governor lets state budget slide: He’s not happy about it, but he says the alternatives are worse. Gov. John Lynch announced last week that he will allow New Hampshire’s next two-year budget to become law without his signature. 

“This is not a budget I can endorse, and I believe the people of New Hampshire deserve and expect better,” Lynch said in a press release. But vetoing the $10.2 billion plan wouldn’t help, he said, and may even hurt. “Given the legislature’s rejection of proposed remedies to the problems in the budget, it is clear that a veto would not lead to a better budget,” he said. 

“Second, there could be serious repercussions to the people of our great state if there is no budget in place on July 1: vital services could be unavailable to our citizens, including everything from driver’s license renewal services, permitting required for businesses and critical road repairs.” Lynch also expressed concern that the Granite State’s credit rating could suffer, and that private contractors would not get paid. 

Major cuts to the University System of New Hampshire (about 45 percent, or $48 million), the community college system (about 20 percent, or $11 million) top the educational impact of the lean budget. 

Educational funding for public schools, however, will remain level. School construction projects will go forward with strict limitations. 

Healthcare and state-provided social services are also taking big hits—$187 million less in funding than Lynch had requested in his own budget proposal this winter. Funding of services for at-risk youths is cut back to only 90 children. 

Hospitals have been getting back the money they paid in Medicaid enhancement taxes, but that will end with the new budget, costing them about $250 million over the next two years. Hospitals also lose $20 million from elimination of the state’s catastrophic illness program and reduced medical education payments. 

“This budget is a betrayal of the commitment the state of New Hampshire has made to the poor in our state who we serve in the Medicaid program,” says N.H. Hospital Association president Steve Ahnen in a video the group posted on YouTube. 

As many as 500 state employees may be laid off as a result of budget cuts. More layoffs could come in the fall when Lynch will be required to negotiate an additional $50 million in savings from benefits packages or personnel costs. 

Plans to reorganize the state’s court system into a circuit court with a statewide call center are also incorporated into the budget. The intended streamlining of that system will also induce some layoffs. 

Planned Parenthood de-funded: In a surprise move last week, the N.H. Executive Council voted 3-2 to terminate a state contract with Planned Parenthood because the health care provider performs abortions. Contracts with family planning agencies that do not provide abortions were maintained. 

The two-year, $1.8 million contract would have been effective July 1, with 68 percent of the funds coming from the federal government. Pilar Olivo, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice NH, told the Union Leader that no federal or state money goes toward abortions. 

Planned Parenthood is the country’s largest provider of sexual and reproductive health services. That includes family planning, birth control and abortions, cancer screening, and STD testing and treatment for men and women. Planned Parenthood says that abortion represents about 3 percent of their services. 

Although the Executive Council and its authority over state expenditures is unique to New Hampshire, the Granite State is not alone in its debate over de-funding Planned Parenthood. Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina and Wisconsin have also recently blocked funding. Activists in Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas are reportedly pushing for similar legislation. 

A federal judge recently imposed a temporary injunction in the Indiana case, allowing Planned Parenthood offices there to reopen. The group has filed a lawsuit over a provision in the next Kansas state budget that makes federal family planning money off-limits to the organization.  

sneak preview: This year’s legislative session may just be ending, but next year’s has already begun. Nearly 800 legislative service requests, or LSRs, as draft legislation is called, have been filed by New Hampshire’s 400-plus lawmakers. The full text of the bills hasn’t been drafted yet, so only their titles are available.

Following are some highlights of what we can look forward to next year: 

Fights over collective bargaining are far from over. One bill is proposed that would prohibit all public employees from participating in collective bargaining. Another would require a 100 percent consensus vote by union members to be included in collective bargaining agreements. 

A handful of proposed bills are aimed at preventing public employees or employees of political parties from running for certain elected offices. Readers may be reminded of this winter’s controversial attempt to oust Mike Brunelle from his position as a state representative, based on his employment as the leader of the state’s Democratic Party. 

Education legislation includes a bill requiring New Hampshire to withdraw from the federal No Child Left Behind Act. A proposal to require courses in financial literacy has also been proposed, although a similar initiative has failed in the past. 

Another attempt at lawmaking that seems perennial by now is to prohibit banks from requiring fingerprints, blood samples or DNA samples in order to complete a banking transaction. 

One lawmaker has suggested a fundamental shift in New Hampshire’s corrections system: prohibiting prosecution for victimless crimes—and that includes speeding. A different approach to justice is the proposed requirement that the courts give every woman who gets a restraining order a gun and a box of ammunition. Said woman would also be given shooting instruction. 

Finally, one legislative service request would prohibit bullying in the State House and legislative office building.