House committee advances transparency for domestic-violence grants, curbs public support for some detention contracts and passes several bills

The House Executive Departments and Administration Committee met in executive session and took action on a broad slate of bills, approving changes intended to increase transparency for domestic-violence grant spending, declining to advance a proposal restricting local participation in federal immigrant detention contracts, and moving several other measures forward.

The committee adopted a replace-all amendment (0946h) to House Bill 16-75 that clarifies that the coordinator for the state’s domestic-violence grant program and related direct-service grantees and subcontractors are subject to RSA 91-A (the state’s right-to-know law) and requires annual reports from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice describing program activities, subrecipient oversight, allowable-cost verification and basic performance metrics. Chair (speaker 1) said the change is intended to “pierce through” confusion about whether contracted services match statutory requirements and to provide “sunlight and clarity” for victims’ services.

Representative Powers (speaker 7), who supported related bills earlier in the meeting, told the committee that local officials want assurance that federal contracts are not leaving counties to finance federal responsibilities: “We want to make sure that the federal government is paying for everything,” Powers said during debate on a separate bill.

On House Bill 16-09 — which…