcoming Events
For more information or to register for an event, visit our online Calendar of Events at www.nhmunicipal.org. If you have any questions, please contact us at nhmaregistrations@nhmunicipal.org.
JANUARY
New Year’s Day (NHMA Offices Closed)
Monday, January 2
2023 Town & School Moderators Workshops – SB2 Town Meetings
9:00 am – 1:30 pm Saturday, January 7 $65 (in-person) and $55 (virtual)
2023 Legislative Preview Webinar
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Monday, January 9
2023 Regional Legislative Preview - Lebanon
6:30 pm Thursday, January 12 51 N Park Street, Lebanon
Martin Luther King Jr. Day (NHMA Offices Closed)
Monday, January 16
2023 Regional Legislative Preview - Dover
7:00 pm Wednesday, January 18 City Hall, 288 Central Ave., Dover
NHMA Board of Director’s Meeting
9:30 am – 12:00 pm Friday, January 20
FEBRUARY
2023 Regional Legislative Preview - Sugar Hill
6:00 pm Thursday, February 2 Town Hall, 1411 NH Route 117, Sugar Hill
2023 Town & School Moderators Workshops – Traditional Town Meetings
9:00 am – 1:30 pm Saturday, February 4 $65 (in-person) and $55 (virtual)
10 Steps to Successful Succession Planning Webinar
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Wednesday, February 8
Right-to-Know Law Hybrid Workshop for Law Enforcement
9:00 am - 12:00 pm Thursday, February 9
PLEASE NOTE NEW LOCATION:
Primex3 Offices, Bow Brook Place, 46 Donovan St., Concord, NH $65 (in-person) and $55 (virtual)
NHMA Board of Director’s Meeting
9:30 am – 12:00 pm Friday, February 17
President’s Day (NHMA Offices Closed)
Monday, February 20
Please visit NHMA’s website @ www.nhmunicipal.org frequently for the most up-to-date event and training information. Thank you.
Recovering from Procedural Errors at Town Meeting
By Jonathan Cowal, Municipal Services Counsel
One of those things that will keep a municipal official or administrator awake at night is the fear of a procedural mistake during the time leading up to, during or immediately after a town meeting. Such a mistake could undo months or even years of work in preparing an important local ordinance, zoning change, collective bargaining agreement or bonded capital project for the voters. If the mistake requires going back to the voters again, there is always a possibility that the result once obtained could be reversed.
With any large project, there are many different local officials who must work together to draft the initial request, and then perform a bewildering array of tasks in order to place the issue in final form before the voters. For example, assume the request is for a municipal bond issue to buy a piece of fire apparatus. This matter would involve the fire department, town administrative staff, the board of selectmen and the official budget committee, as well as the town clerk who prepares a ballot, the supervisors of the checklist who update the voting list, and the moderator who prepares for a written ballot. There will be professional advice from the equipment vendor, town counsel, bond counsel, Department of Revenue Administration, and perhaps the banking institution used by the town. If there has been a capital reserve fund used to save for a portion of the cost, the treasurer will be involved. The local newspaper will have to publish various notices at the right time, and in the correct format.
Not only is every project somewhat unique, but it also seems that every year brings some change in a federal or state statute, administrative rule, accounting standard or tax law that could impact the project. Do not assume that what worked for a similar project in the past will work in every instance. To help officials stay informed of changes, each year the New Hampshire Municipal Association publishes a municipal calendar to alert municipal officials to the dates for notice and posting that pertain in that particular year, and the Legislative Bulletin and Court Update to highlight changes in applicable law.
Even a team that is well prepared can be set back by an error or situation that is beyond their control. A notice properly delivered to a newspaper well in advance can still fail to make it to publication on the correct day. During the meeting, the citizens can take an action that can’t be legally implemented, or a local official may in good faith give an incorrect opinion on a legal issue or make a procedural mistake. How can these problems be corrected?
Fortunately, in some instances, time does by itself heal all things. RSA 31:126 through 131 creates a “presumption of procedural validity.” For all forms of municipal legislation, whether it be a police power ordinance, zoning ordinance, or warrant article vote at town meeting, once five years have passed from the time of enactment, the legislation is conclusively presumed to have been validly enacted. No challenge to the enactment based on a procedural defect can be asserted after that time, although the ordinance may still be challenged for other reasons, such as its constitutionality. This is important to know at the research stage, because it means that officials currently in office may rely on the validity of past enactments, which often provide a basis for current projects.
Five years can be a long time to wait and worry that a challenge might be made, especially if the enactment in question requires local officials to take some action in reliance upon the enactment. For example, if the enactment changes the method of choosing a local official, such as requiring the election of zoning board of adjustment members who
were previously appointed or changes the amount of a property tax exemption for the elderly, these are items that must be implemented within the next cycle of elections or collection of the property tax. In these cases, municipalities are supervised by state agencies that have statutory powers to oversee these local activities and direct local officials to take action. The secretary of state will direct local officials on questions relating to elections and ballots, and the Department of Revenue Administration will supervise the implementation of property tax exemptions. In issues such as these, local officials will not face the procedural dilemmas alone, and state officials may counsel local officials to proceed with their duties as set forth in the questionable enactment on the theory that a municipal enactment is presumed to be valid until it has been challenged.
Local and state officials are willing to proceed in these cases because the courts have not always required technical perfection in the enactment of municipal ordinances in instances where challenges to these enactments have been litigated. As Attorney Peter Loughlin explains in his treatise, Land Use Planning and Zoning, the New Hampshire Supreme Court has adopted the “substantial compliance doctrine,” which holds that minor deviations from the procedure required by an enabling statute will not invalidate an enactment if there was “substantial compliance” with that legislation. There are limits to this rule. If the defect serves to deprive the voters of meaningful notice of a proposed enactment or meaningful opportunity to be heard in debate, the enactment will be declared invalid. Each situation must be evaluated upon its own facts, but in general, if the defect is minor and technical, the enactment will probably survive. However, if the defect is such that the voters did not know they would be considering the issue due to lack of notice, or if required public hearings were never held, the ordinance will probably be invalidated.
The notion of “probably will survive” still means that there is substantial risk of challenge if a defect is found, so the state legislature has provided other pro-
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ERRORS from page 11
cedures to permit defects to be cured and enactments validated. Because municipalities in New Hampshire have only such powers as are granted to them by the legislature, the legislature has the power to correct or “legalize” certain types of defects arising out of a town meeting. There are limits to this power, both legal and practical.
The legal limits arise when a procedure has been so deficient that constitutional requirements of due process, including adequate notice and the opportunity to be heard, are not met. Thus, even the legislature cannot validate a zoning enactment that was not properly noticed to the voters. Calawa v. Litchfield, 112 N.H. 263 (1972). The practical limits arise from the legislative process itself. Even though the legislature meets in annual sessions, it has a great deal of other work to do, and these “special acts” filed to cure a local procedural defect may not be dealt with quickly in the legislative process. There is always the risk that either the House or the Senate will refuse to pass the bill, or the governor will refuse to sign the legislation.
In order to avoid requests for validation bills, the legislature has enabled municipalities to correct minor procedural defects themselves by calling a special town meeting to ratify their action pursuant to RSA 31:5-b. RSA 40:16 makes it clear that this procedure applies to SB2 municipalities as well. The authority is limited to correcting “minor procedural irregularities,” which specifically include failure to comply with statutory requirements regarding time or place of notice, vote, hearing or wording, or with any procedural act not contrary to the spirit or intent of the law. Presumably, this authority would be used most often in the first year after the enactment, since that is when the defects are usually detected, and the risk of challenge is greatest. Theoretically, it could be used in years two through four after enactment if that is when the problem is detected, but after the fifth anniversary of the enactment, a procedural challenge is barred by RSA 31:126 and the need to validate the enactment disappears.
If the enactment in question does not result in the appropriation of money, then it is clear that the selectmen can call a special town meeting for the purpose of ratifying the action using the procedure found in RSA 31:5-b. If an appropriation was involved, then the issue arises whether the meeting is a special meeting for the purpose of appropriating money, which would require the prior approval of the superior court under RSA 31:5. There is no reported decision on this point, although in the case of Bedford Chapter–Citizens for a Sound Economy v. SAU #25, Bedford School District, 151 N.H. 612 (2004), the New Hampshire Supreme Court made it clear that an article at a special school district meeting that had the effect of raising and appropriating money would be treated as a request for an appropriation, even if such words were not contained in the article.
The language of RSA 31:5-b suggests that the procedure can be used to validate a minor procedural defect, even on an article involving an appropriation. However, as there is no clear case law to serve as a guide, NHMA suggests that you proceed with caution in such a situation. If you have the type of defect that is expressly covered in the language of RSA 31:5-b, the argument that superior court approval is not required is quite strong. As you move to other types of defects, especially defects in notice to the voters, the argument becomes considerably weaker. We suggest that you review the situation with town counsel, and if a bond is involved, then with bond counsel as well. If there is a major problem with notice to the voters, or other constitutionally based requirement, a special town meeting called under RSA 31:5-b will not serve to overcome the defect. If the issue can wait until the next annual town meeting, the best solution may be to regard the matter as a lesson learned, and wait to place the matter before the voters at the next meeting using the correct and required procedure.
There are times when waiting is not an option. Examples include: a significant land use project may be proceeding in reliance upon a change in a zoning ordinance that could be invalidated; a capital project has commenced, and the defect is found after contracts are signed and work is underway; a piece of equipment has been ordered and received, and now payment must be made; or an article has passed, officials have acted in reliance upon it, and the Department of Revenue Administration has now invalidated the article.
As noted previously, the selectmen have the authority to call a special town meeting to deal with any issue that does not involve an appropriation at any time during the year up to 60 days prior to the date of the next annual meeting. If an appropriation is required, the matter becomes more complex. Pursuant to RSA 31:5, the burden is placed upon the selectmen to petition the superior court and document that an emergency exists of sufficient importance to warrant the call of a special town meeting. Part of that proof is evidence that the situation was not foreseeable or avoidable. Notice must be provided to the Department of Revenue Administration, and copies of the petition for a special town meeting must be posted locally and published in a newspaper.
If the petition to hold the meeting is granted, there remain many steps to successfully calling and holding the
special meeting. Peter Loughlin has provided a timetable and checklist of these items at Local Government Law, 13 New Hampshire Practice: Local Government Law, section 230. As he notes, it can take five to seven weeks to complete the steps and hold the meeting. The procedure involves the superior court, and virtually every elected official in the town, and involves a fair amount of work and expense to the town. It should be clear that local officials do not want to get to the point of petitioning for a special meeting in the absence of a true emergency or a truly unexpected circumstance. Therefore, we will close as we began, with a suggestion of careful research well in advance of presenting an issue to the voters, all in the hope that a good night’s sleep may be restored to the local official. Original article, written by Paul Sanderson, first appeared in the March 2006 issue of New Hampshire Town and City. This article has been revised and updated by Jonathan Cowal and Stephen Buckley with the New Hampshire Municipal Association. They may be contacted at 603.224.7447 or at legalinquiries@nhmunicipal.org.
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Is Your Community Talking about Housing?
By Sarah Wrightsman, Community Engagement Coordinator, NH Housing
Across the state, folks are talking about the impact of New Hampshire’s housing crisis. Renters are struggling to compete for the small number of available units, prospective homebuyers are being priced out of the market, young people are unable to put down roots, older residents are stuck in too-large homes, and employers are challenged to recruit and retain a qualified workforce. The effects of the housing market touch all of us.
A Very Low Inventory of Rental and For-sale Homes
According to New Hampshire Housing’s 2022 Residential Rental Cost Survey, the median gross rent in New Hampshire for 2-bedroom unit is $1,584 per month. That is a 25.8% increase over the past five years. With a vacancy rate of 0.3%, even if you can afford the median rent of a 2-bedroom unit, it will be a challenge to find one available. (A vacancy rate of 5% is considered a balanced market for tenants and landlords.)
Supply has not kept up with demand. New Hampshire faces a shortage of many thousands of homes needed to balance current supply with demand, and we’ll need many thousands more to accommodate future population growth.
On the for-sale side, prices continue to rise due to the lack of inventory and high demand. Looking at the market between January and September 2022, the median purchase prices for all homes was $400,000 and for new homes, it was about $615,000, according to data from The Warren Group, filtered and analyzed by New Hampshire Housing.
Seeking Solutions
New Hampshire communities are talking about what they can do to address the lack of housing available to Granite Staters. Many communities are examining their land use regulations. Overly restrictive zoning and other land use regulations adopted over the past 30 years have contributed to the housing shortage. At the local level, zoning can be a powerful tool to leverage land use to ensure housing is affordable and available for state’s workforce and others that contribute to vibrant, thriving communities.
Grants to Help Municipalities Expand Housing Opportunities
Housing Opportunity Planning (HOP) Grants are available to municipalities to hire consultants to work toward regulatory change. As part of Governor Sununu’s $100 million InvestNH initiative, $5 million was allocated to a grant program to analyze and update land use regulations to help increase housing development opportunities. The NH Department of Business and Economic Affairs contracted with New Hampshire Housing to administer this program.
Cities and towns can use these grants to study barriers to housing affordability in their zoning ordinances and other land use regulations, identify potential changes to regulations, and/or establish or update regulations in response to those findings.
HOP grant opportunities are available as follows:
Phase One: Needs Analysis and Plan-
ning Grants may be used to examine and understand housing, income, and demographic data, including housing market costs, housing units needed to meet future expected growth in a municipality and the region, and the affordability of a municipality’s housing for all income ranges. These needs analyses should be complementary to the regional planning commission’s regional housing needs assessment. Phase one grants may also be used to revise or create sections of the master plan that are related to housing.
Communities may apply for up to $25,000 for this phase. Applications will be accepted and awarded on a rolling basis until January 27, 2023 or when funds are exhausted, whichever occurs first. Awards will typically be made within 30 days of submission of a completed application.
Phase Two: Regulatory Audit Grants
may be used to audit the municipality’s land use regulations and make recommendations for changes to promote housing development. Regulations to be evaluated may include, but are not limited to, zoning, subdivision regulations, site plan regulations, any provisions adopted under RSA 674:21 that are related to or impact housing development, local building codes, and local tax incentives, including RSA 79-E.
The audits may be structured to do any of the following tasks (these tasks are intended to be illustrative, not exclusive): • Identify barriers to housing development that may exist in standards or processes; • Identify outdated regulatory schemes; • Specify changes to existing regulations; • Identify opportunities for new regulations; • Cross-reference different regulations to ensure that they are not in conflict.
Communities may apply for up to $50,000 for this phase. Applications will be accepted and awarded on a rolling basis until June 30, 2023 or when funds are exhausted, whichever occurs first. Awards will typically be made within 30 days of submissions of a completed application.
Phase Three: Regulatory
Development Grants may be used to create new regulations or revise existing regulations with the stated primary goal of increasing the supply of housing in the community.
Communities may apply for up to $100,000 for this phase. Applications will be accepted and awarded on a rolling basis until November 15, 2023 or when funds are exhausted, whichever occurs first. Awards will typically be made within 30 days of submissions of a completed application.
Municipalities may hire consultants using a competitive process or they may choose a consultant from a list of pre-qualified consultants, which will include their regional planning commission. This list can be found at www.NHHOPgrants.org.
Because each community is different and may be at different places in their housing conversations, municipalities may apply for whichever stage is best suited to their needs. Municipalities may also apply for more than phase at a time; for example, conducting the needs analysis and planning and regulatory audit phases simultaneously before moving on to regulatory development. Prior to applying, municipalities are invited to share their ideas with the Steering Committee by sending a concept paper or idea to info@NHHOPgrants.org.
Housing Academy
Community engagement is a critical component of this work, and participation in Housing Academy is a key benefit of this grant program. Developed by UNH Cooperative Extension, Housing Academy will provide education and community engagement training to all recipients of HOP grant funding. The program will support grantees as they develop their community engagement strategies.
In addition, grantees are encouraged to recruit up to three volunteers from the community to participant in Housing Academy, further broadening the municipality’s capacity to engage the community. Awardees are invited to provide community volunteers with a stipend for their participation.
Housing Academy will include webinars and online materials, in-person gatherings at New Hampshire Housing’s office in Bedford and placebased training in various communities around the state. Community engagement techniques and tools will be taught so participants can develop and implement an engagement plan in their city or town. There will be opportunities for communities to share best practices and challenges and to learn from each other.
More information about Housing Academy, including key dates for the program, can be found at NHHOPGrants.org/housing-academy.
How Do We Talk About Housing?
A key first step to solving the housing crisis is conversation. Many communities struggle with how to bring their community together to have a meaningful and engaging conversation about housing. To support communities as they work through these challenges, New Hampshire Housing produced How Do We Talk About Housing: A Guide to Community Engagement
HOUSING from page 15
and Grassroots Advocacy. This guide outlines a bottom-up, nine-step process accessible to anyone interested in facilitating a movement toward more inclusionary zoning practices in their community. The process begins with building relationships through conversation.
Recognizing housing commissions, committees, and task forces as a valuable vehicle for these community conversations, New Hampshire Housing has updated its Housing Commissions in New Hampshire: A Guide for Municipalities. It offers guidance to localities interested in harnessing the power of engaged citizen volunteers in conversations about housing. Both of these resources are available online at NHHousing.org/publications. Many more resources like these will be available through Housing Academy, which will equip communities with the tools needed to tackle the housing crisis at the local level.
Conclusion
Municipalities interested in applying for a HOP grant are encouraged to reach out to the steering committee to discuss their idea prior to submitting. Visit www.NHHOPgrants.org for more information and to apply. The steering committee can be reached at info@NHHOPgrants.org.
For municipalities that aren’t quite ready to apply for a HOP grant, New Hampshire Housing has mini grants
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available to support housing education and advocacy efforts of local government. These grants can be used for technical assistance to explore housing-friendly land use regulations and may also be used to research the feasibility of starting a local or regional housing advocacy initiative. Find out more about New Hampshire Housing’s other grant programs at NHHousing.org/grant-opportunities.
Communities that are engaged in discussions about housing at the local level are also encouraged to talk with their regional planning commission or regional housing coalition. Regional housing coalitions that serve various communities around the state include the Workforce Housing Coalition of the Greater Seacoast, the Mount Washington Valley Housing Coalition, and Vital Communities, which serves the Upper Valley. For information about groups working on housingrelated issues around the state, go to NHHousing.org/housing-partners.
The housing shortage is a complex issue with many different solutions that should be tailored to the community’s needs. With the help of HOP grants, community leaders can begin to work to address the housing shortage by engaging with their citizens to determine the best outcome in their city or town. Solving the housing crisis ensures that our children will raise their children here, our businesses will flourish, and our communities will remain vibrant with attractive housing and new neighbors that will help to carry on New Hampshire traditions.
Sarah Wrightsman is the Community Engagement Coordinator with New Hampshire Housing. She may be reach by phone at 603.310.9345 or via email at swrightsman@nhhfa.org.
Ten Steps to Successful Succession Planning
By Ray Gordon, WWTF Administrator for the Winnipesaukee River Basin Program
Exploring the Succession Planning Process
Planning for the future is never high on anyone’s list and oftentimes it’s why we get caught in a bind. It’s always easier to delay this discussion. But in our business, succession planning is essential to ensure the continued operation of our wastewater treatment facilities.
Succession planning is a strategy used to pass leadership roles down to another employee or group of employees. This strategy involves identifying potential successors for key critical roles and making sure they are prepared for the job ahead. The most common question is “How to get started?”, but the most important question is, “When to get started?”, and the best answer to that is “Now”. This article will tell you how to get the process started.
1– Make a Plan
Take a look at your organization chart. If you operate a small facility, it may be easy with just a few positions, but for larger facilities it may involve multiple functional units. Start by identifying and examining the key roles in your team and answering these three questions:
• What’s the day-to-day impact of each position? • What duties are mission critical? • If the person currently in a position is unavailable or leaves your plant, how would that affect your operations?
The goal of succession planning is to build a stronger, more stable organization. This would mean that your organization can ensure continuity of operations if important people move on to new opportunities, retire, or win the lottery!
2– Identify Back Up
Once you understand how the departure of certain employees might hamper your operations, you will need to identify team members who could potentially step into those positions. Ask yourself some more questions:
• If you hire from inside for a particular position, which employee would be the strongest candidate to fill this role? • Does this candidate have the proper certifications, such as the proper grade wastewater or collection system certifications? • Would the candidates need training? If so, what type?
If you are fortunate, you may find that you work in an organization that is structured in a way that the obvious successor may be the person who is subordinate to each of the positions under consideration. However, do not overlook other promising employees who may excel at the skills that would be required for a particular job. Look for staff who would thrive in another role, regardless of where they may be on the organization chart.
3– Talk to All Your Employees
It is important that you never assume you know each employee’s career goals as it will be really disappointing to find out at an inopportune moment that an employee you have planned for a move is simply “not interested”. It is best to start with a simple meeting with each employee about how they view their professional future before making any
of your succession choices. These interviews can help you see the goals of each individual and can further help you narrow in on potential staff members who would make a good backup for critical duties.
Once you identify your key staff members, meet with them again and explain why they are an ideal candidate for positions of increasing importance, how they can learn to perform critical duties and how this will help them continue their professional growth.
4– Don’t Promise Anything
Since most of us work in publicly owned facilities, we know that funding and budget priorities can change dramatically. You should start each employee discussion with an understanding that there are no guarantees and that situations can change due to many circumstances. Some of these changes are out of your control. Issues can arise with the candidate or other factors in the organization, like a new superintendent, sewer commissioner, DPW director, union contract changes, budget cuts or other external factors.
Staff need to know this development will help them in the long run even if they decide to work at your organization or elsewhere. Therefore, it is in their best interest to work with you and build their own personal development plan!
5– Professional Development
Plan
Next, talk to them about what steps they will need to take to prepare themselves. If you are fortunate, the candidate or your organization may have already begun educating and preparing candidates. If not, you (along with any section heads or immediate supervisors) will need to get working on a Professional Development Plan for each employee.
Professional development can take many forms! We could write a whole article about this topic. In brief, you need to identify the knowledge, skills and abilities needed for a given position and then set about creating opportunities for the employee to gain those skills. Opportunities can include classes, on-the-job training, job rotations, schooling and/or earning certifications. Another overlooked method is connecting them with a mentor who can boost their abilities in the critical areas, especially in the soft skills. Those in key leadership positions must have strong communication skills and polished interpersonal abilities, such as diplomacy and empathy.
After the Professional Development Plan has been in place for a while and the employee has gained some new skills, you need to look for an opportunity to test them on what they have learned.
6– Take a Vacation
This is the fun part! Do not wait until there’s a staffing crisis to test your employees. The best way to see if a candidate has the right stuff to assume a more advanced role is for someone to take a vacation. During this vacation, allow the potential successor to assume some responsibilities of the manager who’s taking the vacation. This will allow the employee to gain valuable experience. The employee will also appreciate the opportunity to grow and test their gained knowledge.
Another great way to test your employees is to set them up with a job rotation. Staff may enjoy the freshness and novelty of a new assignment. They will also develop new skills and be able to network with new people. Most employees who participate in a job rotation enjoy a reduction in monotony and this can improve job satisfaction. At the same time, managers will be able to see how employee skills are developing and who may be the best fit for future promotions.
7– Return and Re-examine
After the vacation you can meet in person with the returning manager and the employee to go over the experience. This may help identify how to update and improve the professional development plan. Don’t expect them to “get it” the first time. Letting them
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TEN STEPS from page 19
fail at tasks will better prepare them than your “saving” them every time. Failure can actually be a great learning tool. It’s important not to assign blame and to take note of suggestions the employee may have to avoid future failures. This builds rapport with employees as pitfalls are identified and solutions are crafted.
Steps five, six and seven can be repeated until the candidate is fully prepared to assume all potential future duties.
8– Fine Tune Your Hiring
Process
Once you have identified all your potential successors for key critical roles you will have to see where gaps in necessary talent will occur. Identifying your potential gaps can help you target which skills, knowledge and abilities you will need to acquire via hiring or to develop in existing staff members. To fill these identified gaps you may need to add duties to SJD’s, consider reorganizing how your units work, reclassify any positions that are lacking and even add additional positions that your plan needs.
9– Don’t Forget Yourself
Your number one job as a manager is to make sure you have properly trained your successor! Even if you are years away from retirement, things can happen, you might win Megabucks, be offered your dream job at a wastewater facility in Hawaii, or receive a promotion in your current organization.
10 – Stick with Your Plan
Transitions happen for all types of reasons and can ultimately have a positive impact on an organization. Back in Step Four, we cautioned our employees that there are no guarantees and that situations can change. Regardless, it is to the benefit of the organization to stick with your plan. Even with the “no promises speech” employees will have expectations. Organizations who fail to follow their plan can create bad feelings with staff members. For example, hiring manager from outside the organization could cause key people who were expecting a promotion to leave and may lower the morale of those who remain.
To avoid this, keep working on your plan, be honest, let staff know upfront that sometimes situations in an organization could result is seeking new perspectives. But as much as possible it is best to continue the teamwork and anticipate changes to your plan to avoid this situation. Constant communication can help manage the expectations of your employees.
With succession planning, you may not be able to avoid the risk of losing key staff members to a better opportunity. Employees recognize that you make their personal development a priority they will be more likely to stay. You also will be building a more robust team, improving morale, building essential skill and letting employees know they are valued.
You will find that changes in your team’s lineup are inevitable. You may not always be able to predict a valued employee’s departure, but through effective succession planning, you can make life simpler for those who carry on the mission of providing Clean Water.
Implementing these ten simple steps of succession planning in your organization will help you better plan for the future. Oddly enough, Covid-19 has brought the need to have emergency succession planning more sharply into focus than ever before, so don’t wait for the next disaster to prepare, start NOW.
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Ray Gordon is the WWTF Administrator for the Winnipesauke River Basin Program (WRBP). The WRBP is a state-owned and operated sewer system and wastewater facility serving ten communities in the lakes region of New Hampshire. Ray may be reached by phone at 603.934.9936 or via email at raymond.t.gordon@des.nh.gov.
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Legislative Update: We’re Off to the Races
By Natch Greyes, Governmental Affairs Counsel
November 9th started the busy season for us at NHMA. The second bill filing period opened, and we spent the holiday season talking to legislators about bills that they had filed and bills that they thought that they wanted to file. We know that our educational efforts made a difference in helping legislators understand the implications of different policy options, and we are grateful that so many legislators took to the time to speak with us.
Now, we hope, they are taking the time to speak with you – our members. And, we’re working to facilitate that effort. In January, we’ll be visiting different regions of the state, presenting to crowds of local officials and legislators about the bills that we think will matter this session, and hearing from our local officials and legislators what they care about this session. This is a new effort for us, and we hope that it will help build stronger ties between local officials and legislators and lead to greater coordination in solving problems both at the local level and in Concord.
The session is shaping up to be a good one. There’s only one bill that we really want to kill – relative to requiring towns and school districts use warrant articles for lobbying agents – which is going to clutter up warrants across the state. And, there are quite a few good bills that have been filed. To name a few:
• relative to payment by the state of a portion of retirement system contributions of political subdivision employers – restoring a portion of the state’s share of employer costs for police, teachers, and firefighters in
NHRS.
• relative to religious use of land and structures – protecting religious practice while also clarifying the law in a manner that removes ambiguity from its drafting.
• relative to public notice requirements for zoning board of adjustment hearings – allowing ZBA hearings to be noticed online instead of in a newspaper. • relative to town council-town manager form of local government – clarifying that towns that have adopted
RSA 49-D have the same powers and authority of municipalities that have adopted RSA 49-C.
Many of those good bills are NHMA policy bills – bills that you told us to fight for during our legislative policy setting process for the 2023-2024 legislative session. We’re eager to do whatever we can to get those across the finish line, and we are incredibly grateful to all of you who have already volunteered to come to Concord and testify.
To help all of us, we’re also rolling out use of a new software platform called FastDemocracy. It’s a bill table and a lot more. Anyone visiting our government affairs page on our website will be able to see what bills we’re tracking, our position on them, and what’s happening in Concord on everyone of our tracked bills. Even better? They can subscribe for email updates – daily or weekly (published Fridays) – to our entire tracked bill list or a subcategory or, even, an individual bill. The software updates every four-minutes, and our experiences is that we’re getting information faster than it is publicly available on the legislature’s website. If all goes well, there will be no need for anyone interested in municipally targeted legislation to visit any website other than NHMA’s.
We will be continuing publication of the bulletin this year, but it’ll be slimmed down to one-or-two articles, optimized to provide an in-depth look at biggest issues of the week. Smaller news will be pushed out on FastDemocracy, which gives us the ability to include a brief note about every bill that we follow. Visitors to our online bill table will see that information instantly while email subscribers will get that information when the legislature is scheduled to or does take action on a particular bill.
Our hope is that this new approach will enable our members to get information about what’s happening in Concord faster and enable them to take action sooner by providing you with a more comprehensive view of what’s happening
than we’ve ever been able to provide previously. Even though these big changes are occurring, we’re also still relying on the tried-and-true methods that we’ve used since the inception of NHMA in 1941. There’s no digital substitute for an in-person conversation, and that’s why we’re still going to be calling for you to come to Concord and testify and why we’re working hard to facilitate better connections between you and your legislators.
We recognize that this session is going to be a bit of an experiment, and not just for us. The House has never been so closely tied, and we’re expecting to see some surprises over the course of the session. We know that means that we’re going to have to put a lot more effort into grassroots organizing over the next two years than we’ve ever had to previously because each and every one of those 400 representatives has a greater ability to sway legislation than ever before.
In advance of this session, I want to thank you all for the hard work that you are about to put into ensuring that municipalities see good outcomes at the legislature. We at the government affairs team look forward to seeing many of you in person soon and talking to a great many more of you on the phone.
Natch Greyes is the Government Affairs Counsel with the New Hampshire Municipal Association. He may be contacted at 603.224.7447 or at governmentaffairs@nhmunicipal.org.
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Arcomm Communications Corporation Avitar Associates of New England, Inc. New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs Auctions International Inc. New Hampshire Department of Corrections, CorBar Harbor Bank & Trust rectional Industries Benchmark Office Systems New Hampshire Department of Environmental Bonnette, Page & Stone Corp. Services BMSI NHDES Wastewater Engineering Bureau CAI Technologies New Hampshire Electric Cooperative CheckmateHCM New Hampshire Housing CMA Engineers New Hampshire Municipal Bond Bank Community Development Finance Authority New Hampshire Retirement System Community Heart & Soul NHSaves
Environment Partners Group, LLC Pennichuck Water Services Corporation Ferguson Waterworks Plodzik & Sanderson, P. A. FirstLight Rhombus Fuss and O'Neill, Inc. Roadsweep America Gale Associates, Inc. Roberts & Greene, PLLC Google Cloud R.W. Gillespie & Associates, Inc. GovDeals SFC Engineering Partnership Granite State College Squared Landscape Equipment, LLC Green International Affiliates The Forward Foundation Harriman The H.L. Turner Group, Inc. Horizons Engineering Tighe & Bond, Inc. Hoyle, Tanner & Associates TownCloud, Inc. Horsley Witten Group Underwood Engineers, Inc. Ideal Concrete Block Co. UNH Technology Transfer Center Interware Development UniBank Fiscal Advisory Services Lavallee Brensinger Architects VC3 Liberty Mutual Vision Government Solutions, Inc. Lifesavers Inc. Waypoint Technology Group MHEC Weston & Sampson Engineers, Inc. Mission Broadband Whitney Consulting Group Mitchell Municipal Group, P.A. Wright-Pierce WSP USA, Inc.
Arcomm Communications Corporation Avitar Associates of New England, Inc. New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs Auctions International Inc. New Hampshire Department of Corrections, CorBar Harbor Bank & Trust rectional Industries Benchmark Office Systems New Hampshire Department of Environmental Bonnette, Page & Stone Corp. Services BMSI NHDES Wastewater Engineering Bureau CAI Technologies New Hampshire Electric Cooperative CheckmateHCM New Hampshire Housing CMA Engineers New Hampshire Municipal Bond Bank Community Development Finance Authority New Hampshire Retirement System Community Heart & Soul NHSaves
Environment Partners Group, LLC Pennichuck Water Services Corporation Ferguson Waterworks Plodzik & Sanderson, P. A. FirstLight Rhombus Fuss and O'Neill, Inc. Roadsweep America Gale Associates, Inc. Roberts & Greene, PLLC Google Cloud R.W. Gillespie & Associates, Inc. GovDeals SFC Engineering Partnership Granite State College Squared Landscape Equipment, LLC Green International Affiliates The Forward Foundation Harriman The H.L. Turner Group, Inc. Horizons Engineering Tighe & Bond, Inc. Hoyle, Tanner & Associates TownCloud, Inc. Horsley Witten Group Underwood Engineers, Inc. Ideal Concrete Block Co. UNH Technology Transfer Center Interware Development UniBank Fiscal Advisory Services Lavallee Brensinger Architects VC3 Liberty Mutual Vision Government Solutions, Inc. Lifesavers Inc. Waypoint Technology Group MHEC Weston & Sampson Engineers, Inc. Mission Broadband Whitney Consulting Group Mitchell Municipal Group, P.A. Wright-Pierce WSP USA, Inc.
Arcomm Communications Corporation Avitar Associates of New England, Inc. New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs Auctions International Inc. New Hampshire Department of Corrections, CorBar Harbor Bank & Trust rectional Industries Benchmark Office Systems New Hampshire Department of Environmental Bonnette, Page & Stone Corp. Services BMSI NHDES Wastewater Engineering Bureau CAI Technologies New Hampshire Electric Cooperative CheckmateHCM New Hampshire Housing CMA Engineers New Hampshire Municipal Bond Bank Community Development Finance Authority New Hampshire Retirement System Community Heart & Soul NHSaves
Environment Partners Group, LLC Pennichuck Water Services Corporation Ferguson Waterworks Plodzik & Sanderson, P. A. FirstLight Rhombus Fuss and O'Neill, Inc. Roadsweep America Gale Associates, Inc. Roberts & Greene, PLLC Google Cloud R.W. Gillespie & Associates, Inc. GovDeals SFC Engineering Partnership Granite State College Squared Landscape Equipment, LLC Green International Affiliates The Forward Foundation Harriman The H.L. Turner Group, Inc. Horizons Engineering Tighe & Bond, Inc. Hoyle, Tanner & Associates TownCloud, Inc. Horsley Witten Group Underwood Engineers, Inc. Ideal Concrete Block Co. UNH Technology Transfer Center Interware Development UniBank Fiscal Advisory Services Lavallee Brensinger Architects VC3 Liberty Mutual Vision Government Solutions, Inc. Lifesavers Inc. Waypoint Technology Group MHEC Weston & Sampson Engineers, Inc. Mission Broadband Whitney Consulting Group Mitchell Municipal Group, P.A. Wright-Pierce WSP USA, Inc.
