The Senate Finance Committee has almost finished its work with the state?s biennial budget.
The committee has restored funding to several departments, including Safety and Health and Human Services.
But the committee cut funding in a few places.
The committee's work has pleased some fellow lawmakers, but has also troubled a few members of the New Hampshire House.
NHPR's David Darman has more.
The Senate Finance Committee worked late into the night Sunday to cobble together a 9 billion dollar budget.
Committee members voted to spend many millions more than their colleagues in the House.
Senator Robert Boyce is vice chairman of the Finance Committee.
He says part of the difference comes from the fact the House had less money to work with.
07 53 the most obvious difference is the federal government came out a week ago and said here?s 83 million dollars. So the big difference between the house budget and the senate budget is that the people putting it together in the senate, knew there was more money 07 108
The Committee used its increased funding to restore payments to hospitals and other health service providers.
And the committee put more funding into programs for children and the elderly.
Senator Lou D?Allesandro is one of two Democrats on the committee.
He says the committee also saw fit to restore money for nursing homes.
04 48 we passed house bill 663, with regard to the nursing homes, and that?s something that?s going to help with an increase in their payments. So those were good things that we did. I?m a little concerned about the prescription benefit program. That didn?t come out the way I wanted. We?ll have to spend some more time working on that. 04 110
The committee also voted to fund 9 state police positions for the Department of Safety.
And it put more money into the University System of New Hampshire and the Community Technical College system.
Senator Richard Green is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
He says despite these funding restorations, not everything got the money it might have needed.
212 We had some tough decisions about some programs because we were more concerned about making sure that we treated those who are less fortunate fairly, and those areas that we?d like to have and support we didn?t have enough money and we actually had to reduce some of those programs. 12 228
New Hampshire?s court system received more money from the committee than from the House.
But it was still ten million less than it needed.
The committee also took a big chunk out of L-CHIP, the Land and Community Heritage Investment Program.
The program lost 63 percent of the funding that the House had given it.
House Democratic leader Peter Burling says he is satisfied with the committee?s work in funding human services.
But he?s says he?s quite displeased with the committee?s funding of LCHIP and the courts.
14 26 ?Gutting the l chip program is not a good idea. I really hate it. Taking 10 million dollars out of the court system in a budget footnote is not a good idea. I really hate it. 14 100
Democrats may dislike some of the choices made by the Senate Finance Committee.
But their options in protesting cuts are limited, since Republicans control both Houses.
Still, at least one Republican on the House Finance Committee says she?s worried the Senate budget spends too much.
Representative Fran Wendleboe of New Hampton warns lawmakers that they need to keep their eye on the spending priorities of Governor Craig Benson.
I?m really concerned that that is headed toward a veto I think that its going to be very important in the committee of conference for the house and the senate to scale that back a little bit. 01 149
The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to meet later today to go over the budget one last time.
The budget is then scheduled to head to the full Senate on Thursday.
If the Senate votes for a budget that differs from the House, leaders of both chambers would appoint a committee of conference, to iron out any differences.
For NHPR news, I?m DD
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