2022 Legislative Preview: Raise Your Hometown Voices Webinar

Speakers are labeled SPEAKER_N. This transcript is machine-generated.

Recording

good afternoon everyone my name is tim
fortier i'm the communications
coordinator with new hampshire municipal
association good afternoon and happy new
year and thank you for joining us for
this 2022 webinar series this is the
first in at least three uh webinars that
we'll be presenting to our members this
is a 2022 legislative preview raise your
hometown voices
but i do want to bring your attention
that we'll be doing a legislative half
time in april a legislative wrap wrap-up
probably late may or early uh june um
and then we always do our final
legislative update um at the doubletree
conference at our annual conference at
the doubletree um that will be november
16th this year uh so thank you for
joining us for this first of uh uh three
webinars and our today's speakers are
margaret burns our executive director
good afternoon margaret
good afternoon tim i was on mute thank
you good afternoon katherine our
government finance advisor good
afternoon tim
and good afternoon nate grays our
government affairs director
good afternoon tim um and
just want to remind you that this video
presentation will be
put into a youtube video recording we
hope that you'll take that link and the
powerpoint presentations that come with
this uh presentation and circulate that
among your municipal colleagues and
friends who are unable to join us live
for this presentation today and with
that i'd like to turn the program over
to nate grays
well thank you tim and welcome everyone
welcome to 2022. it's going to be a very
interesting session
um not only in the breadth of bills but
also kind of in the procedures and
what's going on um
so we're going to talk a little bit
about that
and then
we're going to turn it over to margaret
for a word from our executive director
and some bills she wants to highlight
then i'm going to tell you a little bit
about what to pay attention to this week
because as you may or may not know
the house and senate are meeting for the
first time
this year this week
that is tomorrow and thursday
and then we're going to talk about some
of the new bills for this session
and then i'm going to turn over to
catherine to talk about some of the
financial bills
so even though it's not a budgetary year
there are still financial bills that are
coming up um and going to be of interest
so this year is going to be very similar
to last year um except it's going to be
a little bit different too in the sense
that there's not as much
that's going gonna go on that's gonna be
remote
um
but in terms of the bills we're gonna
see basically the same thing and of
course that makes sense right uh we
haven't had an election so we haven't
had any sort of reshuffling of uh of
players yet um so a lot of the same
people will still be in the legislature
and they're going to have the same
interests
but probably the major focus at the
beginning of this session is going to be
redistricting
i'm not sure how much
how much time that's going to take up
uh it's probable that sort of deals have
already been done there um that's pretty
much already set um but it's possible
that's going to be something that we're
going to see early on wednesday
but that doesn't mean there aren't going
to be big municipal bills
and that's really what we're going to
focus on today um all of those things
that are going to affect you our members
um and one of the things i do want to
remind you and probably the the lesson
that you can draw from 2021 is that last
year turned out a lot better than we
expected if you went back and watched
the legislative preview from the
beginning of 2021 you'll remember
cordell was signing and saying you know
this is gonna be a terrible year and
then we had our legislative wrap-up um
at the end and we said you know what it
was actually pretty good and the reason
it was pretty good was because all of
you spoke up you know we communicate
with you not only through these webinars
but also our legislative bulletin
and we reach out over the course of the
session as things affect your towns
individually we'll see some of those
bills today some towns that are going to
be more affected than others
and we'll point those out for you as
well
but really the key is is the
communication you have with your
legislators at that local level is
really key to making sure that things go
well for municipalities and that's going
to be key for making sure things go well
this legislative year
so in terms of how to sign up to testify
this year
that's going to be a little bit
different
last year of course was entirely remote
all the testimony was taken remotely
at committee hearings
that's not the case this year in the
house we do know that the entire house
is not currently meeting at the capitol
it's currently scheduled to meet at the
doubletree hotel uh in manchester on
wednesday through potentially friday
and we know that committee hearings are
likely to be streamed but we haven't
gotten 100 confirmation on that
but we do know that even if they are
streamed they're not going to be taking
testimony online like they did last year
so if you want to testify you have to go
to the capitol in person you can of
course always also email committee
members or call them ahead of time
note of course that
you that won't result in them
necessarily discussing what you tell
them
at the committee so your best chance of
advocacy is to go in person and tell
them what you want to tell them there
the senate uh is a little bit different
they are meeting in reps hall instead of
in the senate chambers uh that allows
them to spread out a little bit more
we think that's probably the plan for
the rest of the year but that's
obviously going to depend on what the
house does and we don't have an entire
year plan yet for how they're meeting
as far as committee hearings
it appears they're going to have some
streams at least
that's what we're seeing in the digital
calendar so far
but again
no online testimony
but in both cases it's a good idea to
check the check the calendar um you know
we obviously know what's happening this
week but each week on on thursday
afternoon or early friday morning a new
calendar comes out for both the house
and the senate and things are a little
bit different they have digital
calendars now which visitors to the
website are steered towards
but one thing we noticed last year was
that the pdf calendar sometimes had
different information than the digital
calendars and the digital calendars
would be updated the day before or so um
with the information in the pdf calendar
so i would strongly recommend that you
go to the pdf calendars for now there
actually is a bill in place to make sure
that for a bill that has been filed to
make sure both of those are
being updated at the same time
i don't know if that's going to pass or
not but it certainly seems uh
like a good idea although not something
that affects municipalities so it's not
something we are advocating on
with that i'll turn it over to margaret
thank you nate and welcome again
everyone to the official kickoff of the
2022 legislative session um as nate
noted 2022 is again going to feature a
concerning number of bills targeting and
eroding local control so that will
continue to be a theme in the
legislature and of course our focus in
the legislature for the upcoming year
advocacy from local officials is going
to be critical i know that we say it a
lot nate has already said it this
morning we'll probably say it again
before the webinar is over
nhma's advocacy of course is critical
but a huge part of what nhma
does for you is to give you the
information and to encourage you to
speak out yourself because hearing from
local officials hearing real examples
and real situations in communities is
crucial to helping support or defeat
important bills in the legislature
last year i think it was
maybe easier for legisl
for municipal officials to engage
because of the remote nature of the
session you didn't have to travel to
concord in order to testify so we know
that will be a little bit different this
year but of course as naich has said
advocacy does not just have to be in the
form of testifying at a hearing a letter
to the committee speaking to the
committee members and speaking to your
legislators throughout the year is also
very effective and critical advocacy
we also wanted to take a moment to note
that 2022 means another legislative
policy process is upon us for our more
seasoned municipal officials on the call
today you know what that is for some of
you who may be newer to nhma or newer to
nhma advocacy this is the process that
nhma undergoes to
revise revisit
update or and or re-adopt the policies
and principles that guide nhma staff in
advocating for our members and of course
the key to nhma's advocacy is that the
policies and principles we advocate on
are created and adopted by our members
not by nhma staff and so it is a member
focused process which also means that we
need members to volunteer to be part of
that process over the upcoming year
the first thing you can do if you are
interested and we hope you are is to
volunteer to serve on a policy committee
there are three different committees
one focused on finance one on
infrastructure and related land use
topics and one on general governance and
administration
if you have an interest in serving on a
committee which includes
reviewing new policy proposals from
members as well as revising and
reconsidering the current policies that
nhma has please reach out to nhma as
soon as possible let us know that you're
interested or reach out and let us know
that you have questions about what it
entails so that we can answer them
and hopefully get you to volunteer for a
committee members of course can also
submit policy proposals which means that
any nhma member can submit a proposal to
include in the upcoming legislative
policy so that is something too that can
and should be discussed at the local
level and can be submitted to nhma to be
considered by one of those policy
committees ultimately the policy process
um you know culminates with the
legislative policy conference in
september uh september 2022 when members
come together to vote to adopt those
proposed policies that come out of the
policy committee so there are a number
of different ways to volunteer please
look out for our email announcements and
other information about how to get
involved and how to be engaged in the
policy process so that we can have great
member
representation with the upcoming policy
process
all right so as nate said
i wanted to sort of focus on just a few
different bills here before i turn it
back to nate
one of our top priority bills for the
session is house bill 1033
which is essentially an
anti-lobbying bill for public officials
and government officials house bill 1023
would prohibit recipients of state or
local grants or appropriations from
using such funds for lobbying in short
this is a bill that is intended to
significantly encumber the ability of
local officials to engage in the
legislative process
this type of bill has been filed before
it's not a new concept and in fact in
2017 a very similar bill was filed and
was defeated but with the anti-local
government sentiment being
more significant more prevalent in the
legislature
last year and this year this is an
extremely important bill not to lose
sight of and to take seriously and it
will require advocacy from nhma
other organizations that are like nhma
as well as from local officials um this
is a bill that really parades as a
transparency bill but the way that it
actually functions is to really cut
local officials out of the legislative
process that they have the right to be
part of and to engage in it affects all
sorts of organizations that have been
created and formed by local officials
for education and advocacy including the
clerks the assessors the police chiefs
the fire chiefs the building officials
and the list goes on and on because
there are many different organizations
that local officials have formed in
order to better get their voice and
information out there and to engage in
the legislative process so we're going
to be looking to our members to to
testify to speak to members of the
committee and to
speak to their legislators throughout
the process
broadband will again be a topic of
interest in the upcoming legislative
session so this is a little uh first
some bad news now some good news the
broadband bills appear to be good bills
next week on tuesday january 11th there
will be a hearing in senate finance on
senate bill 273
this is a bill that would make sort of a
modest adjustment to the communications
district chapter rsa chapter 53-g
and would allow commute towns that are
part of a communications district to
appropriate money at a special town
meeting specifically to approve a bond
for a broadband project at a special
town meeting
essentially what it's allowing them to
do is move a little more quickly in the
process if you're familiar with rsa 53g
the communications district chapter
it first requires the towns that wish to
form the communications district to all
vote at their respective town meetings
to enter into the communications
district and what towns are running into
is that if they vote at an annual town
meeting to form the communications
district they have to wait an entire
year until the next annual meeting in
order to put forth a bond for a
broadband infrastructure project so this
bill would just allow them to move a
little bit more quickly and to hold a
special town meeting rather than waiting
until the next annual meeting to put
that broadband uh project forward and
this bill comes out of
some towns reaching out to nhma letting
them know that this was an issue they
were running into when trying to form a
communications district and so it's a
bill that we hope will pass easily
because there is sort of an identified
issue that is trying to be addressed
sign up bill 395 would create a
broadband matching grant fund this
allows municipalities and cell phone
service providers to apply for broadband
matching grant funds to upgrade local
cell phone service to the standard
necessary to support broadband and other
advanced communication services so we
know that the um pandemic only
highlighted the lack of broadband
or reliable broadband in various areas
of the state so we hope that these bills
will remain front and center and pass
this year in the legislature
finally before i turn it back to nate is
some legislation to address the right to
freedom from discrimination law this is
a bill that some of you may be familiar
with it started out last year as house
bill 544 which was generally referred to
as the so-called divisive
concepts law
house bill 544 did not pass
but essentially a very watered-down
version of it was put into house bill 2
the state budget trailer bill
and what the legislation does is it
prohibits the teaching of certain topics
related to age sex gender identity
sexual orientation race creed color
marital status family status mental or
physical disability religion or national
origin
and it applies to employers it applies
to schools and it applies to local
governments as well
we opposed house bill 544 and the
inclusion of the language that became
law in house bill 2. for a simple reason
and the reason was that local
governments should not be prohibited
from making these decisions at the local
level about what to teach what to train
their employees on or what conversations
or what kind of programs they should
host and create for the public and for
their communities
additionally some of the language in the
legislation itself was pretty vague and
pretty ambiguous and therefore really
leaves open potential claims against
local government and even more
concerning when the legislation passed
really made a number of our members feel
concerned about whether they should
continue with various programs or
initiatives they had undertaken
relative to diversity and equity the
language was vague enough that they were
unsure whether the actions they were
taken were prohibited by the legislation
or allowed by the legislation
so
senate bill 350
304 would repeal and replace this
legislation
with language saying that no public
employer is prohibited from engaging in
or requiring in certain types of
training and house bill 1576 would
simply repeal the right to freedom from
discrimination law that is currently on
the books the first of these two bills
hearing will be held next week on
january 12th at 1 45.
we really encourage any members who have
undertaken any efforts in this area and
the law has caused any issues or
consternation with regard to those
efforts we really encourage members to
either try to attend the hearing on
senate bill 304 and speak out about
their experiences or to submit a letter
to the committee
about the bill so um
that's all i have nate i'll i'll turn it
back to you
well thank you margaret
so as far as what to pay attention to
this week as i mentioned before the
house and senate are meeting tomorrow
january 5th um the house uh is going to
meet as well on
thursday and this night will as well
um but the house may also meet friday
depending on how long their business
takes um and whether they finish
everything that they want to finish
and the first thing that both bodies are
going to do is going to take over take
up the leftover bills so bills that were
saved from last year these are the uh
the bills that went back to committee or
or were
held by a committee and
they are now in the second second year
of the
legislative session and so they have to
act on those bills
so that's what they're doing first
and uh one of
the major focuses are going to be
the redistricting bills
certainly in talking to legislators
individual basis that's what they've
talked about quite a bit um that's
really not going to affect
municipalities too much because of
course you're going to be doing the same
thing you always do with elections uh
you know your moderator is going to go
over see them and everyone else is going
to be involved but there are a few bills
here that we do want you to pay
attention to
so um
there's a anti-fluoride bill
hb 611 which prohibits the introduction
of fluoride into any public water system
in the state
and for those of you not familiar with
how the law works now it's the most
local option you could have
so you decide
your local legislative body decides
whether to add fluoride or not which of
course is recommended by
uh you know everyone who
has studied you know dentistry um as a
way of helping front cavities um and so
it's really this local local decision
and for whatever reason this bill which
is not the first time we've seen an
anti-fluoride bill but it's
um
one of the
one of the few that have gotten as far
as this one has gotten
in that it has come out with a
positive recommendation to the house
from the committee
would seek to undo that local decision
making process so
the municipalities with fluoride in
their system currently are bedford
belmont concord derry dover durham
goffstown greenland
hanover hooksett laconia lancaster
lebanon
londonderry manchester madbury newcastle
newington portsmouth and rochester so if
you're from one of those communities
it's a very good idea to reach out to
your legislators
preferably today
and say
hey uh you know we want to make this
decision at the local level
this is something we should be allowed
to do please vote against
hb 611
guns a perpetually popular topic for all
legislatures not just the new hampshire
legislature
um but hb 307
passed the house and it's now uh
awaiting action by the senate it went to
the senate judiciary committee
which took a long look at it over the uh
summer and the fall
um
and has now recommended the bill to pass
uh to the full senate with an amendment
and that amendment is good um in the
sense that one of our major concerns was
that the bill as passed by the house
would allow someone to come on to
municipal property and do whatever they
want with their guns they could use them
they could sell them they could you know
possess them
um
and
you know
this bill would prohibit municipalities
from regulating possession of firearms
which is already the law
but the more concerning thing was the
use of firearms because we don't want
people you know showing up to town hall
and just you know
on new year's and shooting guns in the
air and that's pretty uh something that
is not a great idea um for a variety of
reasons and so understandably uh
municipalities should be able to
regulate what happens
on their property
um and so this amendment would remove
the word use and so um
that would allow municipalities to
regulate that
but there's another portion of the bill
that has provisions that would uh result
in the punishment of
local officials who
try to enact an ordinance that doesn't
have uh doesn't really comply with what
the law is um and the law as it is now
is that you know if you neck an
ordinance and
it for whatever reason is superseded by
state law or constitution something
which you often don't know until the new
hampshire supreme court makes a decision
that's the role of the court is to
decide what the law is and decide
whether uh you know a
subservient law is superseded so a state
statute goes against the constitution or
a local ordinance goes against the state
statute or constitution that's what the
court decides um
the what happens now is the court would
just say okay this ordinance or this law
would have no effect
and that's
what it has always been in the history
of the united states that is what
happens um
this bill is different in that it would
essentially punish uh you know local
officials for making a decision um that
reasonably legal scholars could argue
look until
uh there's a decision by a court it's
possibly
possible this would not be preempted
it's reasonable
you know you could have town council
write a letter that says you know we
don't think this is preempted and you go
to court and the court says nope county
council is wrong but you won't know that
until the judge makes their decision
so that's very concerning
we are
hopeful that either an amendment to
remove this provision
or
just outright kill the bill which would
be a better option uh would would occur
in the senate
um so that's something we are also
urging you to contact
your legislators about today obviously
your senator since it's in senate
and i believe the last bill that i want
to mention that's happened that's
seen some sort of action occurring this
week
are the 11 forgotten qualifying project
spills you may have heard us mention
these a few times in other contexts um
this is hp 398 and hp 412
and these are appropriations for water
and wastewater projects that cur that
qualified for state funding
but were not funded and so if we step
back a couple years uh
to 2020
what happened is these were qualifying
water and wastewater projects they would
have received
their share of the state funding under
the program that exists for those
but there was a budget freeze or by the
governor because we weren't sure how
coveted was going to affect the economy
and we had huge unemployment
that happened thankfully we've recovered
mostly from that
but in the in the interim these 11
projects didn't get funded
last year as part of the budget cycle
there was discussion about funding these
but unfortunately some incorrect
information was provided to legislators
that they would be eligible for funding
through arpa which is of course the
federal funding
um and they are not eligible because
they were completed before
march 3rd 2020.
um so
these are the 11 forgotten projects they
they have no funding but they qualify
for state funding so we're just looking
to uh
to
have the state live up to its promises
um so the towns of hooksett dover
conquered nashua extra newport littleton
and salem should be particularly
interested in these
certainly suggest that you urge your
house members to vote yes
to approve these two bills
to provide that funding
and since i'm on water and wastewater i
will mention one bill that i didn't put
in any of these slides it's not coming
up this week but it's another wastewater
bill
hb 1134 which is a
would set up a study committee um
to
uh
to deal with the issue of the
not actually flushable but labeled
flushable wipes
which is something that uh i know that a
number of wastewater operators have been
pushing for for some time um because of
the costs associated with dealing with
that problem in the wastewater system
um and that's just one of a smattering
of new bills this session
and as you might expect uh we're going
to see a lot of the same themes in 2022
as we saw in 2021.
largely those aren't great for
municipalities frankly they're pretty
bad um particularly when it comes to
municipal authority and local control
um
there are a few good bills um so there
are a few bills that are are definitely
going to be a positive change and we're
going to discuss a few of those
but
many of the bad bills are quite
devastating to municipalities in
different ways
there are 960
lsrs legislative service requests
which are basically a legislator goes in
asks
the attorneys on staff at the
legislature to write up
the language for the bill
and
it's kind of surprising this year
because usually
we end up following um
you know somewhat less than a third of
those
but as we've gone through all of the new
bills that have been filed
we've discovered that quite a few
involve municipal issues so we're
following about half of those i think
and
that's
and so what we're covering today is
really just a highlight some of some of
the biggest
um biggest bills that we've seen um but
certainly just know that it's really
important for you to subscribe to the
legislative bulletin preferably in
electronic format because the mail has
been a little bit slow
and you can get that information
electronically from us on friday
afternoons rather than monday or tuesday
when it might be a little too late
um
and
in the bulletin we'll be highlighting
the issues that come up the bills that
become big issues
as we always do every year
even though we have a new team of course
so
um i want to make sure that everyone
knows we're having a continuity of
services here at nhma
so some of the big bills that we are we
are looking at is the short-term rental
bill is one of the ones that we've
received a lot of calls from from our
members especially in
the more tourist-rich areas of the state
and that's sb 249. it's a bipartisan
bill with significant support in the
senate has quite a few senators um who
have signed on
um and it would prohibit local zoning
ordinances from prohibiting or even
regulating short-term rentals so
airbnbs um and and the like
and this is something that's currently
decided the local level and of course we
believe it should stay that way and uh
based on all of the calls we've received
we know that you do too
and we strongly encourage you to talk
with your senator about the importance
of opposing this bill
it
it is something that has come up um
really in light of the fact that there
was a supreme court decision a couple
years ago that affirmed that of course a
municipal zoning ordinance could
regulate
where short-term rentals are allowed in
town
and we know that uh
that information is not always uh
communicated to people who are who are
buying um new houses
not through any fault of the
municipality of course but uh you know
if you're selling a house you want to
present everything you can and leave out
the things you you can
um
so you know municipalities especially in
more tourists for charities have seen a
significant number of their house uh
housing stock being turned into
short-term rentals and that's caused
significant problems both in supplying
the local economy with workers
um as well as you know everything from
uh people leaving out garbage by the
side of the road instead of bringing it
to the uh
the
town facilities and so it's getting uh
tracking bears to uh you know more
significant problems with with uh
adding
adding things onto houses that don't
comply with the building code or fire
code and unsafe building so
this is really something that's a pretty
comprehensive issue and we think that
municipalities have a significant
interest in ensuring that this statewide
zoning regulation would would be
not taking effect
hb 1073 would repeal an exemption of in
that was added to the right to know law
last year
and that exemption would extend clearly
extend the attorney-client privilege to
municipalities as well as other
governmental agencies
there was a new hampshire supreme court
decision in the early part of last year
that was subsequently withdrawn
which
essentially subjected
attorney information between
not only municipalities but other other
governmental entities
to a uh privacy balancing analysis so
um rather than being able to say you
know we talked with our attorney and got
advice about this and that then not
having to disclose that advice um that
advice would be subject to disclosure um
upon a right to know request
depending on how that privacy balancing
analysis came out
um that was obviously very problematic
because it basically defeats the purpose
of consulting with your attorney um
because you
you
you know one of the one of the ideas
behind the attorney client privilege is
that
you ensure that you can get
advice that protects you
from liability or advice uh if you know
that there's some sort of liability that
exists and now if that advice can be
disclosed to the world you've just
invited a bunch of lawsuits
um so this very important exemption was
added last year
and
apparently wasn't liked by everyone
so a bill has been filed this year to
repeal that exemption and we are hopeful
that that bill will be defeated
change in gears a little bit um to
some election bills
that has that is a major focus this year
it is an election year
it is the year when redistricting
happens because of course the census
occurred
back in 2020 and so this is the the
session when that happens so
as as always with with this particular
year
meaning a couple years out from the
census
it is a
election bills are a highlight
it's something that gets examined the
whole electoral system
and there are a few really concerning
bills this year
hv 1359
would prohibit any election official
other than the clerk from performing
election day duties when they appear on
the ballot for the for any position
um and so what that means for some a
position like a moderator is the elected
moderator of course as a two-year term
so every year that their name is on the
ballot they wouldn't be able to
um be there doing the role of the
moderator um for
the time when their name is on the
ballot um and you'd have to have a
moderator pro tem for that day um and so
essentially
you're looking at potentially having to
almost double the
you know work force
by finding all these people to fill in
for municipal officials depending on the
exact collection schedule for your
municipality it's
it's a serious problem
already getting enough people who
are qualified to come work
during the election um never mind having
to recruit a whole bunch of new people
um because a few of those officials
names are on the ballot and you know as
as i know and all of you know most of
these positions are not something that
are hotly contested there aren't a whole
lot of people in town who want to be
town moderator it's it's a pretty
thankless job so um oftentimes you know
these aren't even contested positions
uh hb 1485 um creates a recall procedure
for any uh local elected officials
serving a three-year term
um
it's kind of a strange bill and that
it's it's very vague about what uh
what is allowed under this um so it says
that no recall
for an official performing a mandatory
duty or for not performing any act that
would subject that official to
prosecution for official misconduct uh
if done
um
so
essentially you know if they
are required to do whatever it is
they're doing
um or they can't do something because it
would be illegal um and they could get
prosecuted for it um you can recall them
for any other reason um and that's going
to be very complicated uh you know it
would require litigation in virtually
every case because you'd have to have
um you know assuming there's there's
it's being contested
because you'd have to have a judge
determine whether whether one of those
exemptions apply
um and you're also going to have this
additional cost
of the
uh
recall election um
for these for these positions
there are a couple more election bills
as well
um
1567 allows any registered voter to sue
in superior court
any municipal election official for
failure to perform his or her election
duties
if the voter prevails that official will
be removed from office and the
municipality must pay the voter
voters attorney's fees and port costs
but probably more disturbingly is
there's nothing to
stop
someone from just making up some sort of
allegation and filing suits so you know
if uh if margaret's you know
an election official
in her town and
i'm a registered voter that doesn't like
margaret for whatever reason i could
just sue and say margaret didn't do her
job um and there's no penalty for me
doing so it just you know wastes a whole
bunch of
of money and time um and
it's just
it's just
strange
um and then there's hp 1064.
um and that bill would prohibit the use
of ballot counting devices so um you
know the ballot the ballot counting
machines um all ballots would have to be
hand counted
um
and i don't need to tell anyone who's in
a municipality with a fair number of
voters what a nightmare that would be um
it's just uh it's just uh gonna be quite
a nightmare um it's gonna take days to
count uh to count votes for for offices
and i i can't imagine that will gain a
lot of traction especially among
um
[Music]
among the senate and uh and other
offices that you know have quite larger
districts
um but
it's hard to say um and it's definitely
a bill we wanted to bring to your
attention
there of course a number of mass and
vaccine mandates as you've seen i think
in
every news source that covers new
hampshire over the past couple days
there are
uh quite a few bills um we counted uh
early on and there were 28 bills
pretending pertaining to vaccines and
vaccinations three related to masks and
one related to local health officers so
it's a lot
and it's going to be a very hot topic
this year
and it's it's going to be something that
does affect municipalities so certainly
be paying attention to the bulletin as
we keep you updated on that
there is one bill that i do want to
highlight which is that health officer
bill
1272
because i think it serves as a good
illustration of the strangeness of some
of the bills this year
um so that bill would uh
essentially limit a local health
ordinance to being 10 days
um
if there's no other um authority
that authorizes it
but it's not really clear because under
a local
health ordinance currently
what happens is the the health officer
proposes the ordinance and says you know
uh we have to do whatever to keep the
bears out of the trash and
resulting in trash being spread around
or you know rats out of restaurants or
whatever the case may be
and then the select board votes on it
and it's not clear uh you know what this
bill
who this bill wants to affirm whatever
this local ordinance is
um
and the other concerning thing is
obviously not only the 10 days but it
has to be tied to a specific location
and so when we're talking about a lot of
the things that local health officers
deal with with
with restaurants and you know pests and
things like that um
you know
we're not necessarily talking about
specific locations we're a very small
discrete period of time
it's obviously a serious health hazard
that needs to be dealt with
because you know no one wants to go to a
restaurant and eat there and then get
sick
you know that has to be dealt with
and it just doesn't make a lot of sense
um
but that's something that i think just
highlights kind of the strangeness of
some of the bills we've been seeing this
year
we have the housing appeals board
jurisdictional bill um that's hb 1307
um this is a bill that uh we did want to
bring your attention because it's
something that
we know a lot of members
have strong opinions about
um and it's worth
paying attention to because it's
probably worth going to the committee
hearing
to express those opinions
so if you haven't been paying a whole
lot of attention
over the summer the housing appeals
board which is a new board
fairly new board i should say issued a
decision um that
caused some concern
essentially it said it had the
jurisdiction to deal with uh an appeal
over a select board's decision about
whether to reclassify a class 6 road as
a class 5 road
now of course you'd think from the name
housing appeals board
and you know the fact that one of the
originating statutes says
it deals with questions of housing and
housing development that
really the reclassification of the road
would be outside its jurisdiction but it
said it was it was close enough um
because it involved there was a
development that would be served by that
road um that that would qualify as
something it could have jurisdiction
over
and
what we learned in light of that was
even legislators who had supported the
creation of the housing appeals board
saw that perhaps they had different
understandings of the jurisdiction
and certainly um
we've seen that many people have a
different understanding of the
jurisdiction than thousand appeals board
itself
or at least we've heard from a number of
members were concerned about that case
so hb 1307 has been filed and that would
clarify uh the jurisdiction by
essentially um
just limiting the housing appeals or to
overseeing
appeals from final decisions of
municipal land use boards
on applications related to housing
and we're hopeful that there'll be an
agreement that comes out of that about
what the correct jurisdiction should be
and that's clearly spelled out the
statute
the last bill that i'm covering today
is
actually
three different bills
and they involve remote meetings
there were several bills last year
involving remote meetings you may recall
and one of them senate bill 95 passed
the senate unanimously
but the house was unwilling to
contemplate any changes to the right to
know law to allow municipalities and
other governmental agencies more
flexibility in having meetings in a
remote context
so this year there are three different
bills hb 1014 sb 322 and sb 344.
and we are hopeful that some sort of
compromise will occur that will give
municipalities some more flexibility
because we've certainly heard from our
members how important it is to have that
flexibility in order to accommodate
the desires of their citizens
and with that i'll turn it over to
catherine
thank you nate
i appreciate that welcome everybody
we are going to switch gears a little
bit here and talk about some new
financial bills that nhma continues to
follow as we consider fiscal impacts to
local government so as you're reading
our bulletins or watching the news
perhaps
please consider the impact pending
legislation may have on municipal
budgets ultimately the property
taxpayers who fund those budgets
end up with the burden so we'll ask you
over and over
consistent messaging to raise your voice
and contact your
representatives and advocate for the
state to fully fund new mandates
which is part of the constitutional law
in new hampshire
to fix some broken promises where we
have downshifting costs and to adopt
legislation that does allow for local
decisions that results in positive
fiscal outcomes
so it's really imperative that we
continue to advocate for this shift in
the way we're currently financing
mandated increases as our local tax
dollars are already exceeding or perhaps
maybe
at our fiscal capacity
so
efforts to communicate to the
legislature the effects of legislation
on our governments
is going to be tremendously helpful
especially as we move into this session
so today i'm going to focus on a few
bills that are on our radar some are
good for our members and others have
some negative fiscal
impacts
so tax exemptions for right-of-way use
hb 1494 would exempt phone and cable
companies from paying property taxes on
their public use of right-of-ways that
would otherwise be taxable under the rsa
7223
so for government-owned properties such
as when their polls cables and other
equipment is located in the rights of
way
so if this bill were allowed to take
effect the exemption would result in a
significant reduction in property taxes
paid by the tele communications and
cable companies
so while this would not necessarily
affect municipal revenues in that we
would just reallocate the dollars and
increase property taxes to all taxpayers
it would certainly shift the burden to
the local taxpayer the amount of revenue
lost could vary significantly depending
on the municipality so we do not have
exact dollar amounts and we're not able
to estimate the fiscal impact however we
anticipate that it could be significant
and another thing to note for this
particular bill is that the new
hampshire supreme court ruled in verizon
new england versus the city of rochester
in 2007 that it's unconstitutional to
subject certain entities such as a
telephone company in that particular
case to taxation under the rsa while not
taxing other entities
so this legislation does directly
conflict with that supreme court
decision
the next bill that we'll discuss
is some promising changes so that's
always some good news when we hear
promising changes to the new hampshire
retirement system that are being
proposed this legislative session so
this is a bill that comes back um
pretty much every year
and it's the property tax relief act of
2022 appropriately named so hb 1417 is
an nhma policy bill that proposes to
restore a portion of the state
contribution to the employer share for
teachers police and firefighters at 7.5
so
a wide variety of changes are being
proposed and there and there's 10 bills
introduced this session that affect new
hampshire retirement however this is the
most promising bill that we see and we
would encourage our members to reach out
and support this bill as the state
contribution
would be tremendously helpful and while
it's introduced and defeated every year
it would have significant positive
fiscal impact so the 7.5 contribution is
certainly far less than the 35 share
that the state originally promised but
it is estimated to be
27.7 million dollars in fiscal year 2023
and
well
at 35 that would be 129 million it would
still provide some relief
so that is one bill that we encourage
you to reach out and support another
bill is working after retirement which
is introduced in hb 1079 and this would
increase the part-time employment
thresholds of the new hampshire
retirement system
so what this bill would do is increase
the limitation of 26 hours per week that
a current new hampshire retiree can work
for a new hampshire
retirement system participating employer
and it would increase it to 32 hours a
week or a total of
1664 hours per year
this bill also would remove the 28-day
waiting period from the effective date
of retirement before a retiree can work
in a part-time capacity
for the same or another new hampshire
retirement employer so we would support
these changes and particularly for our
smaller municipalities that rely on
these experienced retirees to fill these
part-time positions
other bills being followed this session
that are retirement related would be hb
1590 and this would allow the employer
to
disaffiliate without paying its unfunded
liability so this is one of the more
troubling bills that we're seeing
because employers could opt out of the
new hampshire retirement system only for
municipal employees not
police teachers and fire just the
employees
by a vote of the legislative body so the
current law does allow a municipality to
withdraw but it requires that it pays
its share of the unfunded liability so
as written this would burden the
municipalities that would remain in the
system with the withdrawing
and that those municipalities would
share the accrued unfunded liability
and the cost-sharing contribution rates
assume that current and future employees
will continue to participate in the plan
so creating an unknown future fiscal
impact for municipalities who remain
would be the result if this legislation
were adopted
another
concern is that
based on shifting burdens to remaining
towns
they could choose everyone could choose
to leave the system all together and
that that would then increase rates for
the remaining
group one and group two teachers police
and fire into the system so the bill
doesn't really address um
how that would be handled
so i think that this would be a bill
that we should all consider in
opposition and nhma certainly opposes
this bill
hb
1535 would provide a one and a half
percent cost of living or cola
adjustment to the new hampshire
retirement system retirees who have been
retired at least five years by july 1st
of 2023
and on the first 30 thousand dollars of
their annual allowance
while we certainly
know that there's inflation and we would
like everyone to see a cola the
retirement system does not have a
built-in cola plan and it's unfunded
accrued liability or opeb as do other
state plans throughout the country
and when the cola passed in 2019
um
you all have seen what took effect on
july 1st of this year
and that was an additional unfunded
liability of 78 million dollars in
fiscal year 2022 so that's the effect
that you're seeing now of the 19.6
aggregate increase on your municipal
budgets today
so
the estimated impact of this bill would
be
135 million dollars in fiscal year 2024
135 9 million in 2025 and 142 million in
2026 and it could even go further out so
this would have a huge impact on
municipal budgets if we saw a 19.6
increase with a 78 million dollar fiscal
impact from the last cola so again while
we are not against colas for our
hard-working retirees we would have to
oppose this bill
unless the state decides that it's going
to fund the costs associated with this
this cola
some other bills that we are following
closely are related to vehicle
registration fees so house bill 1570
would reduce vehicle registration fees
collected by the municipality so
the revenue collected and retained from
municipal vehicles
registration fees are counted as revenue
and unrestricted revenue and while it is
impossible to calculate on the precise
reduction that this would have
we did go back to 2019
and 289 million dollars was collected in
vehicle registration fees and that
we estimate
an 84 80.4 million dollar reduction
based on house bill 1570 if it were to
take effect so this calculation um is
not exact because we don't know make
model in year however we do know it
would have a significant impact on local
budgets
another bill
that's positive for our local
governments would be senate bill 437 and
this would allow for
a additional municipal fee for
transportation improvements it would
actually increase the fee so currently
we have a five dollar fee that
municipalities can charge to put into a
transportation improvement fund
this bill would increase that option and
it's a local option to 15
so this fee is assessed at the time of
the motor vehicle registration and it's
a local option fee that
requires the legislative body
to adopt it so according to the
information we have provided by
transport new hampshire as of 2020 35 of
our 234 municipalities or about 15
percent
were known to have enacted this local
option improvement fee most at the five
dollar threshold but several charging
less than five dollars so we do not have
any data to show how much additional
revenue this could raise however we do
know this would increase local revenue
for transportation if this legislation
would pass and that would be positive
for our municipalities who choose at the
local level to adopt this legislation
other bills that we are following
um would deal with um meals and rooms
tax this seems to come up quite
regularly
so senate bill 315 would require that a
portion of the revenues distributed to
municipalities and meals and rooms in
excess of 2021 amounts would be used to
reduce the local property tax rate
so
this bill um
meals and rooms tax is unrestricted
revenue for our municipalities and we
maintain the position that these funds
should remain under local control and
should not have restrictions placed by a
statewide mandate so we would oppose
this bill because the municipality
should be able to use these funds at
their discretion for their policy
priorities
and that could in fact be to reduce the
local property tax rate or to further
some policy priorities
another bill that we're following
closely is hb 1204 which brings back the
original version of meals and rooms from
last session
so this version of the bill
would go back to wanting a 7.9 percent
meals and rooms tax imposed on
restaurants for example and hotels and
increased the percentage from 30 to 40
percent
so house bill 2 modified this version of
the bill last year and we have seen it
being very beneficial to our
municipalities in its current state
we'll be following this bill closely
because it was a huge win for our
municipalities last year and we support
any increase to municipal revenue
sharing but we are concerned that the
tax itself that was at nine percent that
just dropped to eight and a half percent
that would now be proposed to go to 7.9
percent
could in fact reduce the amounts
municipalities are seeing even with
an increase in percentage
or perhaps the legislature chooses to
drop the tax but not increase the
percentage in revenue sharing to
municipalities so the creation of the
dedicated fund which also occurred which
has allowed us to receive more revenue
based on actual
income received from this tax and not
estimated is also not addressed in this
bill so it's something that we'll be
following closely this session
and finally
a few other bills to mention um
sb 338 is a positive bill it would allow
a municipality to collect an occupancy
fee for the purpose of establishing a
capital fund or revolving fund or a
tourism support fund so this bill would
be a vote of the legislative body it
would be a fee collected of up to two
dollars per
occupancy
based on a 24-hour period and the
legislative body also would get to
specify how many numbers of consecutive
days the fee would apply to and the
maximum number of consecutive days
is 184 that the fee could be collected
so this could be a positive fund for the
purpose of augmenting the cost of
municipal services associated with
increase in tourism and transient
traffic
any funds received in this fund as per
the legislation are not part of the
general fund accumulated surplus and
they can only be expended for specific
purposes so we do support this local
option and let municipalities decide if
this would be beneficial to their
individual community
and then finally sb 239 is a bill that
we are following because it would
require that dra be notified when a
municipal audit is completed and
establishes a fine for non
compliance with these municipal audit
requirements
so currently under rsa 21j colon 20 this
bill would require
um
i'm sorry not currently but under the
current rsa the bill would require
that
not only do we complete our audit and
report it but there's a potential for a
fine so nhma does not support any type
of fines or fees associated with
legislation that could impact a
municipality and while it's currently
best practice
and it is outlined in the rsa for the
requirements of an independent audit
uploading it to the dra or providing
that information does it not in and of
itself seem like it would be
too heavy of a lift of a mandate but the
penalty level levied against a
municipality is definitely not supported
so now i will turn it over to
tim to talk to us about some upcoming
events
yes thank you catherine uh great job
catherine nate and margaret um you've
certainly indicated there'll be no
shortage of fun and excitement over at
the state house this year
we do encourage you um this uh
webinar is raise your hometown voices
and one way that you can do that to be
kept informed is to subscribe to our
legislative bulletin it's on our website
you'll find it under advocacy and under
legislative bulletins
and then you will receive on a weekly
basis between now and june the
legislative bulletin which will tell you
about everything happening over at the
state house if you could advance the
slide for me
but in the meanwhile we do have upcoming
our 2022 town and school moderators
workshops one on january 8th for senate
bill 2 workshops and february 12th for
traditional town workshop if you know
your town or school moderator please
forward this information to them and ask
them to register as soon as possible
next slide please
the do's and don'ts of electioneering we
have nhma's legal services council steve
buckley who will review electioneering
limitations on government that will be
wednesday january 19th noon to 1. next
slide please
and then steve will also be doing um the
right to know
for law enforcement hybrid workshop um
that is uh scheduled for thursday
january 27 uh 27th that's correct um we
do have an in-person rate that's 65 and
if you wish to join us virtually that
would be 55
um and i believe that's it i don't know
if there were any other
uh i did not see any questions uh any
other feedback from the staff before i
thank you our members for joining us
today
as you heard clearly they need your help
over at the state house so we encourage
you to get involved in the legislative
policy process we encourage you to reach
out to your state representatives and
state senators on those bills that we
highlighted today and will highlight to
you in our legislative bulletin so with
that i'd like to thank you again for
joining us today thank you staff for a
wonderful presentation and happy new
year
thank you everyone