Key takeaways from the sprawling $15.9b New Hampshire state budget plan
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While it's true that the state isn't as flush with federal cash as it was two years ago, Democrats contend Republicans contributed to the state's current fiscal pinch by
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The initial budget proposal that Republican Governor Kelly A. Ayotte unveiled in February had called for about
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Armed with its own revenue projections and
'It was hard work,' Republican Senator Timothy P. Lang Sr. of Sanbornton said of the committee's detailed review and decision-making. 'But this is an excellent budget for the citizens of New Hampshire.'
Democratic Senator Cindy Rosenwald of Nashua said the latest revision is a significant improvement over the House-passed spending plan, but policymakers shouldn't mistake 'better' for 'adequate.'
'This budget before us … does really
Here are nine key takeaways from the Senate Finance Committee's version of the budget:
1. Major changes in store for Medicaid.
The latest draft budget would seek to require some low- and moderate-income households to help pay for their Medicaid coverage. Unlike the premiums that were included in Ayotte's
The budget also now includes language that would direct the state to seek federal permission to impose Medicaid work requirements — a move that critics said would introduce red tape that causes people to disenroll, ultimately resulting in higher spending on emergency care for uninsured people.
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That said, the latest draft budget restores more than $52 million in Medicaid funding that the House-passed version would have cut by imposing a 3 percent reduction on rates paid to service providers, according to the NHFPI analysis.
2. Retirement plan fix would be delayed.
While the House adopted a plan to address a shortfall in the state's retirement system for police and firefighters, the Senate Finance Committee adopted an amendment to delay the effective date of those changes by six months. Lang said the change would save about $13 million over this coming biennium and avoid shifting costs onto local communities.
3. Corrections cuts partially restored.
Although the House-passed budget would have eliminated about 190 positions from the New Hampshire Department of Corrections, the Senate Finance Committee's plan calls for a more modest cut that results in the elimination of about 60 positions, according to the NHFPI analysis.
4. Big shift in settlement fund oversight.
Currently, the administrator who oversees
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Chuck Miles, an abuse survivor and board member for an advocacy group, called on lawmakers to reject the amendment.
'Adopting this measure combined with a dramatic underfunding in the first year of the budget is an abandonment of the settlement fund by the state and a slap in the face for all victims who were promised justice,' Miles said.
5. Child advocate and arts division salvaged.
The latest version of the budget would save the
The child advocate, an independent watchdog agency that lawmakers established to improve oversight of the state's troubled child welfare system, would receive about $1.6 million in funding for the coming biennium, about $500,000 less than Ayotte's original proposal. (That would result in the office losing four staff positions rather than all nine, according to the NHFPI analysis.)
6. University system funding mostly restored.
The University System of New Hampshire — which includes the University of New Hampshire, Keene State College, and Plymouth State University — is receiving $95 million in the current fiscal year, which ends this month. Ayotte had
The Senate Finance Committee's recommendation brings the allocation up to
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7. Broader eligibility for education freedom accounts.
Ayotte's original budget proposal called for giving
8. Budget still seeks to ban DEI initiatives.
A provision in the House-passed version of the budget that would prohibit all public entities from engaging in
9. More legislative negotiations are likely.
Unlike two years ago, the House and Senate will likely form a committee of conference this time around to hammer out the significant differences between their two versions of the budget legislation, according to
The deadline for action on the committee of conference report would be June 26, with the new budget taking effect July 1, Heller said.
Steven Porter can be reached at
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DOVERE: That's Andy Beshear's argument: that he's won, and won comfortably, among the types of voters that most Democrats have given up even trying to appeal to, and done it in a state — Kentucky — that hasn't had a Democrat other than him and his father competitive statewide for years. He's done it while not shying away from Democratic positions on issues like abortion rights and even trans kids, but as he also spends some time in South Carolina this week, he's unabashedly starting to test how much appetite there is for his lower key — in both positions and personality — approach. WOLF: Let's go to the mid-Atlantic. Let's talk about Wes Moore (governor of Maryland), and then Josh Shapiro (governor of Pennsylvania). DOVERE: Wes Moore is clearly a very charismatic, appealing figure who has caught the eye of a lot of the Democratic intelligentsia for having a motivational, optimistic approach to how he speaks. 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For someone who is an unabashed Democrat to have that kind of reception is really a demonstration of the way that he approaches his governing and his outreach to the state. He has been very low-profile in terms of national politics over the course of these first six months of the Trump term. Most people probably haven't heard from him at all, other than that terrible incident with the arson of the governor's mansion when he was there with his family on the first night of Passover. That is a deliberate effort for him to stay focused on Pennsylvania. One of the questions over the next year or two, as he runs through reelection, is how much does he start to pop onto the national radar? WOLF: Usually a list like this is full of senators. Who could be on it? DOVERE: I would put Cory Booker from New Jersey, Chris Murphy from Connecticut, Mark Kelly from Arizona and Ruben Gallego from Arizona. WOLF: We've had Bernie Sanders as a very popular alternative in recent elections. He must be too old at this point. Who inherits his mantle? DOVERE: Who are we to say who is too old? He will turn 87 by Election Day 2028 — that would make him by far the oldest president that we've ever had, even outdoing the Biden and Trump records. Most people do not expect that he will be running for president again. The question of who inherits his mantle is a big one, and most people would put their money on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is going to have some decisions coming up about whether she sets her eyes on running for president or running for Senate. There's an election in 2028 — that is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's seat, whether he decides to run, or she runs against him, or whether she just builds up her power by gaining seniority in the House. She's obviously quite young, and she has done more with her House seat already than almost anybody ever has in that amount of time. If not her, then I think there is a big open question about who it would be. Rep. Ro Khanna, the congressman from California who was a co-chair of Sanders' campaign in 2020, has been making clear that he is exploring a presidential run and hoping to have some of that support. If she doesn't run and he doesn't get that kind of support, then I think there would be a question of whether there's someone else that could be the right vessel for that, or whether it would diffuse between multiple candidates. WOLF: What about a complete outsider? There's a boomlet of interest in the ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith. Is there room for a wild card? DOVERE: Trump is the first person in history to be president without having served in a military or government role beforehand. So who knows. There are a lot of people who you could see thinking that they would be that person. There was some reporting four years ago that Bob Iger, the Disney CEO, talked about maybe he should run. Whether it would be businesspeople or celebrities, Trump has made it clear that you could come from outside the political scene and do it. Other people who have thought about it have turned away because they have not wanted to have their lives picked over the way that we do to political candidates. There's even a new movie in which John Cena plays the president of the United States, and the gimmick is that he is an action hero who then just gets elected because of that. WOLF: Arnold Schwarzenegger, if he'd been born in the US. Or the Rock. DOVERE: Who was born in the US. WOLF: What sets off your spidey sense that somebody is getting serious about a run? DOVERE: The early state visits. If they start talking about national politics a lot more. Shapiro is a good example of somebody who gets talked about a lot but doesn't actually discuss national politics that much. If, all of a sudden, he's talking about Donald Trump a lot more, or what Democrats should stand for, that would be a reason to start thinking about him or whoever else is starting to do it. Then there are the things that happen behind the scenes — starting to reach out to interested donors or the sort of Democratic elders, brain trust, whatever you want to call it. As we get closer to 2027, when people will start launching their campaigns, there'll be outreach to staff and things and quiet invitations to reporters to come and meet the candidate. WOLF: So when you have an interview with one of these guys, we know that they're running. DOVERE: When I was sitting with Pritzker in New Hampshire, we were talking and at the end of the interview I said so can we just fast-forward through this and to say like you're running for president? He said, no, not yet.
