State senators try to salvage New Hampshire's child advocate amid budget cuts
New Hampshire's Office of the Child Advocate has been on the chopping block this session as state lawmakers look to trim the budget during a difficult fiscal year. However, some senators, slightly more bullish on the state's economic outlook, have proposed a way to keep the office, albeit in a slimmed-down form.
When the New Hampshire House of Representatives passed its version of the budget, it eliminated the Office of the Child Advocate. Established in 2018, the office serves as a watchdog for New Hampshire's youth, overseeing the state's child welfare, juvenile justice, and youth care systems, and advocating for the best interests of children in the state. Eliminating it would save the state — which has been experiencing lagging business tax revenues — around $2.2 million over two years. However, state senators — who projected a slightly less dire financial outlook and appear more interested in keeping the child advocate — have since come up with a proposal to restore it.
'I'm trying to find a middle ground that the House will accept,' Sen. Sharon Carson, who is spearheading the proposal, said. 'Keeping it but compressing it down for now and still allowing them the funds that they need to do the job I think is important.'
Carson, a Londonderry Republican and the Senate president, said she plans to propose an amendment to the budget that would restore the Office of the Child Advocate but lay off four of its employees. The amendment also gives the office the option to request more money from the Fiscal Committee in the future should the state's finances improve over the course of the next two-year budget term.
The committee is expected to finalize the budget plan on Tuesday. After that, the entire Senate will vote to create the Senate's final version of the budget. From there, the Senate and House will hash out the differences between their budgets before Gov. Kelly Ayotte gets the opportunity to review and either approve or veto it.
Carson believes there's enough Republican support for her proposal on the child advocate. She hopes it's 'a path that the House can accept.' Carson serves on the Children's Oversight Committee and has been pleased with the office's work.
'After working with the office for a number of years, I know how valuable it is,' Carson said. 'And I know the value of the work they do, so we had to try to figure out a way to save it.'
Cassandra Sanchez, who heads the Office of the Child Advocate, said she has 'really mixed feelings' about the proposal.
'It's a really difficult time to look at reducing the office in the way in which that amendment would,' Sanchez said. 'But, of course, seeing an amendment come forth that continues funding to our office and does not eliminate the office altogether is a big win for us.'
Sanchez said the four positions to be eliminated are an office coordinator (which is currently vacant), a public relations and training officer, the associate child advocate (her second-in-command), and a case aide. As the budget cut threats have loomed, she's conceded to lawmakers that if they have to cut positions, losing the public relations and training officer won't impact their caseload management and she asked that it be removed first.
She's most fearful of the case aide being laid off because that position reviews all restraints and seclusions of children, and the state has been seeing rising numbers of these tactics being used, she said.
In April, the state saw approximately 450 instances of children being restrained or secluded by a state worker, according to her office's most recent numbers. Sanchez's office is the only agency that reviews such instances to ensure they're necessary and in the best interest of the child. She said the office would 'be able to function quite well' with the other three positions removed 'but (the case aide) is the one critical position being cut that is truly going to have an impact on the children of New Hampshire.'
The amendment also includes a provision that prohibits the office from partisan advocacy. Sanchez has been vocal in support of trans youth in the state. In April 2024, she participated in a press conference speaking out against bills targeting LGBTQ children, which ruffled feathers among Republicans. State Sen. Victoria Sullivan told New Hampshire Public Radio the advocacy is 'distracting from the actual good work that's happening with the children, with the systems.' Other lawmakers have echoed the sentiment.
Sanchez said she's 'not extremely clear on what that means,' but 'could assume' it's a reference to that press conference and other LGBTQ advocacy. She wants more clarification from lawmakers, or even an interpretation from the attorney general. Regardless, she has not backed down on the issue.
'I have had conversations where I'm willing to talk about the way in which we engage with the Legislature around those issues,' she continued. 'But it would not change our viewpoint, which again, backed by psychological research, is that supporting a child and their gender identity, however they choose to explore that gender identity, supporting them in that exploration is healthy for their development. And so that is where I stand and where the office stands on those issues. And we will continue to advocate for protections of those vulnerable children and sharing factual information about the statistics and the outcomes for children when there is harmful legislation that attacks their ability to freely express themselves.'
She said leading a team where employees are aware that their jobs are on the chopping block, through no control of their own, has been 'extremely difficult.'
'It's nothing I ever thought or had planned for having to manage,' Sanchez said. 'And now that it's here, I'm really taking it day-by-day. … But it is hard because the work we do already is so heavy and so difficult, and then to add that burden of the unknown on top of it, for their own lives, their own jobs, it's a lot for folks to deal with.'
Still, she said, the team is 'not gonna let pessimism sink in.'
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