Legislature votes today on $11.7b budget; here are some highlights
Here are some of the highlights:
Business tax cuts: The Business Profits Tax goes from 7.9 percent to 7.7 percent in 2019 and to 7.5 percent in 2021. The Business Enterprise Tax goes from 0.675 percent to 0.60 percent in 2019 and to 0.50 percent in 2021.
Electricity Consumption Tax: Billed at a rate of
Infrastructure Funding from 2017 surplus:
School
State retiree health care: Provides
Municipal aid: Distributes
Drug Courts: Provides
Public Safety: Provides funding for five new state trooper positions in 2018, with authority to hire five more in 2019.
Corrections: Provides funding for 55 new positions at the new women's prison in
Transportation: Fully funds highway block grants to municipalities at approximately
Child Protection: Provides funding for 20 additional child protective service workers in the Division for Children Youth and Families; Establishes an associate commissioner position with responsibility for overseeing DCYF.
Domestic violence: Allocates
Medicaid: Appropriates
Elderly and Adult Services: Appropriates
Public Health: Requires the DHHS commissioner to establish and use a competitive bidding process for family planning services, and prohibits state funds from being awarded to reproductive health-care facilities to be used for abortion services.
Mental Health: Adds
Drug treatment: Increases funding for the Governor's
Development Services: Appropriates
NH Veterans Home: Provides that any unexpended balance in the Veterans Home appropriation for 2018 can be used to raise pay for licensed nursing assistants so that the home can open additional beds now vacant due to lack of staff.
Education: Provides additional per pupil aid to charter public schools of
University System of
Medicaid Expansion: Requires DHHS to seek a waiver from the federal government allowing the state to impose work requirements on certain Medicaid recipients. Failure to obtain the waiver will result in termination of Medicaid expansion, known as the New Hampshire Health Protection Program.
Not included in the budget:
--Funding of Governor's
--Sale of the
--Funding for additional DCYF social workers and voluntary services to help families whose child abuse or neglect cases are determined to be "unfounded but with concern" at an estimated cost of
--Nine new nurses at
--Tuition freeze at University System of
--Full funding of retiree health care,
--Additional stabilization grants to help municipalities experiencing declining enrollment,
--Granite Workforce, a workforce development proposal that would allow the state
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