As the NH House and Senate have each approved the Committee of Conference report on the 2012-2013 state budget, the bill now goes to Governor Lynch. The Governor must review the budget documents (HB 1 and HB 2) and decide whether to sign or veto the bill. The governor has five days after he receives the bill to make that decision. Given the proximity to the July 4th holiday, it is possible that he will not even receive the budget bill until the first week in July.

The final budget, relative to allocated funds, mirrors the Senate version of HB 1. Looking at the Detail Change Report, the Committee of Conference only made one change to the Senate version of the budget. While this leaves budgets in a better position than the House version, NH's children are faced with a loss of services, as we discussed at the NH CAN Homestretch event.

The apparent lack of change in HB 1 is deceiving, however, as there are numerous changes in HB 2 that have a significant effect on the Health and Human Services (HHS) budget over the next two years. Most significant among these changes are additional budget cuts to be made by HHS and numerous policy changes to the service delivery system. There are an additional $8,000,000 in cuts to come from contract and district office consolidation. And an additional $70,000,000 will come from personnel reductions across state government, but it is likely that much of this will be from HHS.

Perhaps most notable among the policy changes are the changes to CHINS and Healthy Kids. Healthy Kids is slated to be eliminated when the state begins the planned Medicaid managed Care System (currently planned for the beginning of 2012). CHINS programs were initially eliminated, but have been partially restored with a more stringent eligibility definition. The definition now reads:

 a child under the age of 18 with a diagnosis of severe emotional, cognitive, or other mental health issues who engages in aggressive, fire setting, or sexualized behaviors that pose a danger...and is ineligible to receive services under [juvenile justice or child protection services].

 Yes, there are many changes to the 2012-2013 state budget. We will need to be vigilant to document the impact of these changes and be sure that legislators and the public are aware of the consequences of the recently passed budget.

Throughout the budget process, there are many documents available through the Office of the Legislative Budget Assistant which show the status of the state budget. The LBA are the ones who actually take the legislator's actions on the budget and put them into the budget format. The LBA has the most up to date information on legislative actions.

There are numerous documents, but none are more useful than Detail Change Reports. Detail Change Reports reflect each change in the budget, line by line. For any changes that are made, the report shows the increase or decrease at each phase of the budget.  

Compare Reports, on the other hand, show every budgeted line and how they compare in each version. The Compare Report is much more detailed, but may prove useful if you are are trying to find the budgeted amount for a particular line in the budget.

Detail Change Reports *

House to Senate (21)

House to Conference (22)

Senate to Conference (9)

Compare Reports *

House to Conference (1228)

Senate to Conference (1227)

Governor to Conference (1235)

Committee of Conference Amendments** 

HB 1

HB 2

*Category 5 is Health and Human Services and Category 6 is Education. The number following the report is the page that Category 5 begins on.

**Conference reports are amendments to the Senate version of the document. Any item not amended, follows the Senate position.