NH Union Leader – May 12, 2025
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN
State Senate budget writers reversed $151 million in cuts made by the House as they began assembling their own two-year spending plan on Friday. The House cuts had been made to Medicaid providers, services for people with developmental disabilities and for those suffering with a mental health crisis. The moves seized on the top three issues senators had heard about during a marathon 10-hour public hearing on Tuesday, for which people packed Representatives Hall and nearly 300 had signed up to speak. “I want the people of New Hampshire to know we have heard what you said, and you have identified what we need to address in this budget,” said Senate President Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry, a first-time member of the Senate Finance Committee.
During an interview, Chairman James Gray, R-Rochester, likened the move to business author Stephen Covey’s “three big rocks” theory of management, which advises to take up and fulfill top priorities first to ensure that there is enough room and time to address them.
“We just moved three very big ‘rocks’ in this budget,” Gray said. “We’ve got plenty of other work to do, but we felt it was important to send this important message at the outset.”
The $15.3 billion House budget had proposed cutting Medicaid provider rates by 3% across the board.
Health care advocacy groups loudly protested that move since the current budget provided for, in some cases, double-digit rate hikes for certain medical specialties. Reversing that cut will cost $17.5 million in the next budget year and $35 million in the second. The House cut $31 million over two years for services to people with developmental disabilities, which raised the prospect of the return of a waitlist of adults needing help. “I was in the House in 2007 when we ended the DD (developmentally disabled) waitlist and it was a joyous occasion,” recalled Senate Deputy Democratic Leader Cindy Rosenwald of Nashua. “This was a long time coming from the closure of the Laconia State School.”
Rep. Jess Edwards, R-Auburn, said even with that cut, state law would allow Health and Human Services Commissioner Lori Weaver to ask the Legislative Fiscal Committee for more money over the next two years to avoid a waitlist. “This is a foundation of what we need to do as a state and I am very glad we have restored it,” said Senate Majority Leader Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead, whose hometown hosts the new state-of-the-art treatment center for juvenile mental health on the grounds of the former Hampstead Hospital.
The restorations also marked a big victory for Gov. Kelly Ayotte. Sen. David Watters, D-Dover, praised Carson, Gray and Ayotte for working with Senate Democrats to take the controversial cuts off the table. “This is the hallmark of this committee that we listen to people, and we are ready to do what needs to be done,” Watters said. Sen. Howard Pearl, R-Loudon, said the decisions were not difficult for this seven-member Finance Committee.
“There are many tough decisions to be made, but this is one of the easy ones,” Pearl said.
More possible changes
By reversing the cuts, the committee has earmarked 68% of the Senate’s $221.8 million in higher revenue estimates than those used by the House. Over the coming week or so, the Senate panel must decide what to do about these other significant programs:
- Office of the Child Advocate: The program, with 10 staff members, was eliminated.
- State Council for the Arts: Eliminated, which would make New Hampshire the only state without an arts agency.
- Group 2 Retirement Benefits: The House budget funded this $27.5 million item, a priority of Ayotte’s that would boost the future pensions of more than 1,500 first responders who had them cut due to a retirement reform law in 2011. Gray said Friday if his committee can’t find the money he may lump the item in with the Youth Development Center victims fund as an IOU of sorts to be provided when future dollars are available.
- University System of New Hampshire: The House would cut state aid by $50 million over two years, the deepest cut in 15 years.
- Community colleges: The House endorsed a flat budget, about $4 million less than what Ayotte requested.
- Liquor enforcement: The House eliminates the State Liquor Commission’s quasi-police force that investigates and enforces alcohol and tobacco laws.
- State Council on Aging: Abolished in House budget.
- Renewable Energy Fund: Ayotte and the House call for sweeping the $10 million balance for these grants to local projects into the state treasury to balance the budget.
- Local aid: The House budget capped payouts from the 8.5% Meals and Rooms Tax, which will deny cities and towns $11 million more than they would receive based on expected revenues.
- Corrections: The agency would lose 150 positions including nearly 100 layoffs, none to come from the prison guard workforce. The commissioner said the cut would worsen morale, make the prisons unsafe and leave the state vulnerable to multiple lawsuits.
- Alcohol Fund: The House suspends a law that 5% of liquor profits go to support treatment programs; $10 million per year would come from Opioid Abatement Trust Fund coming from settlements with major drug companies.
- Housing Appeals Board, Human Rights Commission, and Board of Land and Tax Appeals: All eliminated by the House, to be replaced by two additional superior court judges to handle their cases.
- Court budget: Administrators say the House’s 8% cut would mean closing two circuit courts, suspending jury trials for two months each year and eliminating more than 100 positions.
Speakers at Tuesday’s hearing also took issue with House moves to raise dozens of fees by more than $90 million a year including the first across-the-board hike in motor vehicle fees in more than 15 years to raise $45 million annually. What’s Next: Senate budget writers meet Tuesday and continue work on as many as 100 proposed amendments to the spending plan. Prospects: Friday’s action indicates the Finance Committee should complete its recommended budget on time late this month. The Senate has until June 5 to pass its budget.