By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD – A public input meeting to address concerns about the state’s lengthy backlog in human rights complaints was held Friday but no one came to speak.

But progress is being made on the backlog, the Temporary Human Rights Commission Advisory Committee was told.

It did get an update on progress to hire more staff and work to reduce the time it takes for a decision to be made and received assurances that the time it takes to get a finding will certainly be shorter.

The HRC is now fully staffed with seven investigators as of Friday, but it is still too few and could benefit from a doubling in size to 14, the committee was told.

Still, progress is expected to be noticeable by the end of this calendar year.

The committee, chaired by Chris Keating, is charged with working to support corrective measures identified in a state audit, as required under last year’s budget bill House Bill 2.

A February, 2025 audit by the Legislative Budget Assistant found that more than half of the staff positions at the state Commission for Human Rights are unfilled leading to long delays in investigations of complaints about discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and K-12 education.

About 87 percent of the complaints relate to employment.

The audit by the Office of the Legislative Budget Assistant found that the agency “was inefficient and ineffective in investigating complaints and closing cases in a timely manner.”

At the time of the audit, only nine of 21 staff positions were filled, leaving investigators to do administrative work while cases languished, according to the audit.

It found that it took an average of 18 months just to assign a complaint to an investigator and more than 2 years and 3 months to close a case.

In fact, more than one-quarter of cases were not closed within the three-year time limit to bring suit in Superior Court, meaning complainants were denied justice.

The delays are “unconscionable,” said Rep. Marjorie Smith, D-Durham, the ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, who spoke at the time.

“It’s the worst audit (result) I’ve ever seen,” committee chair Rep. Kenneth Weyler, R-Kingston, said after the hearing. Weyler, who has served on the committee for over a decade.

According to the audit, of 259 cases that were pending at the end of fiscal 2023, only 1.2 percent involved education, 3.5 percent involved housing discrimination, and 7.7 percent involved public accommodations (places and entities that offer goods and services to the public).

The audit also found that the commission is operating under long-expired rules and has failed to address concerns cited in the last audit in 2019, senior audit manager John Clinch told the committee.

Managers have not set targets, such as how long it should take to conduct an initial review of a complaint and assign it to an investigator or set timelines to complete each step of the process, and the commission does not track cases to see whether they are on track.

The audit also found that the commission failed to provide investigators with proper training, that it was sometimes “prematurely dismissing cases contrary to (law),” and that it had inadequate procedures for conducting interviews and investigations.

At Friday’s meeting, Chris Keating, who was selected by the Supreme Court to the newly created role of State Court Administrator, chaired the committee and noted that in the months since its creation it has heard a lot from various groups and lawyers but wanted to extend an opportunity exclusively for the public to describe issues they had with the HRC.

But the committee was given an update which indicated 22 of 25 items in the audit have already been addressed.

The next area of focus will be to bring the full complement of commissioners to seven, Chairman Raymond Pinard said and two candidates for vacant positions will be nominated by the governor at the next council meeting this coming Wednesday and that once confirmed it would be a full complement of the commission.

Pinard also said the next project is a complete review of HRC processes, a look at other states and how they handle the process and to look internally with the staff to reduce the timeline.

He said cases are taking about 20 months now to close out. There was an administrative solution which has allowed a reduction in caseload and the funded positions are completely filled now.

“We still have three unfunded positions which we hope could be loosened up next year but it remains to be seen,” Pinard said.

Kristina Taylor, acting assistant director, said the consent calendar for the Executive Council next week is the biennial report and as soon as it is approved it can be uploaded to the state website.

A copy of the audit is here https://gc.nh.gov/lba/auditreports/PerformanceReports/Commission%20for%20Human%20Rights%20February%202025.pdf

Keating asked if there was confidence that the staff can help reduce the backlog and what the time frame might be.

“If I had my way we’d have 40 investigators,” Taylor said. But even with seven, she said she thought that there should be improvement by the end of the year.

Keating asked about adequacy of seven positions and what could be achieved going forward.
Pinard said once the new investigators get up to speed he was hopeful that progress would be made on improving the time frame.

He said a reasonable staffing level would be twice what they have now, at 14.

And noted that the fiscal situation with the back of the budget cuts in HB 2 made it difficult along with the fact that money they did not spend went back to the general fund and that funding is limited.

InDepthNH Reporter Katharine Webster contributed to this story