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Committee hears bill to index personal-needs allowance annually; amendment addresses Hampstead Hospital liabilities
Summary
Senate Bill 118 would tie the personal-needs allowance for nursing-home and residential-care residents to Social Security cost-of-living adjustments annually and contains an amendment to fund leave payments and a capital-account mechanism related to Hampstead Hospital.
Senator Regina Bertsell, prime sponsor of Senate Bill 118, told the committee the bill would change RSA 167:27-a to adjust the personal-needs allowance for nursing-home and residential-care residents annually to mirror Social Security cost-of-living increases instead of the current five-year adjustment schedule. Wendy Altman, bureau chief at DHHS's Bureau of Adult and Aging Services, said the change would let residents retain modest increases in disposable income each year; she said the Choices for Independence waiver population has an average residential-care stay of about three years.
Witnesses described the current personal-needs allowance as $74 per month. Long-term-care advocates and the state long-term-care ombudsman, Susan Buxton, said that $74 stretched poorly over multiple years for items such as phone service, clothing, haircuts and occasional outings, and urged the committee to adopt annual indexing.
Senate Bill 118 also contains an amendment related to Hampstead Hospital. Marissa Henn, DHHS deputy commissioner, and Nathan White, DHHS chief financial officer, explained that Hampstead has transitioned through multiple operating models and is now leased to Dartmouth Health, which operates the hospital under a lease that includes a dollar-for-dollar state obligation of up to $3 million should Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital (Dartmouth Hitchcock) make capital investments. DHHS requested a $160,000 appropriation to cover certain leave-accrual and retention payments owed to temporary classified staff from the period when they were state employees and for a small number of bonuses that were promised but unpaid when operations transitioned.
DHHS told the committee the appropriation would help retain staff, support continuity of services for vulnerable youth, and enable the department to set aside funds to meet the lease-related capital obligation should Dartmouth invest. DHHS noted it was working with Treasury/ARPA compliance staff to ensure any dedicated fund language complies with U.S. Treasury rules because the facility purchase used ARPA funds.
The committee closed the public hearing after testimony from DHHS, the ombudsman, and advocates; no formal committee vote was recorded during the session.
