State House Dome: Sununu takes some hits in emerging House GOP budget

Mar. 25—THE TWO-YEAR STATE BUDGET coming out of the House Finance Committee this week will contain plenty of changes to Gov. Chris Sununu's proposal.

This was expected, because House budget writers are working with revenue estimates $82 million lower than what Sununu forecast.

The three divisions working on the House budget completed their recommendations Friday. The full committee must ratify all of them to get into the final document.

They start going through it Monday at 10 a.m.

Sununu isn't acting stressed. "Don't get overly excited. The sausage is made around May 15 to June 15 or so," he told the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce last week.

In the meantime, let's look at some of the big differences:

—Housing: The plan shaves $25 million off Sununu's request, dropping the InvestNH plan from $30 million to $15 million and Affordable Housing Fund from $25 million to $15 million.

Rep. Joe Sweeney, R-Salem, said InvestNH keeps the grants for communities to create more incentives to add to the housing stock, which is the most pressing need.

The House budget also rejects a historic housing tax credit requested by Sununu.

—Medicaid expansion: Last week, the Senate gave final approval to a bill from Senate President Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, to permanently expand Medicaid for low-income adults (SB 263).

The proposed House trailer bill to the budget will only extend it for another two years.

Medicaid Director Henry Lippman said the program goes back out to bid in 2024, so this would give companies only one year of certainty.

Practically, House Finance Chairman Ken Weyler, R-Kingston, believes too many GOP conservatives would oppose a budget that gave a blank check to Medicaid expansion.

—Medicaid provider rates: This is an area where the House bid up from Sununu's budget.

Sununu requested a 3.1% across-the-board rate increase for all providers, at a state taxpayer cost of $34 million for 2024-25.

The proposed House plan supports $92 million in such rate hikes, with the amounts targeted by provider class.

Rep. Keith Erf, R-Weare, designed the matrix, which closely followed one devised by Rep. Jerry Stringham, D-Lincoln. Stringham had sought rate hikes closer to $200 million over the next two years.

This plan gives the New Hampshire Hospital Association its wish that its inpatient and outpatient providers get no increase so others can receive higher rates.

For example, community mental health centers would see a hike of about 8% in the first year and 11% in the second.

The biggest rate hike pool ($14 million) is for developmental disability and other child support providers. Other significant amounts go to nursing homes ($8 million), Choice For Independence in-home assistance ($3.6 million), assisted living ($1.2 million) and ambulance services ($3.3 million).

This would delay rate increases until Jan. 1.

The package also gives the Department of Health and Human Services a $10 million set-aside that the agency can use to give earlier rate hikes to critical services that need them.

—Education trust fund: This Weyler plan reduces the business tax revenue that automatically flows into the aid to education account, which has been experiencing massive surpluses.

Two years ago, lawmakers used $100 million of that surplus to cut the statewide property tax for cities and towns.

—Aid to education: The House budget will spend $20 million more a year in school aid while adopting Sununu's plan to alter the funding formula over a 10-year period and give more grants to income and property-poor school districts.

Conservative loses his spot

There was a curious development in the House Republican caucus Thursday morning.

State Rep. J.R. Hoell, R-Dunbarton, lost his front-row seat in the chamber, next to Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Auburn and Majority Whip Sweeney.

His seat is now two rows behind House GOP leaders.

Hoell, an officer in both the House Republican Alliance and the House Freedom Caucus, provides a critical link for Osborne's leadership team in the care and feeding of the GOP's most right-wing forces.

The intel behind seating assignments in Representatives Hall is a closely guarded secret.

"I don't have anything to share," Hoell said when asked about it.

Osborne insisted this was not a slap at Hoell, however, but an effort to assist a new member of his group.

"As we have a new member of our leadership team who was not a part of our orientations at the beginning of the term, we wanted to seat her next to other team members who can help her quickly adapt to her new role," Osborne said in statement.

Taking Hoell's seat was Rep. Juliet Harvey-Bolia, R-Tilton, who Osborne recently promoted to be a new assistant majority whip.

Osborne promoted Harvey-Bolia and Rep. Leah Cushman, R-Weare, to these new roles after Rep. Aidan Ankarberg, R-Rochester, resigned as deputy majority whip. She had accused unnamed GOP leaders of "vicious slander, coercion and outright incompetence."

Maybe one thing has nothing to do with the other, but Hoell's move just happened to come the morning after a pretty big fumble on the House floor.

On Wednesday, Osborne's team had defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

At issue was legislation to permit a member-based health care center to compete for patients with hospitals and other providers that provide millions in free care to their patients (HB 69).

The House initially passed the bill by a single vote, 190-189 with the backing of two Democrats, first-term Reps. Sherry Gould of Warner and Jared Sullivan of Bethlehem.

The only House Republicans who opposed the bill were Reps. Dan Wolf of Newbury and Steven Bogert of Laconia.

Hoell went to the microphone and called for reconsideration of the vote.

This is done in hopes of locking down the win so it can move on to the state Senate.

Trouble is, when a vote is that close, sometimes it is best just to let it be.

Sure enough, Hoell's motion backfired, as the House voted, 193-185 to reconsider what it had just done.

House Democratic leaders then moved to table the bill, and that motion passed, 192-187.

Christie, Haley returning

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a potential 2024 GOP hopeful, returns to New Hampshire to speak at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics Monday night at Saint Anselm College.

Former South Carolina Gov. and presidential candidate Nikki Haley is back, too, first for a town hall Monday night at the Restoration Church in Dover and then Tuesday night at the Derry-Salem Elks Lodge in Salem.

Bill repeals doctor penalties

Even some abortion rights supporters in the House were surprised that 16 House Republicans bucked leadership and approved legislation (HB 224) to repeal criminal and civil penalties against doctors who perform an abortion after the 24-week ban on the procedure.

The 16 were a mix from across the state and included some of the most moderate and libertarian members in the GOP caucus:

Reps. Lex Berezhny of Grafton, David Bickford of New Durham, Mike Bordes of Laconia, Carroll Brown of Bristol, Karel Crawford of Moultonborough, Tanya Donnelly of Salem, Oliver Ford of Chester, John Lewicke of Mason, David Lundgren of Londonderry, James Mason of Franklin, David Nagel of Gilmanton, Mark Proulx or Manchester, Dick Thackston of Troy, Susan Vandercasteele of Salem, Dan Wolf of Newbury and Josh Yokela of Fremont.

Last Friday, Bradley referred this bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee along with the other abortion rights bill (HB 88) to enshrine in state law abortion protections for women up to the 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Oops vote on abortion ban

First-term Rep. Shaun Filiault, D-Keene, said he voted incorrectly when he opposed the repeal of the abortion ban (HB 271).

The bill failed when House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, voted nay and created a 192-192 tie.

If Filiault had pressed the right button, the bill would have passed, 193-190, without Packard getting to vote.

Filiault said has asked House Clerk Paul Smith to officially record his mistake in the House Journal, but that doesn't change the outcome.

The bill is on the table in the House.

Legislative pay raise fails

House Republicans took some lumps last week, but they succeeded in getting their counterparts on record regarding a big pay raise for legislators.

The bipartisan proposed constitutional amendment (CACR 4) would have asked voters if they want to raise lawmaker pay from $100 to $5,000 annually, with the speaker and senate president's pay going from $125 to $6,250.

Advocates argued this is necessary because of the cost of living. New Hampshire's legislative salary, the lowest in the nation, hasn't changed since 1889.

"This is not a raise we are giving ourselves but a way to recoup some of the many expenses we have for being here," said Rep. Walter Stapleton, R-Claremont.

House Democratic leaders moved to table, no doubt hoping to avoid the issue altogether.

This failed on a division vote of 229-153.

Then when the House GOP demanded a roll call, the Democratic ranks shrunk further, with the amendment going down, 239-149.

House Democrats backed the hike 136-55, but many in top leadership went the other way, including House Democratic Leader Wilhelm, Deputy Leader Alexis Simpson of Exeter and Laura Telerski of Nashua, who chairs the Dems' political action committee.

The House GOP caucus opposed it, 184-9.

A big, big table

The House sessions last week ended more smoothly than they might have after leaders in both parties accepted the principle of mutually assured destruction.

House Republican and Democratic leaders decided to forgo debates and instead put on the table dozens of bills, most of which were deadlocked in committee.

House Education Chairman Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, and ranking Democrat member Mel Myler, D-Contoocook, agreed to set aside 13 of the 16 bills they were scheduled to debate.

"We both worked very well together on this and there's an agreement none of them are coming off," said Rep. David Luneau, D-Hopkinton, who also was involved in the negotiations.

This very large table now has 61 bills in limbo on it.

Capital budget moves forward

Continuing a long, bipartisan tradition, the House Public Works and Highways Committee under the leadership of Chairman Mark McConkey, R-Freedom, last week endorsed a two-year budget for public works projects by a 17-1 vote.

Sununu had requested $112.8 million in state-backed bonds, which the committee bumped up to $137 million.

Much of the higher price tag stems from approval of a final $17 million in bonds to support building projects at the University System of New Hampshire that complete a long-term investment program adopted by lawmakers years ago.

The panel cut the planned purchase of the Department of Education headquarters in Concord, which it now leases from Granite State College, from $10.5 million to $7.5 million.

They added $7.6 million for a career and technical education center project in the Winnisquam Regional School District and about $7 million for community college upgrades.

Kevin Landrigan is State House Bureau Chief for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. Contact him at klandrigan@unionleader.com.