NH Union Leader – March 18, 2025
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN, Union Leader Staff
A working group of the House Finance Committee is recommending the elimination of the independent Office of Child Advocate to save $2 million as budget writers craft a two-year spending plan in the face of declining revenues. Rep. Dan McGuire, R-Epsom, chairs the subcommittee known as Division I, which has financial control over independent state agencies that includes the Office of Child Advocate (OCA), which since 2018 has monitored the work of the Division of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) programs that address at-risk or delinquent minors.
McGuire said he’s charged with finding as much as $200 million in budget cuts over the next two years. “It’s not as if these programs are being badly run. We’re simply in need of finding savings. I can’t be any more blunt than that,” McGuire said during a work session Monday. Rep. Karen Ebel, D-New London, said the OCA’s work is at a critical juncture given the number of physical- and emotional-abuse complaints brought against the state by former residents at the Youth Development Center (YDC) and the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester. “I realize you are trying to save money. This one seems to me to be a very challenging position to take,” Ebel said.
“To me this looks like a penny-wise, pound-foolish act,” echoed Rep. Rosemarie Rung, D-Merrimack. Retired Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick, the administrator of the YDC claims fund, will be asking the Legislative Fiscal Committee on Friday for $15 million in emergency money so his fund doesn’t run out of money later this spring. The working group, which includes House Finance Chairman Ken Weyler, R-Kingston, as a member, voted 5-4 to recommend the OCA cut.
Child Advocate Cassandra Sanchez said she had no warning that the amendment was going to come up for a vote. “This came as quite a shock as defunding the office was not discussed during my budget presentation to Division I Finance last month,” Sanchez said in a statement. “It is disheartening to learn that critical oversight by the one entity that prioritizes the safety, voice, and best interest of children in our state, may no longer exist.”
State Rep. Dan McGuire, R-Center, at the center of the table, convinced his colleagues to vote, 5-4, to recommend eliminating the Office of Child Advocate to save the next two-year state budget $2 million. In a Feb. 1 report to the Commission on the Oversight of Children’s Services, Sanchez said the OCA’s current budget may not be enough to deal with the growing demand for services. “There remains concern for adequate funding of the OCA, given our continued increase in inquiries, and the intensity of our caseloads,” Sanchez wrote in that report.
That high demand has affected the schedule of visits OCA staff make to facilities that provide residential treatment for at-risk children, she said. “OCA has been unable to get out to facilities to visit children and assess care at the same rate that we did previously, including out-of-state visits, because of our increased caseloads and complexity of cases,” Sanchez said. The top priority has been to make visits to Hampstead Hospital, the new state-owned treatment facility for juveniles with mental health issues, and the Sununu Youth Services Center, she said.
Former Gov. Chris Sununu and Executive Councilor Janet Stevens, R-Rye, praised Sanchez and the OCA for acting quickly in July 2023 to remove two New Hampshire boys from the Bledsoe Youth Academy in Gallatin, Tennessee, after discovering they were badly mistreated. Sanchez has made it another priority of her office to reduce the number of children placed in treatment outside New England. In last month’s report, Sanchez said that the number of children outside the region was down to 10, eight in Florida and one each in Arkansas and Alabama.
In its annual report last May, the OCA identified nine cases of infants with multiple broken bones over a six-month period. Sanchez said she’s hopeful about convincing legislative budget writers to keep her office open. “I remain optimistic that the full House Finance Committee will see the value in the work the OCA offers the children and families of the state and reject the amendment.” McGuire noted this cut was considered because Sanchez’s current term ends next January.
The working group also looked at, but chose not to recommend, doing away with three court magistrates that hear cash bail cases on nights and weekends or two members of the Housing Appeals Board. That’s because the five officials hold multi-year contracts that would have to be paid out even if their programs are eliminated, McGuire explained.