Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Program Evaluation topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee divides over broad program‑review bill; lawmakers retain measure for revision
Summary
Senate Bill 193, which would create a commission to evaluate state programs and require biennial program strategic plans and evaluations, drew divided testimony from departments and lawmakers. Agencies warned the bill would be resource‑intensive and duplicative without an amendment; the committee voted to retain the bill for further work.
The committee heard extended testimony on Senate Bill 193, a broad measure to create a commission of business leaders to evaluate state programs and require agencies to submit program strategic plans and performance evaluations.
Sponsor Sen. Victoria Sullivan described the proposal as a targeted oversight tool: the commission would review up to five programs per year, using existing agency budget materials where possible. "We're hoping that they will be able to pull out some of the, you know, the bigger projects or things that might raise a red flag to them to delve into it and do an evaluation on it," Sullivan said.
Agencies raised concerns. Meredith Telous and Franchesca Hennessy from the Department of Health and Human Services told the committee that much of the information the bill seeks already exists in the biennial agency budget templates prepared under RSA 9:4. They supported an amendment to allow agencies to submit those existing forms rather than creating duplicative reports. HHS estimated preparing the additional material as written could require roughly 80 hours of a staff member—or a meaningful submission and said the department has "hundreds" of programs by its internal definitions.
Commissioner Sean Jasper of the Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food likewise said he could not support the bill as written because of the additional, open‑ended workload and questioned how the findings would be used. "Who will have time to dig into the details of hundreds of programs in state government?" Jasper asked. He said implementing the bill could divert staff from inspections and enforcement work.
Committee action: Lawmakers expressed concern that the bill, in its current form, would impose substantial work on agencies and create many reports that commission members might not be able to review in detail. After discussion, the committee voted to retain the bill for further drafting and possible amendment rather than advancing it out of committee at this time.
Next steps: Retention gives sponsors and departments time to negotiate narrower scope, revise definitions of "program" and align the bill with existing agency budget reporting requirements.
