The governor, House, and Senate each created a budget for NH. Now, they must agree on one.

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4 days ago

The rear of the New Hampshire State House on May 19, 2025. (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin)
When the New Hampshire Senate approved its proposal for the state's two-year spending plan on Thursday, it set off a new phase of the lengthy state budgeting process.
That process began in February when Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte released her budget proposal. Then, House lawmakers got their turn to rework that proposal and in April, they approved their version of the budget before handing it off to the Senate.
Soon, the House and Senate will enter what is known as a committee of conference, where negotiators will hash out the differences of their two budgets with the hope of agreeing on one proposal. Once that is complete — and both chambers sign off once again — Ayotte will have the opportunity to approve the budget, veto it, or allow it to go into law without her signature.
The new fiscal year begins July 1, so officials from the three bodies have to approve a single budget by then in order to fund the government.
Perhaps the most contentious disagreement between the Legislature and the governor was on revenue projections. Months of lagging business tax revenues, combined with the millions of dollars the state must pay out to victims of a massive abuse scandal in its juvenile justice system and the end of pandemic-era federal funding, have made this a particularly tight fiscal environment.
In February, Ayotte unveiled her budget proposal and with it her revenue projections, which were immediately labeled as optimistic. Ayotte predicted the state's revenues would rebound quickly and provide the state with around $6.3 billion over the next two years.
House Republicans were quick to balk at those projections.
'We're just not as optimistic as the governor is with growth,' Rep. John Janigian, a Salem Republican and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, told the Bulletin at the time. 'We think it's a steamship: It takes time to turn it. It's moving in a positive direction, but at a slower rate.'
The House Ways and Means Committee projected $5.8 billion in revenue later in February.
Ayotte rejected those figures, telling reporters in April she was 'confident that the revenue numbers that I laid out in my budget are actually more accurate revenue numbers than the lower proposals made by the House.'
The Senate's projections ended up falling in the middle. The Senate Ways and Means Committee voted to accept a projection of roughly $6.1 billion total revenue over two years. That's about $228.1 million above the House's estimate, but $172.1 million below Ayotte's.
While the Senate landed closer to the governor than the House did, Ayotte still expressed her frustration.
'I disagree with that vote,' she said at a press conference soon after. 'And I also will tell you this: I don't understand why Republicans are joining with Democrats who want to put us in a position to raise taxes instead of adopting, I think, what would be a more accurate revenue picture for the state.'
When she announced her budget in February, Ayotte emphasized the need for belt-tightening, calling her plan a 'recalibration' during a speech in the State House. Still, her budget kept many agencies and programs intact.
In some cases, it expanded programs. That includes the state's voucher-like education freedom accounts, which she proposed opening to students attending public school at all income-levels, increased funding for state services for people with disabilities aimed at eliminating the waitlists for those services, and an additional $32 million for special education.
Ayotte also tried to recoup funds through changes to Medicaid. She proposed instituting premiums on some recipients based on their income, charging higher copays for prescriptions, and allowing Medicaid to purchase name-brand drugs when those drugs are cheaper than generics.
Each chamber's proposal was determined largely by how optimistic or pessimistic their revenue projections were. So for the House, which projected a gloomy financial outlook, steep cuts to Ayotte's budget were proposed.
'We must fit (the budget) to the revenues proposed by the House Ways and Means Committee,' Rep. Ken Weyler, a Kingston Republican and chairman of the House Finance Committee, said during a hearing in March. 'That revenue differs from the governor's estimate by almost $800 million in an almost $16 billion budget. Obviously, this is a bigger challenge than most budgets, but less than some previous challenges.'
Weyler said the governor's budget is 'on a path to overspend by about $50 million.'
When Republican House lawmakers got their hands on the budget, they decided to cut costs by axing several agencies. They voted to eliminate the Office of the Child Advocate, the state's child-focused watchdog overseeing New Hampshire's child welfare, juvenile justice, and youth care systems. They moved to disband the Housing Appeals Board, which allows residents to contest decisions from their local planning and zoning officials. They proposed eliminating the State Council on the Arts, the Human Rights Commission, and the Right-To-Know Ombudsman, among others.
The House's budget also included a lot of layoffs. It proposed eliminating 190 positions in the Department of Corrections, 34 in the Liquor Commission, 27 in the Department of Education, 14 in the Department of Business and Economic Affairs, eight in the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, eight in the Department of Safety, five in the Secretary of State's Office, and three in the Insurance Department.
Among the most controversial moves made by the House were a 3% cut to Medicaid reimbursement rates, a cut to the $1 billion Ayotte set aside in an effort to eliminate the developmental disability services waitlist, and some funding for community mental health centers. It also increased some state fees to help make up for lost revenue, including fees for vanity license plates, dam registrations, wetlands dredging and filling, sewage, state elevator inspections, trucking, agricultural products and equipment, fisheries habitats, driver's licenses, and motor vehicle titles.
'Preliminarily, there's been a difference between what (House Ways and Means) see as revenue and what your budget proposes,' Weyler told Ayotte during a hearing in February. 'We may have to be making some further adjustments as we go, and I hope you will support them.'
Ayotte ultimately didn't support many of those adjustments. In May, after the House finalized its budget, she told reporters, 'My takeaway is that my budget was a lot better.'
When the Senate's turn to amend the budget began last month, senators quickly moved to reverse the Medicaid reimbursement rate cut and the cuts to developmental disability services and community mental health centers.
However, on many of the others they looked for a middle ground. For example, they restored the Office of the Child Advocate, but with reduced funding. Their proposal calls for four positions to be eliminated from the office as opposed to all nine.
Sen. Sharon Carson, who spearheaded the proposal, told the Bulletin she 'know(s) the value of the work they do' so they were 'trying to find a middle ground that the House will accept.'
They took a similar approach to several of the other agencies. For the State Council on the Arts, (which they also debated axing, but eventually reversed course) senators turned it into a volunteer council, appropriating just $1 but allowing it to accept donations and tap into a business tax credit. They also reinstated the State Commission on Aging but cut about $130,000 to bring its total funding down to $150,000.
Ayotte's proposal came out to a total of roughly $16 billion. The House's proposal trimmed that down to spend a total of around $15.5 billion over two years. And the Senate, seeking a middle ground, created a budget that spends roughly $15.9 billion. The current state budget for fiscal years 2024-25 is $15.4 billion.
Now, the Senate and House must agree on one proposal. The House is allowed to accept all the amendments made by the Senate outright, but it is most likely that the two chambers enter into the committee of conference process to hash out differences between their budgets. Their deadline to pass a single budget is June 26.
Once they approve a budget, it goes to Ayotte's desk and the governor can sign it, veto it, or allow it to be enacted without her signature. Ayotte does not have the option of a line-item veto — as many other state constitutions allow their governors to do — which means she has to accept or reject the budget in its entirety.
The state's new fiscal year begins July 1. The new budget must be finalized and enacted by then to fund the government.