CONCORD — Advocates for licensed professionals, nursing homes, behavioral health programs and more state aid to education urged House budget writers Monday to make significant changes to Gov. Chris Sununu’s $13.9 million proposed state budget.
The spending plan Sununu offered last month would increase total spending by nearly 12% while offering pay raises of 10% and 2% in successive years to all state employees.
Much of the testimony over more than four hours Monday, however, called for additional spending.
Psychologists, local assessors, landscape architects and those serving the sight- and hearing-impaired all protested Sununu’s ambitious plan to eliminate eight professional boards and 36 licenses.
Susan Wolf-Downes of Manchester used sign language in urging the House Finance Committee to reject moving the board for blind, deaf, hard of hearing from the Secretary of State to the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification.
“You can’t imagine what impact that will have,” Wolf-Downes said.
Manchester Chief Assessor Robert Gagne said Sununu signed a law to create an independent assessing certification board last June.
In the trailer bill to the state budget (HB 2), however, Sununu wants to make that new board advisory and under the licensing office’s complete control.
“This may be a good idea, but it was done without the proper vetting,” Gagne said.
Deborah Warner, a licensed psychologist from Littleton, said the nine-person Board of Psychologists she is on has served the state well for 50 years.
Sununu would merge allied health professionals into a joint board with one psychologist member.
But Drew Cline, president of the fiscally-conservative Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, said Sununu’s plan needs to remain intact for it to work.
“Lawmakers should resist the temptation to pick the package apart,” Cline said.
Late last week, the House Executive Departments and Administration Committee went on record against eliminating seven licenses contained in Sununu’s plan.
Sununu has proposed an across-the-board 3% increase in rates paid to all health care providers under the federal-state Medicaid insurance plan for low-income, disabled and some senior citizens.
Several speakers joined the New Hampshire Hospital Association in endorsing instead a 15% rate hike where staffing shortages were most chronic for nursing homes, behavioral health facilities and for licensed nursing assistants.
Brendan Williams, president of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, said Massachusetts raised its Medicaid rates 36% since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and it has only one-sixth as many shortages in nursing homes as New Hampshire has.
“A lot of our nurses are going across the border for better-paying opportunities,” Williams said.
Sandra Pelletier, CEO and president of Gateways Community Services, said the workforce shortage has hit her Nashua-based agency hard as it treats 3,000 clients, two-thirds of whom are children with behavioral health programs. “This could be your son, your daughter, your grandchild, your grandfather, all of them are in need of your services,” Pelletier said.
Hospital Association President and CEO Steve Ahnen took aim at Sununu’s bid to make all acute-care hospitals open mental health beds and eliminate in state law the requirement the state must “immediately” get patients out of hospital emergency rooms and into treatment.
“These versions are wrong and should not be included in House Bill 2,” Ahnen said.
Aid to education
Sununu’s budget would increase state aid to public schools by $200 million over the next two years while reforming the formula to direct more grants to property and income-poor school districts.
Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig said it doesn’t go far enough.
“The average cost to educate one student for a whole year is about $20,000. However, the state only provides, on average, approximately $4,700 per student,” Craig said. “Local property taxpayers must make up the difference, resulting in large variability in tax rates and the quality of education provided.”
Craig signed on to a letter from officials representing 45 school districts and 70 cities and towns urging the state to increase school funding.
Sununu’s plan would increase state support by about 10% each year. The letter called for more than twice that increase.
“The solutions would also improve outcomes for many high-need students by not only providing more education funding to almost all school districts, but by specifically aiding districts that serve students with greater needs,” the letter said.
Frank Knaack, policy director with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, objected to Sununu’s new $1.4 million effort to police illegal immigration at the northern border with Canada.
“We are concerned this is going to be used to go after low-level drug offenses,” Knaack said.
Several speakers praised several of Sununu’s spending priorities including $55 million to build more housing and more incentives to expand child care. The panel has until the end of March to complete its recommendations to the House on the budget.
