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House budget trims higher education support, retools education trust fund and moves renewable fund money to ratepayers
Summary
Division 2 changes in the House package reduce state aid to the University System of New Hampshire, move some Education Trust Fund lines to the general fund, endorse House bills changing the renewable portfolio and alter rooms-and-meals tourism funding for two years.
Committee members presenting Division 2 said they reduced general-fund support for the University System of New Hampshire (USNH) and made structural changes to how lottery and trust revenues are assigned.
The House package reduces the annual general‑fund contribution to USNH by $25 million per year compared with the most recent increase the university received; committee leaders characterized that reduction as a modest share of the university system’s total revenues, citing the university’s annual report to argue the cut is a small percentage of USNH’s overall budget. Opponents and town representatives warned at the hearing that even a limited reduction could strain smaller campuses and contribute to long-term enrollment or service challenges.
Division 2 representatives also proposed moving several appropriations traditionally coded to the Education Trust Fund into the general fund and clarified that restricted lottery revenue will be dedicated to state adequacy grants for local school districts. The package increases per‑pupil special education aid by $1,040 (estimated to raise aid by about $28 million in the second year) and reintroduced a fiscal-capacity disparity aid for property-poor communities; committee leaders said these moves were intended to realign formulaic supports for districts with demonstrated needs.
On energy and economic development, committee members said House bills aim to return money from a renewable energy fund to electric-ratepayers for the biennium and to change how the renewable portfolio standard is funded; critics at the hearing described the change as taking dedicated funds that supported small-scale solar incentives and warned of legal challenges. The committee also suspended a portion of rooms-and-meals advertising aid to travel and tourism as a temporary biennial reduction, drawing objections from tourism and local-business advocates who said the cut would harm a sector that supports many jobs and local revenues.
Committee leaders defended those tradeoffs as necessary to close a statewide revenue gap and to prioritize K–12 adequacy grants, special education increases and other direct schooling supports. They said the House position leaves many of the final policy judgments to the Senate and emphasized that fiscal committee and governing-council actions can adjust allocations during the biennium.
