To my constituents in Allenstown, Epsom, & Pittsfield:
This week, the House started in on the new 2020 bills, with a flood of public hearings. So there were many fewer bills to me to report on, but more data on most of them.
I presented my HB 1412 to the Education Committee. This bill requires all high schools to grant graduation credit from courses earned at any other New Hampshire public school, with an allowance for partial credit, at the school’s discretion, that must be reported to the student, parents and the state board of education (to allow for poor performance or a poor fit with the new school’s curriculum.) Sounds obvious, but I’ve heard from many people that it isn’t always the case. I also presented HB 1416, which allows cosmeticians and estheticians to get a certificate from the body art (tattoo) board to perform eyebrow microblading. This is a form of permanent makeup, currently trendy, that otherwise requires a full body art license. Neither bill had any opposition, so I hope they will go forward.
My committee also heard a pair of bills (HB 1292 and 1293) to update the Manchester city retirement system to current IRS regulations and to require employees to contribute more to the system, retire later, and calculate their final pay on a five year average, not three. These are almost exactly the reforms we made to the state retirement system in 2011, to extreme opposition from the employees, their unions and most Democrat legislators, so it was amusing to seem them presented by a Democrat unionist!
We also heard HB 1377, which makes some technical corrections to the law on death benefits for first responders and rescue squad members who are killed in the line of duty; and HB 1259, exempting the Department of Information Technology’s anti-hacking procedures from formal (and public) rulemaking. Both need a few tweaks in language but are most probably going to pass. HB 1260, reducing the penalties for licensing violations, is a repeat of HB 1818 from 2018, which went to interim study. The report of the study had a number of recommendations for subsequent legislation, none of which were incorporated into HB 1260. I therefore believe it will be killed quickly unless someone on the committee decides to take action – and I doubt that will happen.
HB 1314, which started as a minor update to the acupuncture licensing board, has generated a flood of email from acupuncturists who want other changes: they’re happy with what the bill does, but reviewing it raised a host of other issues, the most important being continued membership in a for profit credentialing board that only includes one form of acupuncture, rather than the half dozen or so that are available. It’s going to subcommittee, including me.
HB 1286, licensing music therapists, drew a large crowd. There was the usual group of music therapists explaining how wonderful and necessary it was, but there were also several speech-language pathologists who were opposed. It’s all about the money: the reasons for licensing were explained as being able to get insurance and/or Medicaid reimbursement, with other concerns that music therapy wasn’t listed as a special education service under the current software used to generate IEPs (individual education programs.) The speech language pathologists were concerned that music therapists would bill to “their” codes and many insurance programs have limits on how much is reimbursed for these services. It’s also going to subcommittee, and I’m on that one as well.
Next week, we have three full days of hearings, and all my other bills have public hearings.
BY NH State Rep Carol McGuire
