The New Hampshire House approved a $16 billion state spending plan Thursday, as lawmakers continue to contend with an uncertain economy and the possibility of future cuts to federal programs.
The plan, backed by the House Republican majority, addresses that uncertainty with a strategy of austerity: reducing state spending across the board, eliminating dozens of state jobs, and cutting a handful of government programs and offices.
“This budget puts the New Hampshire taxpayers first and not the bureaucracies that have ballooned and bloated since 2020,” House Majority Leader Jason Osborne said to fellow lawmakers during Thursday’s session.
The budget votes followed weeks of number-crunching by the House Finance Committee. The result was a spending plan that differs significantly from the one proposed by Gov. Kelly Ayotte in February. For one, House budget writers forecast far less robust state revenues over the next two years, giving themselves less money to work with. With the House’s Republican majority insisting on no new taxes or tax increases, that left the committee with few options other than making deep reductions in spending.
“Revenue hasn’t come in as well as we thought,” House Finance Chairman Ken Weyler said.
The House’s budget now goes to the state Senate, which will spend weeks reviewing — and likely rewriting — the spending proposal.
Cuts across the board
In terms of General Fund spending, the House’s budget allots $3.7 billion over the next two years, as opposed to $3.9 billion in Ayotte’s plan. The cuts come across the board, including the elimination of positions in an array of state agencies: the state Liquor Commission, the Department of Education, the Department of Safety, and others. The Department of Corrections alone is tasked with eliminating more than 100 jobs.
Public higher education also faces cuts in the House plan, with $80 million less for the University System of New Hampshire, including a $50 million cut to UNH. The community college system gets a $4 million reduction in this plan.
Democrats stood in united opposition to the House plan Thursday, saying it underfunds essential services and will hurt many of New Hampshire’s most vulnerable residents.
“Too much of what is working is being cut,” said Rep Karen Ebel, a Democrat from New London.
The House budget also instructs several state agencies to reduce their bottom line spending — through so-called “back of the budget” cuts — with a combination of program cuts and job eliminations. Those demands range from $46 million to be cut from the Department of Health and Human Services, to $14.7 million at the Department of Justice, to $600,000 at the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Multiple government functions would face significant alteration under the House plan — or be eliminated altogether. The House voted to dissolve the Office of the Child Advocate, the State Arts Council and the New Hampshire Human Rights Commission. The Republican budget includes a $42 million reduction in Medicaid payments to health providers, and eliminates the state’s family planning program, which funds testing for cancer and sexually transmitted diseases and other services at health centers. And it cuts the Office of Early Childhood Education in the state Department of Education.
More money from gambling and fees
The House budget also approves a range of expansions to New Hampshire’s gambling offerings, including the legalization of slot machines, a lifting of limits on individual bets, and increasing the price of the most expensive scratch tickets to $50. All told, the House expects to boost gambling revenues more than $200 million over the next two years with those changes.
Another revenue boost is expected from a range of fee increases included in the House’s budget plan, including higher prices for motor vehicle registrations, drivers licenses, burials at the state veterans cemetery, fishing licenses, and vanity license plates.
Rethinking ‘local control’ met with resistance
House leaders planned to include a local school budget cap in the spending plan. The proposal would mandate that districts limit annual budget increases to the rate of inflation. For months, Republican leaders in the House said such a state-mandated limit was necessary to control what they termed unrestrained local spending trends.
“Protect our taxpayers from the special interests who come out on local voting day,” Osborne said.
But its inclusion in the budget was thwarted when some Republican lawmakers joined Democrats to strip it from the spending plan Thursday.
“It amazes me that we keep yelling about local control, and we keep trying to remove more of it,” said GOP Rep. Ralph Boehm of Hudson, arguing for the removal of the spending cap.
The House also rejected a proposal to end the local approval for Keno gambling. The Finance Committee budget had banked on generating $12 million in new revenue by lifting that requirement.
The House also voted to reverse a $14 million cut to the advertising budget of the state travel and tourism office.
To build support, GOP lards package with non-budget items
This spending plan as adopted is full of policies with little or no connection to state spending, including provisions allowing transgender people to be barred from bathrooms and sports teams that align with their gender identities; limiting vaccines requirements for children; and ending the state’s ban on certain weapons including brass knuckles, blackjacks and slung shots. The last is a policy the House has repeatedly passed, but that the Senate has rejected, and supporters indicated it would serve as a bargaining chip in the coming budget negotiations between the two chambers.
“We can come prepared,” Rep Jim Spillane of Deerfield told colleagues. “United against the other body.”
The Senate will now get its turn with the budget. Few expect the Senate’s spending plan to rely much on the work of the House. Gov. Kelly Ayotte has said she plans to work with the Senate to restore funding and government functions she prioritized in her budget that were cut by the House,
NHPR's Josh Rogers contributed to this report.
