The New Hampshire House did something Thursday no one serving in Concord had ever seen: It voted overwhelmingly to concur with the state Senate on a budget.
The move means the $15.4 billion budget passed unanimously by the Senate on Wednesday will become law, without being subject to the scrutiny or traditional give-and-take of a budget committee of conference.
“I believe we kind of just made history,” a pleased looking House Speaker Sherman Packard told the House after the 326-53 vote Thursday on the budget’s trailer bill.
By accepting the spending package the Senate adopted just yesterday, the House chose to abandon some key priorities, including reversing a 2011 change to the state retirement system that affects more than 1,500 state troopers, local police and firefighters.
Prior to Thursday’s vote, that seemed a sticking point in the House and Senate reaching agreement on a spending plan, but during Thursday’s floor debate, even the staunchest backers of spending $50 million to fix that problem urged the House to move on for now.
“We asked for too much, " Epsom Republican Rep. Dan McGuire, a key architect of the proposed pension fix, told colleagues.
House Democrats had also sought the pension changes, but leaders in their caucus stressed other policies as reasons to back the Senate’s plan as is – policies like state employee pay raises, additional money for public schools, and a more than $100 million boost to Medicaid provider rate payments.
“This budget is an example of policymakers putting forth their best efforts,” said Rep. Mary Jane Wallner, the ranking Democrat on the House Finance Committee.
Thursday’s House vote may also have been a recognition that – with the House almost evenly split between Democratic and Republican members – there was risk in pushing for more when this budget passed muster with most.
The Senate made some late changes to the spending plan this week to smooth its passage. One key addition was a requirement that state and local law enforcement alert the public about federal immigration checkpoints by posting notices on their websites. The House budget had required such notice to include local newspapers and on social media, a provision the Senate originally rejected.
“I stand before you offering this as a compromise that hopefully brings all of us together,” Senate President Jeb Bradley said Wednesday of the altered Senate budget. “Hopefully it offers our friends on the other side of the wall a compromise that brings all of them together.”
Bradley ended up being right, but not every lawmaker thought it prudent for the House to act so fast, particularly when the Senate plan altered the House’s original budget in dozens of ways.
“I urge people to wait until you’ve actually read the bill,” Rep. Michael Harrington of Strafford, a Republican, warned colleagues. “This may be a great bill, but we don’t know that now.”
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, however, was more optimistic, despite lawmakers rejecting a key piece of his budget: a sweeping plan to overhaul state occupational licensing.
“This budget is a win for kids, families, taxpayers, state employees and the entire state of New Hampshire,” said Sununu.
The new budget, which takes effect July 1, covers two years of state spending and revenues.
