The information contained in this article is not intended as legal advice and may no longer be accurate due to changes in the law. Consult NHMA's legal services or your municipal attorney.
When this issue of Town & City hits the proverbial stands, the legislative session will be over, and (we hope) the new two-year state budget will have been signed into law.
Nearing the end of legislative session always causes me to pause and reflect, this year more than ever. If I had to sum it up, I would say that chaos and confusion teamed up to dominate the first half of 2025 for cities and towns. Changes at the federal level have been fast, frequent, and often unclear, making it difficult for municipalities to react or plan, or even for NHMA to provide timely and accurate information. At the state level, more than 30% of the nearly 1,000 bills filed this session involved some sort of municipal impact—and that number does not include the 200+ page state budget which is full of municipal implications and impacts. Aside from the technical issues and confusing language in many of these bills, attacks on local decision-making have been at the forefront of the session— most notably the zoning mandate movement, touted as a solution to the complex problem of the nationwide housing shortage (in simpler terms, a seller’s market)— while cuts in state aid and downshifting of costs that increase property taxes are met with assertions that municipalities just need to spend less. But when you pull back the curtain, you see a concerted effort to downshift costs and problems onto municipalities, and to blame them when the issues are not actually solved. And round and round we go—as none of this rhetoric is new, and none of this ever resolves statewide (or nationwide) issues, which will require collaborative, thoughtful solutions, coupled with key investments, if the goal really is problem solving rather than problem shifting. On behalf of the NHMA staff, thank you to all the local officials who have helped amplify NHMA’s advocacy this year. Although not everything is going our way, there have been many successes this session for cities and towns. At NHMA’s core is a belief that local governments are stronger together, and every year you prove me right!
But enough of that—it's summer! During the summer, NHMA (mostly) takes a break from live workshops, but don’t forget that our online training archive is open 24/7 when you log into the website. We’re looking forward to seeing many of you in person or online in the fall when our biggest events of the year return, including Budget & Finance, Land Use Law Conference, and Annual Conference. I’m particularly looking forward to the gamble we are taking on this year’s Annual Conference—there's a little clue for you!
We wish you and yours a wonderful summer—with sunny weekends and just enough weekday rain to keep the flowers happy!
And Happy Independence Day!