This week, my committee continued with public hearings. HB 233, requiring the New Hampshire vaccine association record and publish its meetings, including written questions and their answers, had a rather contentious hearing. The supporters spoke of transparency and being unable to get their questions answered; the association insisted that it was merely a pass through entity that collected funds from insurance companies to buy vaccines requested by health & human services (HHS,) in order to simplify paperwork for direct providers and buy vaccines at the CDC discounted rate. This testimony convinced the committee that the questions the supporters wanted answered were not in the scope of the vaccine association, but the vaccine department at HHS. We did agree about recording the meetings, but since they are typically held on Zoom, the effort to do so is minimal. One member went ff to get an amendment to focus the bill.
HB 156, asking for a study committee on state procurement, with an emphasis on local food production, had an impassioned supporter and no opposition (except for our natural disinclination to support study committees!) It also lacks a sunset clause, so an amendment is necessary.
HB 278, requiring proxy carbon pricing in state procurement, is a repeat of last year’s bill to implement carbon pricing into state construction and transportation purchases. Sponsor and one supporter, no opposition, but the bill assumed the state purchasing department is not already considering new energy and border tariffs into their estimated energy prices!
HB 156, establishing a new full-time position at Volunteer NH, again only had the sponsor. Volunteer NH is a federally funded charity that helps utilize Americorps volunteers in the state; the new position would be to help volunteers capitalize on their experience, most likely using existing programs. Volunteer NH currently gets no state funding (other than office space and incidentals), and it is a charity able to accept donations and grants. The need for this position was stated in a 2020 report, and there is no indication that Volunteer NH ever explored how to do this, nor why it should be a full-time position, even though the executive director has full authority to hire people on their own initiative. The committee discussed this after the hearing, and even those members sympathetic to the mission of Volunteer NH largely thought the position was definitely a “nice to have” luxury, not a necessity. We voted 10-2 to kill the bill.
HB 469, changing one banker for a municipal manager on the public depository investment pool (PDIP) advisory committee, had supporters (municipal managers) and opponents (bankers.) We discussed it, and decided that bankers could have a conflict of interest in that they hope to sell products to the PDIP, whereas municipal managers are the PDIP customers. We voted unanimously to recommend the bill to pass.
HB 570 clarified some definitions used by the prescription drug affordability board, and extended the employment of the executive director for another five years. Only the sponsor came to testify. We discussed the bill and agreed we didn’t want to extend the executive director’s funding, but had no problems with the definitions. Then we started to look into whether or not this board was actually necessary and couldn’t come up with a clear need for it. The main report it produces – on
drug prices and usage – is actually redundant to reports from the insurance department! So a member is working on an amendment to repeal the entire statute.
The next day started easily as the sponsors of the first two bills (HB 622, on retirees working part-time, and HB 534, a change to the calculation of average final compensation for pension purposes) declared that the bills wouldn’t do what they intended and asked us to kill the bills! We agreed without debate. With that free time, we voted to retain two bills in subcommittee: HB 349, about optometrists doing laser surgery, and HB 244, recodifying enforcement of the state building and fire codes. In both cases, the sponsors agreed that more work was needed, and the schedule was too tight to do it by the deadlines.
HB 233, on the vaccine association meeting recording, was discussed and debated. The issues were that this is a private organization (state charted and controlled, but private) and some members felt that either we didn’t have the right to require them to act in a certain way, or contrariwise, that we should impose the transparency requirements on all such organizations. We all agreed that there was no need to post questions and answers, so we adopted the amendment; the vote to pass the bill was 7-6.
HB 536 would give retirees an unfunded cost of living adjustment. We heard lots of history about the retirement system and pleas for more for the retirees. I personally am opposed because the cost of this benefit increase is just over $100 million, and it will be paid by local property taxpayers for the next 22 years! The last time a COLA was recommended, in 2019, the state was running a substantial surplus, and I argued that we should just fund the COLA if we wanted to give one. I lost then, but this year, the budget doesn’t look like it will have much surplus.
HB 637, adding a group of recent retirees to those having the pension cut extended to their social security full retirement age, was another plea for more benefits. It went to subcommittee to examine the details. (Group 1 employees who retire before 65 (or their full retirement age, now) get an enhanced pension at first, then about a 10% decrease at that date. This was a fudge created in the 1980s when group 1 pensions were disentangled from social security. The people who have complained to us about it don’t think of the pre-65 pension as enhanced; they think of the post-65 pension as a cut.)
HB 581, Dan’s Group III pension plan, took up the rest of the day. This is a defined contribution pension plan for new, Group I, state employees, and was opposed by all the state employee unions and several non-state unions, as a first step towards defined contribution plans for everyone. The retirement system was very negative, implying that by not getting any new state employees the system would need to invest much more conservatively to maximize cash flows. The supporters were largely people who had retired with defined contribution plans (and frequently defined benefit as well); the actual data shows that only 27% of newly hired state employees actually make it to the 10 year vesting milestone! This bill, too, went to subcommittee.
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We’d like to thank Carol McGuire for the Op-Ed. As a reminder, authors’ opinions are their own and may not represent those of Grok Media, LLC, GraniteGrok.com, its sponsors, readers, authors, or advertisers. Submit Op-Eds to steve@granitegrok.com
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