(The Center Square) — Ending an impasse with legislative leaders over proposed spending cuts, New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte has signed a state budget that also sets a bell-to-bell ban on cellphones in schools and eliminates state inspections for vehicles.
The budget package, signed by Ayotte Friday, calls for spending $15.9 billion over the next two years while reducing health care and education spending and fixing police and firefighter retirement benefits for a group of pensioners that had them cut. The spending plan narrowly passed the House and Senate amid threats of a veto from Ayotte ahead of a Monday deadline to approve the budget.
It also includes a school cell phone ban championed by Ayotte, and other Republican-backed policy changes such as a prohibition on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in all public schools and state-funded colleges, and an expansion of New Hampshire’s voucher-like school choice program.
Ayotte’s signature on the spending package, and two other budget-related bills, comes after more than a week of sparring with GOP leaders over changes to the budget made during the legislative process.
“We worked together to deliver a fiscally responsible, balanced budget for all of the people of New Hampshire, and that was the goal,” Ayotte said in a statement. “We worked very hard at this, and it’s important that it delivers for our most vulnerable citizens and also protects the New Hampshire advantage.”
The first-term Republican had publicly chastised House leaders for cutting $640 million more from the budget than her preliminary spending plan, particularly cuts for the elderly and Medicaid reimbursements.
The governor had also criticized lawmakers for making last-minute changes to a plan to restore pension benefits for 1,500 first responders who had them cut several years ago, accusing them of shortchanging the state’s first responders. She also joined unions in criticizing changes to the plan that set a pension cap of $125,000 a year. The final budget plan caps pension benefits at $145,000 a year.
Lawmakers also won concessions from Ayotte in the budget, including several “back-of-the budget” cuts to agencies, such as a $51 million in spending reductions at the state Department of Health and Human Services that will require the agency to reduce spending on programs and possibly cut positions.
“This budget is the product of Republican unity and principled leadership,” said Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Auburn. “It defends taxpayers, repeals car inspections, increases aid to local schools, supports the vulnerable, and maintains a fully balanced bottom line. This is a budget that will positively impact the daily lives of Granite Staters.”
Democrats, who voted against the spending package, criticized changes to the state’s Medicaid programs and cuts to state funding for public universities and colleges.
“Granite Staters have asked us for housing, for child care, to lower their monthly health care bills and utility bills, and this budget does almost nothing for any of those,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Rebecca Perkins Kwoka said in a statement. “It’s going to make life less affordable in New Hampshire.”
