State Budget

We continually monitor both the spending and revenue sides of state budget. We research the reasons spending on certain state activities and programs programs tend to expand disproportionately. We are interested in making the state budget, as well as the process by which it is developed and adopted, more easily understood by the public, the news media, and participants in the legislative process.

• August 2010 on NH Public Radio (08-13-2010)

  Listen to Steve Norton on The Exchange speaking to Education Finance (http://www.nhpr.org/node/33529) , and on the State Budget.(http://www.nhpr.org/node/33534)

   

   

• 2011 State Budget Issues (07-30-2010)

  Dennis Delay's presentation before the July 30, 2010 meeting of the New Hampshire Association of School Business Officials

• Stumbling Towards the Light (05-21-2010)

  Dennis Delay's May 21, 2010 presentation to the New Hampshire Municipal Officers on the economy and the state budget.

• 2010 and Beyond: New Hampshire, the State Budget and Children’s Policy (03-19-2010)

  Steve Norton's presentation on the state budget and children's policy.  March 19, 2010.

• The Continuing Budget Conversation (01-12-2010)

  Steve Norton's presentation to the House Finance, Public Works and Highways, and Ways and Means Committees. January 12, 2010.

• Looking Toward the Next Budget Conversation (12-09-2009)

  Presentation by Steve Norton to the New Hampshire Business and Industry Association Economic Development Committee on December 9, 2009.

• Summit on Spending 10-27-09 (10-27-2009)

   

  New Hampshire State Spending in A National Context; Summit on Spending; 10/27/2009
• Revenue Structure Informational Session 10-21-09 (10-22-2009)

  Dennis Delay's 10-21-09 presentation to the House Ways and Means Committee at their two days of meetings about state tax policy.

• State Budget 2010-2011 for the NH Association of Counties (02-06-2009)

  Steve Norton's presentation on the State Budget to the New Hampshire Association of Counties, February 6, 2009.

• State Budget 2010-2011 at Eggs and Things (02-05-2009)

  Steve Norton's presentation on the State Budget at Eggs and Things in North Conway on February 5, 2009

• The NH State Budget Conversation - Laconia Rotary (02-05-2009)

  Steve Norton's presentation on the State Budget to the Laconia Rotary. February 5, 2009

• The State Budget 2010-2011 - Presentation to the New Hampshire Senate (01-07-2009)

  Presentation about the state budget to the New Hampshire Senate by Steve Norton.

• The State Budget - New Hampshire Children's Summit (12-08-2008)

  Steven Norton's presentation on the current state budget and outlook for the future at the NH Children's Summit - December 8, 2008.

• New Hampshire: Trends, the Economy, and the State Budget (06-05-2008)

  Steve Norton's presentation at the Eggs & Things meeting in North Conway, June 5, 2008.

• New Hampshire Trends, Higher Education, and the State Budget (05-19-2008)

  Steve Norton's presentation to the Community Colleges of New Hampshire, May 19, 2008.

• Analyzing the Impact of Expanded Gambling on New Hampshire (05-20-2010)

  In the summer of 2009, Governor John Lynch established the New Hampshire Gaming Study Commission. The Commission was tasked with undertaking a “thorough and comprehensive review of various models for expanded gaming” in New Hampshire.

   

  The Commission retained the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies to conduct technical research and analysis for its review. Our first report, A Brief Report on Gambling in New Hampshire, was published in December, 2009.  In this second report, the Center documents the development of a series of inter-related models that analyze the impacts of expanded gambling in New Hampshire. 

   

  The Commission requested that we develop a model that supports a “prudent calculation” of the costs and benefits of expanded gambling. Any models were to be based on an understanding of the variation in geography, size and type of expansion, and its impact on state revenues, substitution, economic development, crime, and any offsetting expenditures associated with the social or behavioral implications of expanded gambling.

   

  Our models are based on balanced assumptions about the amount of capital investment, the size and type of facility, facility location, population and income levels, and the potential action of other states (i.e. Massachusetts) to produce a series of estimates of the revenues to the state, economic development implications, and the financial costs of social impacts associated with gambling. 

• A Brief Report on Gambling in New Hampshire (12-21-2009)

  In summer of 2009, Governor John Lynch established the New Hampshire Gaming Study Commission. The Gaming Study Commission was tasked with undertaking a “thorough and comprehensive review of various models for expanded gaming” in New Hampshire. This analysis was to include an assessment of the current status of gambling in New Hampshire, a review of various models of expanded gambling, and a review of the revenue generation capacity, community impacts (including social and economic implications), and regulatory needs of such a change.

• Sharing the Common Burden: New Hampshire and Public Services (12-21-2009)

  This paper combines information on appropriations and revenues at the four levels of government in New Hampshire – state, county, town and local education – and is designed to give a comprehensive picture of public services in the state, a profile of where the burden of funding these services lies, and how it is changing over time.

• And How Much Will the Budget Grow? It Depends. (06-23-2009)

  The Center provides a June 2009 update to the current budget situation, regarding the Committee of Conference Budget.

• The Use of One-Time Monies To Balance the State Budget (05-22-2009)

  The Center provides a May 2009 update to the current budget situation, prior to the Senate developing its budget

• Public Health and the State Budget, 1999-2009 (04-17-2009)

  This report is one in a series of analyses performed by the Center of state budget activities that describes how the state appropriates financial resources, and how the state’s priorities – as measured by state appropriations – have changed over time.

  This analysis focuses on one aspect of the state’s policy activities: public health. Public health functions cover a vast array of services that include both direct services designed to increase specific population’s health and more general programs designed to improve the health of the entire population.

• Dealing with New Hampshire's Budget Busters (11-20-2008)

  This report provides a description of how the state appropriates financial resources and how the state’s priorities – as measured by state appropriations – have changed over time.  As the state faces a potential budget deficit, there will be significant discussion regarding approaches to curbing spending on the primary drivers of state appropriations. This analysis is also designed to highlight what the state is not spending resources on. 

• New Hampshire’s Next Budget Conversation: Spending and Revenues in 2010-2011 (08-28-2008)

  It will come as no surprise to those experienced with the state budget that New Hampshire is facing a potential budget deficit in the next – 2010 and 2011 – biennium. In the 1990’s, the state’s independent auditor declared that the state had a structural deficit – a situation in which natural growth in expenditures exceeded natural growth in state revenues. As a result of this ‘biennial budget problem’, every two years the legislature must carefully address spending growth and, in most biennia, find new revenue to balance the budget.

  The upcoming biennium may be different, and in important respects, more problematic than in the past. As a result of a changing revenue picture, states across the country are adjusting both revenue and spending plans to account for the economic dislocation associated with the current economic downturn. New Hampshire is doing likewise.

  The Center's analysis is unique in New Hampshire, because we examine not only the potential shortfall in state revenues, (which could be as much as $286 million in the next biennium), but also that State's growth in demand for state services and potential increases in the state’s financial participation in local education costs. These trends will require the Governor and the Legislature to make changes in the state budget totaling between $372 and $495 million dollars over the next three years, beyond current state law.

  The Center's analysis is not meant to predict what will happen in the future. Instead, it provides policymakers with an estimate of the scale of changes that will have to be implemented to balance the budget in the next biennium in the absence of a strong economic recovery.

  Spending reductions will obviously be an important part of the conversation.  And while issues such as controls in administrative costs will be a component of that discussion, the state will have to look to more significant changes in spending, perhaps taking the lead from other states pursuing the privatization of state activities.  Spending reductions alone, however, will not be sufficient to resolve the budgetary problems.  Any budgetary conversation will also, therefore, have to include discussions about revenues – further capitalization of the state’s activities, increases in tax rates, and the introduction of gambling or a legacy tax, as examples.

   

   

• Driving the State Budget: New Hampshire Medicaid Trends 2004-2007 (12-01-2007)

  Medicaid is one of the primary drivers of state expenditures across the country and in New Hampshire.   In New Hampshire, however, little long term trend analysis is available to assess the growth in the Medicaid program. Beginning four years ago, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) began providing quarterly expenditure reports to the Legislature. This data provides a unique opportunity to assess potential budget challenges in the upcoming biennium, as well as emphasize the importance of having access to such expenditure data, an issue highlighted by Governor Lynch in his budget address in February of 2007.

• Public Pension Predicament: New Hampshire's Retirement System (09-01-2007)

  One of the Center’s projects since its inception in 1996 has been to address issues regarding the state government’s budget. This paper is the latest in our series of reports that illuminate the budget process, state programs and the state budget. All of these papers are available at no cost on the Center’s website: www.nhpolicy.org This paper, like all of the Center’s published work, is in the public domain and may be reproduced without permission. Indeed, the Center welcomes individuals’ and groups’ efforts to expand the paper’s circulation.

• New Hampshire State Revenue Forecasts: A Good Track Record (07-01-2007)

  During ‘budget’ season state governments across the country struggle to project changes in revenue generated through that state’s tax structure. These revenue projections are critical to the budget process, as they define constraints the existing revenue system puts on state spending. Because budgets in most every state must, by law, be in balance, revenue projections that are low, relative to actual experience, will create constraints on spending that are too great. Conversely, projections which are high relative to actual experience can create deficit spending.

• The Economy Rules! New Hampshire Revenue Trends, Past and Future (05-01-2007)

  This report examines New Hampshire State revenue trends in the last fifteen years. We also present a simple range of forecasts for New Hampshire State revenue through FY2009, using historical trends to predict what will happen in the future. Finally, we compare these simple trends to the revenue estimates provided by the Governor and the House Ways and Means Committee.

• Fiscal Feast and Famine (01-01-2007)

  This paper investigates the changes in spending in the state General Fund budget between state fiscal years 1997 and 2007. It calculates the ten-year change in policy priorities as expressed by the per capita appropriations made for 85 different state activities in inflation-adjusted dollars over the ten year period. It also identifies the five programs that accounted for nearly all real spending increase (above constant dollars per capita).