As Senate takes up budget, state rep intensifies attacks on New Hampshire's child advocate

Yahoo

24-04-2025

Child Advocate Cassandra Sanchez speaks on March 22, 2023. Behind her are, from left, Sen. Sharon Carson, Rep. Jess Edwards, and Joe Ribsman, the former head of DCYF. (File photo by Annmarie Timmins/New Hampshire Bulletin)
What was originally pitched as purely a cost-cutting measure has morphed into attacks on the New Hampshire Office of the Child Advocate.
When state Rep. Dan McGuire originally proposed eliminating the Office of the Child Advocate — which serves as the state's watchdog for its child welfare, juvenile justice, and youth care systems, and advocates for the best interests of New Hampshire children — he said it had to be done because the state needed to save money amid a challenging fiscal environment. However, the Epsom Republican has since altered his argument, saying the office is interfering with the Legislature's work.
McGuire, as chair of one of the three legislative subcommittees tasked with cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from the state budget, first publicly pitched eliminating the office — as well as the Commission on Aging and the Housing Appeals Board — during a March 17 work session.
'There's a number of these smaller things that are sort of nice-to-haves, but they're not necessary,' McGuire said that day. 'And so, we need the money. I don't know how to put it any blunter.'
The work session came in the midst of the lengthy state budgeting process that began in February when Gov. Kelly Ayotte released her budget proposal. Soon after, the Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee deemed her revenue projections — which predicted a quick economic turnaround after years of lagging business tax revenues — too optimistic by hundreds of millions of dollars. Republicans on the Finance Committee, including McGuire, soon got to work cutting. McGuire was tasked with finding $200 million of savings, he said. Cutting the child advocate saves the state about $2.2 million.
However, when the budget came to the full House for a final vote, McGuire said it wasn't just the need for cost-savings that warranted this elimination.
'The Office of Child Advocate has interfered with rather than assisted needed legislation to reform child abuse and child welfare laws,' he said on the House floor this month.
McGuire assessed the office's two main functions as advocating for and against legislation and serving in an ombudsman or conflict resolution-type role.
'There are no end to people interested in legislation who have child welfare in mind,' he said. 'We don't need to hire people to do that.'
McGuire added that the latter function was 'duplicative' of that of the Division for Children, Youth, and Families, 'and if DCYF is poorly run, the solution is not to create yet another agency, but its to fix and change the leadership of DCYF.'
McGuire did not respond to the Bulletin's requests for an interview.
Cassandra Sanchez, the state's child advocate and head of that office, said neither McGuire nor his colleagues spoke to her about the elimination or raised any of their concerns before they moved to eliminate her office. She also said McGuire's floor speech was the first she heard that he was displeased with her work.
'They did mention that there needed to be further cost-saving measures, but had not floated any idea of the potential of repealing our statute,' she previously told the Bulletin. 'And given our office budget is so miniscule, I had not even thought of that as a potential option.'
Soon after McGuire's statements on the House floor, the New Hampshire House of Representatives approved a roughly $15.36 billion budget — one that eliminated funding for the Office of the Child Advocate. That budget spends $643 million less than Ayotte's proposal. Now, it will be considered by the Senate.
Ayotte, who included the office in her budget proposal, said she hopes to work with the Senate to restore the Office of the Child Advocate — as well as several other agencies, funds, and positions that House Republicans removed.
'There are many things that I'm going to be working with the Senate to prioritize and make sure that I get back in the priorities that were in my budget,' Ayotte, who is also a Republican, said earlier this month around the vote.
She added that she is '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 will now have the opportunity to either restore funding for the Office of the Child Advocate or keep it out of the budget. State Sen. James Gray, the Senate's finance chair, said he won't say for certain what the Senate hopes to do until the Senate Ways and Means Committee has completed its revenue projections, but he noted that the Senate Finance Committee is being pulled in many different directions.
'The Finance Committee has a lot of requests from a lot of different people to restore things from the House budget,' he said. 'Before we can make any informed decision, we need to know what revenues are.'
Gray said programs to keep children safe — like the Office of the Child Advocate — are a priority. Funding Medicaid for people with disabilities is also a priority.
'I could go on and on,' he said. 'It's just too many priorities and the funding is limited.'
Gray said he and his legislative colleagues are always communicating with the governor's office, but wouldn't say whether they'd discussed the budget yet.