City Council adopts FY2026 budget

posted on 4/4/2025

The City Council unanimously adopted the city's fiscal year 2026 budget during a special meeting on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, following a final budget workshop session and nearly two months of budget review.

The adopted budget totals $206,791,012 across all funds, a 4% increase from the current FY2025 adopted budget. Of this, the General Fund accounts for $168,238,167, a 6.4% increase from the current year.. The General Fund includes $60,963,620 for city operations, $83,120,024 for school department operations, $12,460,486 for debt service, and $11,694,037 to be collected for the county tax payment.

The final budget is $2,482 below the city's tax cap limitation. The initial proposed budget in February exceeded the tax cap by just under $2.3 million due to the School Department's portion of the budget. In March, the School Board revised its budget, recommending nearly $2.3 million in adjustments through spending reductions and revenue increases, reducing the total budget to below the amount allowed by the tax cap.

The adopted budget is projected to result in a property tax rate of $18.93 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, an increase of 76 cents over the current rate of $18.17. A homeowner in Dover with a property valued at the city’s average of $524,638 would see a property tax increase of about $399. The official tax rate will be certified by the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration later this year.

Several adjustments were made during the final budget workshop, including restoring funding for the COAST Commute Smart Service, rejecting proposed fee increases at the Dover Community Senior Center, increasing emergency shelter funding, restoring a recreation program supervisor position, and adjusting street paving allocations to ensure the budget stayed under the tax cap.

During the April 2 workshop, City Manager J. Michael Joyal Jr. guided the Council through a series of suggested line-item adjustments to form the final budget. These adjustments reflected $766,277 of appropriation reductions and an increase of $1,510,429 in budget revenues compared to the initial proposed budget presented to the City Council on Feb. 12, 2025.

The new fiscal year begins July 1, 2025, and runs through June 30, 2026.

The proposed budget can be viewed here and is available at the Dover Public Library and City Hall. Video recordings of all the budget meetings and workshops, including the School Board's budget process, are posted with budget documents on the FY2026 Budget Revealed online resource.