By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – Cuts to spending that could lead to layoffs July 1 and include the elimination of all tourism promotion funding by the state as well as money for the Arts Council were explained to the entire House Finance Committee during a meeting Monday.
The committee voted for deep cuts to the university system. It also eliminated the Office of the Child Advocate by a vote along party lines. Rep. Rosemarie Rung, D-Merrimack, said she hoped the OCA would be restored by the full House, Senate or the governor’s budget.
The House Finance Committee will reconvene Tuesday.
State Rep. Dan McGuire, R-Epsom, chair of Division 1 Finance Committee, gave an overview of proposed cuts to the state budget for the next two years and at the end of the morning also offered an amendment to the budget that would prohibit any Diversity, Equity and Inclusion language in any state contract.
Rep. Rosemarie Rung, D-Merrimack, said she was outraged by the proposal. “I’m beyond concerned,” Rung said after the meeting.
Other opponents of eliminating DEI language said it would show that the state does not value women or people of color and that there is no equality in New Hampshire.
Rung said it will come up again on Tuesday, adding questions have been raised about the amendment coming in at the 11th hour with nothing to do with the budget.
Rep. Jess Edwards, R-Auburn, said the state still has a civil rights law.
Rep. Mary Jane Wallner, D-Concord, said she was very disappointed to have an amendment coming at the last minute and said she doesn’t feel like it is a budget request.
Democrats also decried some of the cuts as being short sighted, including $14 million for tourism promotion over two years and $1.7 million for the State Council on the Arts, arguing they have a great return on investment.
Studies have found that for every dollar of tourism promotion it returns $15 to state coffers from rooms and meals taxes and other sources.
McGuire said, “I am against what I will term ‘corporate welfare.’ I don’t care about the spending we do on behalf of businesses. We can regulate businesses as lightly as practical but they know how to do it better than we do,” he said of promotional information.
And he noted that those studies don’t connect every dollar to promotion.
The process begins with the governor proposing her budget for the coming next two years and then the House puts together its own budget which is voted on and then the Senate will have its say on what its priorities are before the two chambers come to an agreement and then it will go to the governor to either be approved or vetoed.
House members are not meeting this Thursday but are likely to vote on a budget on April 10 when they next meet.
At the meeting, there were members of the Group II retirement – first responders and prison workers – who want to see changes in their pension benefits.
The budget writers are agreeing with Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s proposal which McGuire said restores benefits that they had before changes were made in 2011.
House budget writers have to make these cuts because the House Ways and Means Committee has much lower estimates for state revenues than what Ayotte assumed for the budget that she presented in February.
The university system is looking at an annual cut of 17 percent. In her budget, Ayotte proposed a 4 percent annual cut in USNH aid, dropping it from $199 million in the current budget to $182 million for the next two-year cycle that begins on June 30.
There are provisions to end funding the state Human Rights Commission and combine some small departments.
McGuire noted that there will be changes to Liquor Commission in the proposed budget and that their law enforcement arm will be just for licensing and not enforcement.
“We think the law enforcement officers could be used elsewhere,” such as in corrections, for municipalities or as state troopers.
He noted that the prison used to have 2,700 inmates and now only 2,000, but the department has more employees.
The House Division 1 proposal looks to sell the rest areas for the second year of the biennium .
The Department of Environmental Services could see a lot of fee increases to pay to self-fund the department, McGuire said.
Some were concerned about the cuts to the college system and the elimination of planning commission targeted block grants as well as the elimination of the Office of Child Advocate.
The House budget will put the contents of a number of bills related to solid waste facilities in the budget including moratoriums on new and siting restrictions.
Also Democrats pushed back on cuts to the Housing Champions program but McGuire said the state was doing well with revenues until “we fell off the cliff in August, 2024 and now we are coming in very short.”
The House version of the budget could also include changes to the way that right-to-know law reads.
There is also a proposal to put future state hires on a defined contribution rather than a defined benefit pension plan.
The budget may also have funds for the Youth Development Center abuse settlements. The state has been sued by numerous people who have been victimized and who allege serious abuse, McGuire said.
The state set up a fund to settle abuse cases and allocated $165 million but the governor did not add any money to the fund for the biennium, he told lawmakers.
The House has put in $20 million for the biennium for YDC settlements.
Rep. Wallner asked about the list of positions being abolished noting there are quite a few.
McGuire said there are 293 of which 191 are from Corrections, some of which are unfilled.
There are also 34 from liquor, about 19 are law enforcement and 15 from the human rights commission, 14 from Business and Economic Affairs and others.
Asked if they would lead to immediate layoffs, McGuire said, yes, on July 1 though some would be delayed.
Rep. Peter Leishman, D-Peterborough, complimented McGuire on the thoroughness of the work he and the committee had done but said he has concerns about the cuts to Corrections and the fact McGuire had not met with Corrections Commissioner Helen Hanks.
He said Division 1 had the task of cutting $200 million.
Rep. Laura Telerski, D-Nashua, said she had received a lot of input on cuts to the arts and impact on tourism and asked McGuire if there had been any analysis of what the impacts would be.
McGuire said no but noted that the arts are a huge business.
He said funding them is a “want but not a must have in my opinion.”
Rep. Karen Ebel, D-New London, said to abolish the Office of the Child Advocate is a mistake and she made a motion to retain it but that effort failed.
McGuire noted this budget does dip into the rainy-day fund, not as much as the governor’s budget calls for.
On Tuesday, the committee will also discuss proposed cuts to Medicaid.