Sensible Spending -State: June 2008 Archives
By LAUREN R. DORGAN
Monitor staff
Concord Monitor June 18th, 2008
Lawmakers shrunk
The plan chops the budget of a statewide cancer-screening program to $500,000 from $4 million, requires the University System of New Hampshire to save $2.5 million and slices wiggle room from the Department of Education's catastrophic aid program for the 2008-09 school year.
The latest cuts, for fiscal 2009, emerged from a series of sessions in which Lynch met with department heads as a group to discuss what they came to call the "pain thresholds" of three levels of trims. Almost every state agency chipped into the bottom line, from $14.8 million from the Department of Health and Human Services, the biggest agency, to $1,000 from the state's Cosmetology and Barbers Board.
"We've had to make some tough choices," Lynch told legislators on the state's fiscal committee, saying that one of his chief aims was "protecting services to our most vulnerable citizens."
Some of those choices meant gutting the funding for programs Democrats touted last year...
June 5th, 2008
From: NH House Highlights
By Pamela Price
Our society is one of rules and laws which guide our existence within this democracy. Our government operates by rules, procedure, and tradition. The NH House is no exception. Last evening the House met in special session until late in the evening. All the rules and process which have long guided the way we do business were changed by a vote of the Democratic majority.......
Letter to the Editor
Weirs Times June 12th, 1008
To The Editor: Citizens of
By Norma Love
Associated Press Writer
The Citizen June 5th 2008
But lawmakers did not fix two key long-term problems: how to fund future cost-of-living increases and how to help all public retirees with health insurance. Instead, they voted to establish commissions to study long-term solutions to both issues.
"This is the second year of what I believe is a five-year effort to restore the strength of our retirement system," said Sen. Peter Burling. The Senate passed the bill 23-0.
Some in the House were less happy with the compromise, but the House voted 303-27 to pass it.
"We failed you. We failed you badly. .....
"HB 1645 is arguably the most important piece of legislation to affect
Editorial The Citizen June 1st, 2008
Taxpayers in cities and towns are at risk
So near, yet so far.
Negotiators deadlocked Saturday morning in an attempt to overhaul the New Hampshire Retirement System. The major sticking point in the dispute is a House of Representatives provision in HB 1645 calling for a cap on pensions for employees hired after July 1, 2009, at 100 percent of their highest year of pay. It is something the unions — particularly the police and firefighters unions — object to. Their argument is it would hurt recruitment and retention would be made more difficult because they work overtime to boost their retirements benefits — retirement for which they become eligible at age 45.
Recruitment and retention is a management function unless otherwise ceded in contract negotiations. The argument of unions to the contrary are at best lame,.......
