News

Democrats to fight for budget Thursday

By GLYNIS HART
[email protected]
CONCORD—The House version of the state budget, passed by the Democratic majority, will be voted on Thursday, coming up against Republican Gov. Chris Sununu’s proposed budget. 

Democrats say Sununu’s $13.1 billion budget is short on details, with increases in some areas offset by decreases in others. For his part, Sununu alleges the House budget at $13.6 billion creates “massive bureaucracy” and raises taxes. 

For Claremont, Sununu’s grants of $250,000 for infrastructure repairs and energy efficiency is nearly matched by $233,000 in the House budget. The difference is that the $233,000 is allocated under revenue sharing, giving city officials leeway to use it for these projects or others as needed. The city would also get an additional $5.3 million in education aid. 

House Finance Chair Mary Jane Wallner (D-Concord) criticized the lack of transparency in the process: “We don’t know how Gov. Sununu chose to hand out his proposed projects, because the projects were picked without vetting and without criteria, but he left far too many Granite Staters out. Our budget reinstitutes revenue sharing to $12.5 million dollars statewide and increases education funding $164 million statewide.”

Prior to the economic crash of 2008, the state gave a percentage of local taxes back to cities and towns as revenue sharing because they are not allowed to levy local taxes. The Democrats’ budget reinstates revenue sharing at half of its 2008 level. Gov. Sununu’s budget continues the suspension of revenue sharing. 

 

Education aid

School funding is the biggest difference between the two budgets. Sununu’s budget offers several increases, notably an 18-percent increase in Special Education aid, aid to Career and Tech centers, $32 million in student debt assistance, and $63 million in targeted capital project aid to local school districts. 

The house budget increases Special Ed aid to legally mandated levels, an additional 20 percent increase. 

Critics of the governor’s budget say it doesn’t fix inadequate funding levels for schools.

School funding is set by a mandated per-pupil expenditure, and then stabilization aid to help districts that can’t cover the costs of education through local property taxes. Through lawsuits and bills, reformers are attempting to raise the per-pupil expenditure (what the state is supposed to pay), restore stabilization aid, which has been cut every year, and fix the funding formula, which they say disadvantages property-poor districts. 

While the governor’s budget would cut taxes on businesses, the Democrats want to keep those business taxes in place, and further extend interest and dividend taxes to capital gains. According to a party official, keeping those taxes would produce $164 million to spend on education.

Funding for the state university is flat in the governor’s budget, which will almost certainly push state schools to raise tuition. According to the governor’s office, “The relationship between the State Government and institutions of higher education has been reimagined in this budget. … By the State Government, the systems, and private business partnering together to provide funding, design curriculums, and create direct pathways to employment — this budget will create a new model for state funding for higher education.” 

The governor’s budget moves $32.5 million to student debt assistance from funds normally appropriated to school endowments. 

 

Mental health

In New Hampshire, patients with mental illness are held in emergency rooms for weeks at a time before they can get into the state hospital or find a bed in a psychiatric unit. Also, patients who have not committed a crime but are mentally ill and possibly in danger of hurting themselves or others can be committed to the state prison. 

Sununu’s proposal to spend $40 million on a new facility to house people with mental illness would provide more than enough beds to solve the waiting list crisis and would move patients out of prison into a secure psychiatric unit. 

The New Hampshire chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union applauded this step, commending the governor for taking steps to mitigate the crisis. ACLU-NH sued the state in 2018 on the grounds that holding mentally ill patients in emergency rooms deprived them of their liberty without due process. 

However, ACLU-NH said a long-term solution would incorporate mobile mental health crisis units and move people from institutions to community centered care — both items included in the House budget. Advocates for the mentally ill also worry if a hospital is built there will be budget pressure to involuntarily commit people. 

Sununu has roundly criticized the Democrats for not supporting his proposal. “They say it’s too soon,” he told a Claremont audience Monday. “It’s not too soon — it should have been done 20 years ago.” 

Democrats are on record as cool to the bill. The Union Leader, in a story from Feb. 12, quotes state Rep. Ken Snow of Manchester, as saying he agrees with the concept of the bill, but that the governor’s timeline is too tight. Two days later the Senate Democrats released a statement that was impatient with the governor’s solutions, saying that people with mental health issues needed help right now. This apparently alludes to the position of ACLU-NH, which has supported “increased community-based outpatient services for crisis prevention,” according to indepthnh.org.

The house budget allocates money to transitional housing that would be available to people with mental illness, as well as $5 million to take children out of the state hospital and put them in a separate facility from the adults, and $4 million to NHHS to renovate that space to hold more adults. 

 

DCYF

New Hampshire’s DCYF has been strained by a lack of staff and increased need for services, as the opioid epidemic caused a precipitous increase in the numbers of children needing foster care. 

In 2018 and the first three months of 2019, five babies died after being reported to DCYF by health care practitioners as having been exposed to street drugs. Although the agency opened cases on all five, the babies’ cases were closed and they were placed back with their parents. 

An investigation into the deaths by the state’s child advocate, Moira O’Neill, will be released in July. O’Neill reported concerns that DCYF failed to adequately monitor the infants and their families, possibly because the agency is understaffed. 

Sununu’s budget speech in January promised to fully staff DCYF to 62 positions, but the budget plan actually funds 26 positions. 

The House budget funds 57 positions, the number DCYF requested.

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