Valerie Acres, Sheehan Phinney Capitol Group

The House and Senate had pretty full calendars this week with deadlines for committees to vote on bills in play and a fair amount of catching up to do due to recent snow cancellations. Here are some of the highlights:

HB 1 & HB 2, state budget - Budget activity is now fully underway. The first public hearing on the state operating budget was held Thursday afternoon in the State House, and regional hearings are scheduled in Whitefield and Nashua on March 11 and Claremont and Rochester on March 18. Work sessions got underway even before the hearing with three House Finance Committee divisions tackling separate parts of the 780-page document and 63-page "trailer" bill. This work will continue until at least March 28, the deadline for the House Finance Committee to vote on the budget. Then, after a floor vote in the House the following week, the process will begin again in the Senate. The substance of the budget has been described in previous editions of Capitol Insight. For additional scheduling information should you want to participate in the proceedings, go to http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/caljourns/default.htm, click on the most current House Calendar, and look at entries under Finance.

HB 127, HB 241, HB 501 & SB 77, minimum wage - Two House bills seeking to increase the minimum wage will probably die on the consent calendar next week and the only Senate bill on the topic was tabled. That leaves HB 501. The House Labor Committee voted 15-5 to recommend this bill pass with an amendment that would establish a state minimum wage at $7.25 per hour (which is the current federal minimum wage) or at the federal minimum wage. In other words, it would re-establish a state minimum wage but with no practical impact unless the federal wage goes down. The full House will vote on HB 501 next week also and then, unless the House kills or tables the bill, it will cross over for consideration in the Senate.

HB 597, mandatory drug testing of health care workers - This bill was introduced as a reaction to the Hepatitis C outbreak in the Seacoast area and a hearing was held on Tuesday. While well-intentioned, there was strong opposition to the bill from health care providers of all types and sizes. In fact, the only real support for the bill came from a representative of the drug testing industry. Opponents cited cost, employee privacy concerns, ambiguity in the language of bill, and the existence of more effective means to solve the problem as reasons to vote no. Ultimately, the bill was retained for further work by the committee during the summer and fall. It will be carried over to next year's session and proceed through the remainder of the legislative process at that time.

SB 186, training for certain board officers on non-profit corporations - This bill was heard before the Senate Public Affairs Committee yesterday receiving strong support from the Attorney General's office and the NH Department of Health and Human Services, neutral testimony from the NH Center for Nonprofits (which opposed the same bill last year), and opposition a few individual non-profit agencies that would be subject to its mandate. The version of the bill currently under consideration would require board chairs (or designees) of non-profits that receive at least $250,000 in funds in the aggregate in any form from any units of government to receive at least four hours of training every other year on the fundamental management and administrative requirements for nonprofit and charitable organizations. While everyone agrees it is important that non-profit board chairs, and all board members for that matter, understand their fiduciary and other duties, agencies are concerned about the impact of the bill on their ability to attract volunteer board members and their ability to use board member time wisely, especially with experienced members or those with professional backgrounds that would make the training redundant. Senate committee members shared those concerns and raised others; however, some members do seem to support the underlying concept of the bill and, without unified opposition from the non-profit sector, some form of this bill could pass this year. 

HB 357, use of credit history in employment decisions - This bill came out of the House Labor Committee with a 10-10 vote and, therefore, no recommendation. The bill seeks to prohibit the use of an employee's credit history when making various employment decisions. Due to definitions in the statute that were not changed in the bill, however, questions about the breadth of its impact were raised during the hearing. For example, it appears the bill as introduced would also prohibit the use of criminal records checks which are a customary part of the hiring process for health care, child care, law enforcement, financial services and many other types of employers. The House Labor Committee did adopt an amendment to the bill which would solve this problem before voting 10-10 to make no recommendation but, depending on how the official committee report is structured, it might have to come in as a floor amendment if the bill passes. This will be an interesting debate for sure.

This is just a sampling of what's been going on in Concord this week. More information is available on the General Court website including audio files of many committee hearings and all House and Senate sessions. http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/