Rep. Nancy Murphy urges protection for towns in bill to curb transfers of state highway property

Representative Nancy Murphy introduced House Bill 561 on behalf of New Hampshire municipalities, saying the bill would protect towns and cities from state actions that would transfer state-owned highway property to local governments without funding or local approval. “HB 561 has been filed to protect municipalities from state action that would impose an unfunded mandate upon them,” Murphy said, asking the committee for an OTP recommendation.

The bill would amend provisions of state statute cited in testimony as “RSA 230:57, RSA 4:39, and RSA 4:40” to limit or condition discontinuance, reclassification or reversion of portions of Class 1 and 2 highways to towns. Murphy told the committee that such transfers would “place an undue and disproportionate, potentiate budget crippling burden” on affected municipalities and that the bill was intended to prevent what she called an unfair downshift of costs to local property taxpayers.

Merrimack officials described a local example.…