N.H. governor’s race: Kelly Ayotte attack on Joyce Craig’s Manchester tax record needs context

In New Hampshire’s gubernatorial race, former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the Republican nominee, accused her Democratic opponent, former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, of pushing higher taxes.

"In Manchester, Joyce Craig pushed for a city sales tax. Then, Joyce Craig overrode the tax cap and tried to raise taxes six times," the Ayotte campaign ad, released Sept. 12, says. "What would Joyce Craig do as governor? Raise our taxes. It’s what she’s always done."

The ad includes misleading claims about Craig’s record on taxes as a school board member, city alderman and mayor.

PolitiFact and WMUR-TV are partnering to fact-check claims in the 2024 New Hampshire gubernatorial race.

The Craig campaign disputed the tax attacks. Here’s what we learned.

The claim  that Craig "pushed for a city sales tax" dates back to her Manchester school board membership in 2008, the Ayotte campaign said. That means it predated both her runs for mayor (unsuccessfully in 2015 and successfully in 2017) and her mayorship, from 2018 to 2024.

The ad glosses over important context about what Craig wrote in 2008.

As WMUR reported in 2017, Craig, as a city school board member, wrote a memo detailing "creative ideas that have been raised by parents, community members, teachers and principals" to "gain efficiencies, save money and possibly generate revenue without impacting the high-quality education students receive in Manchester schools."

Suggestions from constituents included increasing energy efficiency, raising money for bus services and seeking book donations for school libraries. And, as the ad said, one suggestion was creating a city sales tax.

Craig said at the time that she did "not necessarily agree with all of the ideas, but feel it is my responsibility to bring them forward for the board to review."

During a 2017 mayoral debate, Craig parried an attack on the 2008 memo by her opponent, then-Mayor Ted Gatsas, by saying it was "a great example of how I would run the city differently than he does." She said that as a new school board member, she "opened up a dialogue with the community" and sought ideas for changing "the way we’re doing business in the city."

Craig said, "I didn’t only provide those suggestions that I agree with. I provided every suggestion that I heard from the community. And that is exactly what I would do as mayor."

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In 2019 and 2022, the final approved Manchester budget raised taxes and exceeded the city’s voter-approved tax cap. Both times, city aldermen passed the budget with a veto-proof majority.

Passing a budget that overrides the Manchester tax cap requires nine votes from the 14 city aldermen, and a mayor can still veto the tax cap if it gets nine votes. Once a budget  passes with 10 votes or more, a mayor can’t override it.

In 2019, the aldermen voted by a 10-4 margin for a final budget that overrode the tax cap; this is the year an on-screen footnote in the ad cites. In 2022, the aldermen did it again overrode the tax cap, by an 11-3 margin. 

In theory, Craig could have symbolically vetoed those measures, and Ayotte’s campaign argued in comments to PolitiFact that Craig could have tried to encourage the board to oppose the increase. But the aldermen’s veto-proof majority meant Craig had no leverage.

The budgets passed in 2020, 2021 and 2023 stayed within the tax cap.

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As mayor, Craig proposed increased tax revenues in each year’s budget from 2018 to 2023, the Ayotte campaign told PolitiFact. 

The Ayotte campaign argued this can be characterized as a proposed tax increase for six years in a row. Although the campaign has a point, this description omits that the revenue increases in each of those six years remained within the limits voters had approved..

That tax cap, in place for more than a decade, limits increases in tax revenue to the inflation rate during the three previous calendar years, plus the value of new construction within the city.

Ayotte’s ad said Craig "pushed for a city sales tax. Then, Joyce Craig overrode the tax cap and tried to raise taxes six times."

Craig introduced the city sales tax idea a decade before her mayorship, when she was on the school board. She didn’t advocate for a sales tax; instead, she shared the idea as part of a list of constituents’ suggestions.

In 2019, the year the ad says Craig "overrode the tax cap," aldermen had a veto-proof supermajority, meaning Craig could not have overridden their vote to exceed the tax cap.

All six yearly proposed budgets during Craig’s  mayorship raised taxes, though to levels within the voter-approved tax cap.

The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it Half True.