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NH agencies look to cut unfilled jobs, as Sununu says next budget should be lean

Gov. Chris Sununu and Gov.-elect Kelly Ayotte sit side by side for the opening of three days of budget presentations by each of the state’s departments, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024.
Ethan DeWitt / New Hampshire Bulletin
Gov. Chris Sununu and Gov.-elect Kelly Ayotte sit side by side for the opening of three days of budget presentations by each of the state’s departments, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024.

Two months away from leaving office, Gov. Chris Sununu had a reminder for lawmakers Tuesday: New Hampshire faces leaner times ahead.

As lawmakers craft a budget, the expiration of COVID-19 relief funding, which allowed New Hampshire to disburse billions of dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act and the CARES Act, means some programs will need to sunset, Sununu said.

State agencies, which already have a number of vacancies, should prepare to not fill those vacancies, the governor said. Meanwhile, increased costs have also created pressure on state departments to raise salaries for those who do hold positions, Sununu noted.

“We’re still sitting in this current budget with a very healthy surplus,” Sununu said. “But the realities of inflation, the realities of the cost of living, as much as they’re hitting all of our families and businesses across the state, it hits government too.”

A September report from Pew Charitable Trusts found that New Hampshire’s tax revenue had underperformed its 15-year trend by 2.3 percent by the fourth quarter of 2023, one of 37 states that has seen such a decline.

But while the governor called for restraint, agencies are requesting more money. An analysis by the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute Friday found that between their minimum budget requests and their additional asks of “prioritized needs” they would like to highlight for additional spending, the departments have collectively requested $16.95 billion, $1.78 billion more than the current state budget, an increase of 11.7 percent.

The disconnect opens the possibility of House and Senate budget writers reducing the agencies’ requested budgets next spring to respond to lower revenues.

Speaking to a crowd of legislative budget leaders and state department heads from a room in the Legislative Office Building Tuesday, Sununu kicked off three days of budget presentations by his commissioners and other agency leaders. Those commissioners will publicly present to the governor’s budget director the amount of funding they believe their agency will need in fiscal years 2026 and 2027 – both the bare amount they need to continue to operate and the list of prioritized needs.

Traditionally, the governor’s office uses those presentations to help craft a draft budget that they then present to the Legislature in February. But Sununu, who did not run for reelection, will leave office in January, and his opening presentation read as much as a promotion of his policies as a warning for future budgets.

Gov.-elect Kelly Ayotte, who sat next to Sununu during the speech, will be charged with presenting her own budget in February, one of her first major acts in office.

In his speech, Sununu, who first took office in 2017, touted what he called the “pro-growth, pro-business” model that previous budgets under his tenure had followed. But he also divided his time into two phases: pre-pandemic and post-pandemic, and noted the major swell in temporary spending the post-pandemic era had ushered in.

“The whole world is very different in terms of how we operate,” he said.

Sununu argued the state’s preference to use unexpected funding on one-time rather than recurring expenses means it is ready to absorb the loss of federal funds. But an initial round of presentations by agency officials suggested that cost-cutting was going to affect hiring decisions first and foremost.

New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration Commissioner Lindsey Stepp noted her department is asking the Legislature to fund 18 fewer positions next year – all currently unfilled – for a total of 135 personnel.

“We are a department of people, not programs or things,” Stepp said. “So when it comes time to make decisions, it usually comes down to positions.”

And Attorney General John Formella, whose department has also struggled with staffing, said the department still has 13 vacancies. Not all of them are necessary.

“I’m going to say this – it’s not the type of thing, I think, an agency would usually say: I think that we may have more positions than we need,” Formella said. “We may have some additional positions we can unfund, but we also have additional positions we’re trying to fill.”

“Ken Weyler just got really excited,” Sununu quipped, referring to the Republican House Finance Chairman from Kingston.

New Hampshire Bulletin is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com. Follow New Hampshire Bulletin on Facebook and X.

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