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Adult Parole Board asks committee to restore a filled staff position eliminated from budget
Summary
The New Hampshire Adult Parole Board told the House Finance Committee that the governor’s target required eliminating a filled Secretary II position and that the board is requesting restoration because the job handles scheduling, vetting housing plans, and supporting revocation and parole hearings.
Concord — The Adult Parole Board appealed to the House Finance Committee to reinstate one filled staff position that the governor’s budget removed to meet target reductions.
Roger Phillips, chair of the Adult Parole Board, said the board was asked to shoulder an 11% budget reduction; board leaders said scaling an already‑small staff would substantially slow scheduling of parole and revocation hearings and complicate statutorily required tasks such as housing‑plan vetting.
Why it matters: the board has six staff members (five full time, one part time) plus five paid board members. The position slated for elimination was a filled Secretary II; staff said losing the post would slow the board’s ability to send housing and supervision plans to department field services and to prepare the weekly hearing packets that can run to a hundred pages.
The board’s packet said the eliminated position handles scheduling parole hearings and “vetting all the plans” to ensure they meet supervision requirements before releases. Phillips and operations director Jay Mackey told the committee eliminating the single position would cut about 17% of the board’s workforce and would force other staff to take on higher‑level duties; they said the board has already delayed some work this year during staff absences.
Board members said reinstating the position would allow the board to continue implementing audit recommendations and move from paper files toward a digital case packet system. Mackey said the board recently moved from paper packets to laptop‑based digital packets but still relies on a “green file” paper workflow between prison and district parole offices for release and revocation records.
What’s next: the board requested $54,000–$55,000 to fund the position for the biennium and asked the committee to restore the position in HB1. Committee members asked whether the board could cover the work by shifting supervisory duties; the board said its staffing is already compact and the eliminated role was chosen because it had the lowest labor grade and the least responsibilities among full‑time positions.
