Committee reviews SB 118: annual nursing-home allowance, Hampstead payouts and Dartmouth match, plus home cultivation language

Members of the Finance Division III work session reviewed Senate Bill 118 (SB 118) on Oct. 26, 2025, examining four distinct components: an annual indexing change to the personal needs allowance for Medicaid nursing-home residents; one-time payments and leave accruals for employees affected by the state’s acquisition and later lease of Hampstead; a dedicated state fund to match Dartmouth’s capital investments up to $3 million; and a set of therapeutic cannabis home-cultivation provisions carried over from House Bill 53.

The personal needs allowance change would require the Department of Health and Human Services to update the allowance annually rather than every five years. Nathan White, chief financial officer for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the current allowance ‘‘is approximately $75 to $80’’ and that moving to an annual adjustment is estimated to increase state expenditures by about $50,000 per year. White also noted that the fiscal-note ranges reflect uncertainty about which Medicaid-eligible residents would be in nursing facilities in any given year.

Proponents and several committee members debated the policy trade-offs. One legislator said the change would tie a recurring cost to Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustments and warned it could become a permanent cost driver. White and Brian Clark, an attorney for the Bureau of Adult and Aging Services, clarified that the allowance is set in statute and that the legislature retains discretion to change it in an off year; Clark said the department’s interpretation was that the current statute requires updates at least once every five years.

The bill’s sections addressing Hampstead…