The New Hampshire House voted to concur on Senate changes to HB 1 and HB 2, the state budget bills. Both bills will now head to the governor for signature.
House Democratic Leader Matt Wilhelm (D-Manchester) said that, “no budget is perfect, but the one we’ve crafted does so much to meet the needs of Granite Staters. From the start of the budget process, House Democrats have prioritized funding for health care, public education, affordable housing, and childcare. These critical needs for both families and employers were well funded in the final budget and will greatly benefit our state.
After years of no salary increases, this budget delivers a substantial, well-deserved pay raise for New Hampshire’s hard-working state employees. While I am disappointed that retirement benefits for police and fire fighters were not included in the final budget, I appreciate the commitment to get it done through a commission later this year.
Overall, this budget does a lot of good things for the State of New Hampshire. I thank the leadership of both parties and both chambers, who kept lines of communication open and worked in good faith to get us to ‘yes.’”
Finance Ranking Democrat Mary Jane Wallner (D-Concord) said, “this budget goes a long way toward meeting the needs of New Hampshire citizens and our communities. The House laid a strong foundation, and the Senate was able to build on that by increasing funding for childcare, affordable housing and public education. By working together, we were able to provide a desperately needed rate increase for our Medicaid providers and raise for our state employees.
Democrats did not get everything we want - despite a significant increase in funding for public education, some communities will not receive any more than they do this year. We remain concerned about the continued downshifting of expenses to property taxpayers through elimination of taxes paid by the wealthy.
Despite our concerns in some areas, this budget funds the vital services of our state. I thank my colleagues for their strong vote passing this budget onto the Governor today.”