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Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Senate budget plan wins final OK before panel
Senate budget writers gave their final, formal approval Tuesday for a two-year, $15.6 billion state budget proposal (HB 1) whose Republican architects called it a 'tough' plan that deals with a loss of billions in federal grants. 'The vast amount of it will make our state a better place, make it a powerhouse economically,' said state Sen. Tim Lang, R-Sanbornton. 'It was tough work, hard work. It was an excellent product for the state of New Hampshire." The two Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee praised their Republican colleagues for reversing several hundred million dollars of cuts made in the House-approved budget. But they said they voted against the budget plan for a lack of spending on housing and child care and for raising costs for working families, including a new health care premium for many families on Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. 'The Senate has made improvements to the budget that the House sent us. I don't think we can confuse 'better' with 'adequate,'' said Senate Deputy Democratic Leader Cindy Rosenwald of Nashua. 'This bill does nothing to lower costs for Granite Staters. In fact, it raises costs in many ways.' The panel approved by the same 6-2 vote a budget trailer bill (HB 2) that makes more than 260 changes in state law needed to carry out the budget priorities. 'This was a difficult road to go down. We were able to restore a lot of what the House had taken out,' said Senate Majority Leader Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead. Senate President Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry, served on a budget committee for the first time in her 21 years in the Legislature. 'Over the last two biennium (four years), we had a lot of money, most of it an infusion of cash from the federal government," Carson said. "We spent that money and were smart about how we spent it, but it is gone. It is gone and now we have to go back to the New Hampshire way of living within our means." Finance Chairman James Gray, R-Rochester, noted the committee's first actions erased House cuts in payments to Medicaid providers and in services for mental health and people with developmental disabilities. 'This is a tight budget year, and that means we have to make tough choices with limited state dollars. Our focus has been on targeted state spending on New Hampshire's most vulnerable populations,' Gray said. The two-year Senate plan includes $67 million more in state aid to the University System of New Hampshire than the House budget. But Sen. Dan Innis, R-Bradford, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, said the $85 million a year in the Senate budget looks small, since the state was giving the University System $100 million a year in 2006. 'We need to start viewing both of these entities as investments in our future rather than spending,' Innis said. 'The $100 million every year, inflation-adjusted would be $166 million; we're spending $85 million, which is half. That's just embarrassing — it just is.' +++ What's Next: The full Senate votes on the recommended budget on Thursday. Prospects: A House-Senate conference committee will meet later this month to seek a compromise between the two spending bills. klandrigan@
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Senate Finance Committee moves to nix New Hampshire's arts council amid budget woes
The Capitol Center for the Arts in downtown Concord on May 21, 2025. (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin) Another effort to prevent New Hampshire's State Council on the Arts from being eliminated during the state budgeting process has fallen short. New Hampshire state senators have spent the last few weeks working through the state budget. After the Senate Ways and Means Committee projected that state revenues — which have been lagging in recent years — would rebound faster than House predictions, the Senate Finance Committee has been identifying cuts made by the House that the Senate can undo. The committee recommendations so far include reversing a 3% cut to Medicaid reimbursement rates and restoring funding for developmental disability services. However, on Wednesday, the committee didn't do the same for the State Council on the Arts, which the House eliminated in its version of the budget. The Senate Finance Committee voted, 5-3, not to restore the council during a work session Wednesday. Gov. Kelly Ayotte had included funding of roughly $1.7 million over two years for the council in her budget proposal. The council was also set to receive an additional $2 million in federal funds. Sen. Cindy Rosenwald, a Nashua Democrat and one of the three dissenting votes on the Finance Committee, pushed for the arts council to be restored Wednesday, saying, 'the arts help drive the economy.' Sen. David Watters, a Dover Democrat, said the arts are 'so deeply woven into the fabric of the state and always have been and (are) something that helps define our identity.' 'It supports traditional arts programs, it supports the thriving arts community all around the state,' Watters said. 'I think we should at least restore it to the governor's level.' Republicans on the committee disagreed. 'I do think the Council of the Arts is important,' Sanborton Republican Sen. Tim Lang said. 'But in this tough budget cycle where we're balancing the needs versus the wants, a $3 million add is probably not appropriate for a want.' Lang proposed an amendment that establishes a state fund that can accept donations. The council would become a volunteer council, and the state would appropriate $1 to the fund, a procedure mechanism to create it. He noted that many other councils in the state are voluntary. 'So the council could go out and get corporate sponsors and donations,' Lang said. 'They'll be able to use those donations to get federal matching grants, and it'd allow them to at least continue in some way, shape, or form their mission and their goal.' Watters pushed back against the amendment. He said if the state is not putting money toward it, the arts can't complete its mission. 'If there's no funding, there's no arts council,' Watters said. 'Let's face it.' The committee voted, 5-3, to approve Lang's amendment. The Council on the Arts could still be restored if an amendment is introduced to the budget when the full Senate votes on it in June. If the Council on the Arts isn't restored, New Hampshire would become the only U.S. state not to have such a council, according to the National Endowment for the Arts website. New Hampshire's State Council on the Arts receives federal support from the Endowment for the Arts. Hearing the news Wednesday, Ayotte told reporters she was disappointed in the Senate Finance Committee's recommendation. Her budget proposal, which projected state revenues would be higher than both the House and Senate estimates, pared down funding for the council but did not eliminate it entirely. 'I've been very clear: I do support the arts,' Ayotte said. 'I think it's really part of the culture of our state, but as we think about our travel and tourism and attracting people to New Hampshire, the arts are a part of our economic development as well.'
