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House division 2 backs fee increases, reduces university state aid and trims tourism advertising
Summary
Division 2’s package relies on fee increases (vehicle registrations, licensing and regulatory fees) to shore up the highway and other special funds, reduces state aid to the University System of New Hampshire by $25 million per year, and suspends a rooms and meals advertising allocation that funds tourism marketing.
Representative Hirsch, who led the Division 2 presentation, said the division focused on self‑supporting funds (highway, fish and game, turnpike) and on aligning fees with usage after finding most user fees had not been adjusted in decades. The package raises registration and licensing fees, including increases to vanity plate fees, to boost the highway fund and to support winter road maintenance and incentives for plow drivers.
The division also reallocated some restricted lottery revenue to ensure that lottery proceeds are used for state adequacy grants to local schools, and made a set of adjustments to how Education Trust Fund appropriations are presented. On higher education, division leaders moved to reduce the House appropriation to the University System of New Hampshire by $25 million per year compared with the prior level, a change that prompted sustained concern from committee members and public commenters about impacts on tuition and local economies that host campuses.
Tourism and renewable energy funds Division 2 suspended a portion of the rooms and meals tax distribution that had funded travel and tourism advertising (a house practice described in committee as a $14 million cut over the biennium). Presenters argued that much advertising is already undertaken by tourism businesses and that direct state advertising had a more limited marginal effect. Critics, including municipal and tourism representatives, warned the suspension could harm regional economic activity and cost jobs in hospitality sectors.
The division also included language and fiscal assumptions affecting the Renewable Energy Fund and the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). Committee debate included a campus of critics who said redirecting dedicated renewable funds toward balancing the general fund could invite legal challenge because some funds were created by statute and ratepayer contributions.
Why it matters: the fee increases alter the user‑pay mix for highway funding and other special funds; the reduction in USNH state aid and the tourism advertising suspension have potential economic implications for university towns and the hospitality industry; and reallocation of renewable energy funds drew disputes about statutory intent and ratepayer expectations.
