Winter tourism in New Hampshire: a ‘small but mighty’ economic driver

There are plenty of fun things to do in New Hampshire all year long. And when you do them, you not only entertain yourself and your friends and family, but also help the New Hampshire economy. Tourism is one of the biggest economic drivers in New Hampshire, with an estimated $1.5 billion impact on the New Hampshire economy every winter. Here to discuss that is Commissioner Taylor Caswell, who heads the Department of Business and Economic Affairs. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

How busy is the winter season for tourism in New Hampshire? How does it stack up to the other seasons in the state?

Taylor Caswell:

It's always pretty busy. We sort of have a legacy of winter tourism here in New Hampshire — it definitely has a strong following in terms of how it compares in numbers to summer and fall.

I would say of the three, it's probably the smallest in terms of the amount of dollars that we see in the amount of visits. But, it's really relevant to the fact that at that time of year, the season is a little bit shorter. Particularly as we see changes in the climate, the fall season is fast and furious. We have about four to six weeks of really vivid colors that people all over the world have on their bucket list to come see. So that's a quick one, but summer really is a long season, and in fact, it's a season that may be feeling a little bit longer. We all know that September is starting to feel like the fourth summer month. But winter is small but mighty, and it is very much, as I said, part of the legacy of New Hampshire tourism.

Melanie Plenda:

Where do most of these tourists come from?

Taylor Caswell:

Typically, within New England, we have obviously a very strong market out of the Boston and eastern Massachusetts region. But we also get into Hartford and down into New York for winter. We also see a lot of people from Maine and Canada and Vermont also checking out their fellow ski areas or their communities nearby. So we don't have a huge fly-in market. People don't generally come from Colorado to New Hampshire, but as far as the East Coast, we really, really see that as our major market.

Melanie Plenda:

Do you have any sense of why they pick New Hampshire as a destination?

Taylor Caswell:

Well, because we're so awesome, obviously. But beyond that, I think the Boston market has very easy access into New Hampshire. Obviously, we have I-93 that comes right up into the heart of our ski country, and, particularly in winter, there's a lot of family traditions and people that have been coming here for a long time.

Since COVID, we've definitely seen an increase in the number of people who have second homes, and then there's that whole Airbnb issue that exists out there. That activity, I think, has increased the number of people who are returning visitors to New Hampshire. But for the most part, I think our geography is a big reason why we see a lot of that activity from southern New England.

Melanie Plenda:

What are some of the most popular activities here in winter, and how does the state promote them? 

Taylor Caswell:

The number one activity in terms of numbers for us, pretty much every season, is snowmobiling. But, of course, that is highly dependent on the weather. Last year was not a good snowmobiling season. Skiing is right in there behind them. Skiing has the added advantage of being able to make snow, so as long as it's generally cold, they can provide a product, and people will certainly take advantage of that. Winter hiking is becoming really, really popular, and a lot of people like to do that.

I think there's a good deal of effort to try to diversify the type of activities that people have. And of course, you’ve always got the shopping and the people going into our cool downtowns, like up in Littleton and North Conway to spend an afternoon, maybe getting something to eat, a couple of good craft beers, and picking up something nice at a small Main Street store.

Melanie Plenda:

As you mentioned, skiing is one of the most popular winter activities in the state. What’s being done to grow tourism in that sector?

Taylor Caswell:

We work closely with the ski areas, particularly with Ski NH, which is their main organization. We partner with them for big events in Boston, and we support the work that they do through marketing and through joint advertising.

One of the things that we really harp on as doing quickly and very nimbly is, as you know, if it’s raining on any sort of random day in Boston, but it’s snowing in the mountains, we have to convince everybody that there’s snow up here and what they’re seeing in their backyard isn’t necessarily the reality in the ski areas. So we have done a lot of advertising, even showing live shots of snowmaking being done so people in our key markets can see that there is snow and there is winter activity happening just a few hours north.

Melanie Plenda:

As you mentioned, weather can play a role in the failure and success of so many activities. Though you can’t control Mother Nature, what can be done to foster adaptability for activities that are weather dependent?

Taylor Caswell:

Adaptation is really the name of the game — being able to provide different types of activities, being able to understand the value and the technology of snowmaking equipment, and we've seen almost all of our ski areas in New Hampshire have made some pretty big investments in that, and they're getting quite good at using it. So as long as it stays somewhere around 35 degrees and below, they can make that snow, and they're quite good at that. That provides a really, really quality product. 

Melanie Plenda:

What sort of an impact does tourism have on the New Hampshire economy, as a whole? And what are some of the key drivers of that impact?

Taylor Caswell:

Tourism is huge. I refer to it all the time as sort of the tip of the spear for economic development in New Hampshire, and it's kind of been in that role for a long time. It's our second largest industry by the number of employees and the amount of income that's generated for participants in that economy. But it also is our best advertisement.

I mean, we talk a lot about New Hampshire, generally about access to the workforce, having enough people to fill the jobs that employers have in New Hampshire. We talk a lot about being able to recruit businesses into New Hampshire to make investments and take advantage of, obviously, our business climate here. In almost all of those cases, what we are hearing and what we see and what we know is successful is the experience that people have as a tourist at one point or another here in New Hampshire, and the great quality product that our tourism industry puts forward. 

Melanie Plenda:

As you noted, when we talk about the economy, we tend to think of it as separate sectors, but in truth, so many areas are related to each other. For example, affordable housing can have an impact on the job market and, therefore, tourism. What’s being done to address some of those connected issues like affordable housing or preserving natural resources? 

Taylor Caswell:

That's a really, really important point, and it really speaks to the whole reason why this department exists. We were established in 2017 with the goal of doing exactly what you're describing — a holistic approach to our economy in New Hampshire that takes advantage of all the things that I was talking about, with tourism leading the way for a lot of the recruitment we do of not just tourists, but workforce and businesses and even students to our universities.

But the housing piece is another issue that we deal with here at the department, and the interconnectedness that that has even to tourism. You talk about people that like to come out here and work as a seasonal employee in some of our high tourist areas —those are also some of our highest-cost areas as far as housing goes. How do we address that?

I mentioned earlier the Airbnb issue. That's a significant issue in a lot of our sort of tourism economy communities up in the Mount Washington Valley, for example.  That's an issue that they've really been struggling with — a lot of people in in more urban areas find it quite affordable to buy a nice little home in North Conway and then maybe just Airbnb that when they're not there — perfectly legitimate business, but at the same time, that takes away a housing unit that might typically be used for someone who's working at one of those ski areas during the winter. So it is an ongoing challenge. It's one of those things where you squeeze the balloon in one place and it pops up on another, but we continue to use the sort of resources we have here at the Department of Business and Economic Affairs to understand how those pieces go together and try to help do something about it for our communities. 

Melanie Plenda:

What else is being done to grow tourism in New Hampshire? What are the challenges there and what are the opportunities? 

Taylor Caswell:

Challenges are always obviously the broader economy, and how much disposable income people have for travel — cost of gas is something that always comes up in that in that consideration, inflation, all the general costs that go into planning a trip. We are, in some respects, slaves to those types of economics. A couple of years ago during COVID and the border to Canada was closed, we definitely saw a decrease in the numbers, particularly obviously coming out of Canada, but our overall numbers were affected by that.

When we look into the crystal ball here of what's going to happen over the next couple of years, those are the types of things that we really need to be paying attention to and trying to accommodate. Those costs, again, are something that the state government is not going to necessarily have control over, but we can work with our industry to make sure that they're pricing themselves in a way that's highly competitive for the market that we're in.

Melanie Plenda:

What’s your prediction for the outlook for tourism in New Hampshire this winter? How do you think things will go?

Taylor Caswell:

We see each year the ability for our tourism industry to take advantage of a very close market, still with some disposable income to come up and really experience the state. The only thing that really holds us back, ultimately, is the weather. But I always try to be very optimistic — particularly when I’m in a format like this.

Melanie Plenda:

Business and Economic Affairs Commissioner Taylor Caswell — thank you for joining us today. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative.

The ski industry’s continued impact on New Hampshire’s economy

For most of us, the snow isn’t here yet. However, the skiing season has begun. As one of the largest economic drivers in the state, the ski industry affects every New Hampshire resident. Every year about 2.8 million people visit the ski areas of New Hampshire — and most of those people come from out of state. They spend an estimated $384 million, generating thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions more in economic impact. That’s why the winter season is an important one for the state, especially for the northern and western areas. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” host Melanie Plenda talks with Jessyca Keeler, president of Ski New Hampshire about the outlook for the season and what’s new in New Hampshire ski areas.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity. 

Melanie Plenda:

Please tell our audience more about Ski New Hampshire. As an organization, what do you do and whom do you serve? 

Jessyca Keeler:

We are a nonprofit 501(c)(6) trade association that represents ski areas from around the state of New Hampshire. We currently have over 30 members. We also work with a host of associate members that are kind of adjacent to the ski industry.

We have three or four different buckets, if you will, of activities. One of those is advocacy and government relations work. We also do a lot of educational programming and planning for our members and offer networking opportunities as well. Then we do some marketing and PR and communications work.

Melanie Plenda:

In a general sense, what is the outlook for the 2024-2025 ski season this year? How does the weather look? How many people are expected? 

Jessyca Keeler:

We're always an optimistic bunch in the ski industry. While I'm not a meteorologist, one thing I will note is that this is apparently a La Nina year in terms of global climate phenomena or patterns. What that means, at least what we've read or been told that that means, is that we could be looking at a colder winter than average. Precipitation could be higher, could be lower. We could be seeing more storms. But honestly, time will tell.
We’re excited about the pattern that we're currently in. It's gotten colder in the last week or so. We've had a couple snow events. So we're excited about that. In terms of how many people are expected to come, I mean that really depends a lot on the weather. As much as ski areas do a lot of work to prepare for the winter and make sure that we have a great skiing surface and experience for people, the weather really can dictate how many people come in any given season. But, over the last 10 years, we've been averaging approximately 2.3 million skiers, which would be Alpine, cross-country and tubing visitors, over the course of each winter. So hopefully, we'll be in that range. 

Melanie Plenda:

For our audience, tell us more about the direct and perhaps indirect impact that skiing has on the New Hampshire economy. What businesses and industries are affected? What kind of revenue does it generate? 

Jessyca Keeler:

The last economic impact study we did was about six years ago, and what we were looking at was about $384 million in direct and indirect spending by skiers. That's spending at ski areas but also spending at places like restaurants and lodging properties and grocery stores and gas stations. But then you look at the induced effect, which really brings that number up to about a 500-plus-million-dollar economic impact to the state of New Hampshire. So that means that you're taking the employees who work in those businesses, whether it's the ski areas or the lodging properties or the restaurants, and they are then spending their funds, their income, if you will, on rentals or homes. They're paying taxes, going to the same grocery stores and gas stations that guests are going to, and they're just generally contributing back to the economy. So overall, we're looking at about a half a billion dollars a year. That number may have grown or changed since the study was completed in early 2019, but that's roughly the economic impact.

Overall, we're looking at communities in generally rural and mountainous parts of the state that rely heavily on tourism. So that's, you know, a lot of those communities, the ski area is kind of the big attraction — the big driver, the big economic driver for those areas. So without those ski areas, a lot of those other businesses might not do so well. It's an important economic driver for a lot of parts of the state.

Melanie Plenda:

It looks like many ski areas upgraded facilities over the summer, especially in terms of snow-producing equipment. Can you tell us more about that? 

Jessyca Keeler:

Ski areas are constantly investing in snowmaking. This is something that's been going on for decades, really. When the ski industry started back in the 1930s in the state, it was pretty evident right away that we might need some help along the way, because Mother Nature can be kind of fickle in the winters here in New England and in New Hampshire. 

It's really just important and vital for ski areas to invest in that technology so that we can guarantee a great product for skiers and riders who are coming up here to ensure that our winter tourism industry is healthy. So it's something that we do on a regular basis. I think this year alone, at least eight ski areas that I've counted that I know of invested — some small investments, some really big investments — in snowmaking this year, and I expect that to continue in the years to come.

Melanie Plenda:

How is climate change affecting the industry?

Jessyca Keeler:

It's definitely something that we've been grappling with over the years. We are seeing warming winters. Winters seem to start a little bit later. It takes a while for the weather to get cold enough to make snow, or for us to start seeing snowfall, or the ground freezing. This time of year, ski areas are sometimes opening later than they planned, maybe by a week or so. We're seeing that on the other end as well, in the spring. So we might be having warmer springs happening earlier than we expect, and that has caused some ski areas to close earlier than planned.

Likewise, with the extreme weather events that we're seeing. Last year, in December, we had this big rain and flooding event that kind of caused us to lose a lot of the snowmaking gains that we had right before the holidays. That really had an impact on us. Then in the spring, we saw some crazy storms where a lot of heavy snow fell, and in some places it was so heavy that it was either more icy or it was so heavy that it brought down trees, which caused power outages. Then ski areas can't over operate in those regions.

So it's definitely having an impact on our industry, but we're pretty resilient, and we have been taking strides and making efforts over the years to try and deal with what comes our way.

Melanie Plenda:

What’s being done to mitigate that impact? 

Jessyca Keeler:

Investments in snowmaking are a really important part of that adaptation for us as an industry, and ski areas are constantly reinvesting in that. Other investments include grooming technology as well — better groomers. There's a lot of work done on the slopes during the summer months to prepare for a season so that you can have less snow on the trails, for example. There’s a lot of different things that ski areas are doing to adapt.

Melanie Plenda:

Your organization also gathers skiing deals. Can you tell us more about those? Are there still discounts, and how regularly is that updated? And when’s the best time to get a deal?

Jessyca Keeler:

So it really depends on what kind of deal you're looking for. If you're a season pass holder — if you know you're going to ski more than, say, five times in a winter and you know you want to go to either the same mountain or different mountains — we do provide information about different season passes. I find that the best time to buy those is usually in the spring, when season one is still going. So if you're skiing in March, you might start to see ski areas advertising to you for the best rates for next season. If you're pretty sure that you're going to ski next season, I would recommend that you get your passes in the spring. It's usually like April, May, maybe into June, it varies by ski area, but those are the best times to get a pass. 

Melanie Plenda:

What does the future look like for skiing in New Hampshire?

Jessyca Keeler:

Like I said, we're optimists, and I would say I fall into that category as well. The ski areas, based on the investments that they've been making at their properties — we're not just talking about snowmaking, we're talking about new lodges, new trails, new mountains, even added to some of the existing ski resorts. We’re just seeing a lot of investment, and I think that points to a healthy industry. The future is bright. With those snowmaking and snow grooming investments that we've made, I think that we're prepared to deal with whatever comes our way. 

Melanie Plenda:

Well, good luck with the season. Jessyca Keeler, president of Ski New Hampshire, thank you for joining us today. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org

New Hampshire’s growing hunger problem and ways to relieve it

For many, Thanksgiving is an epic feast, featuring a table full of food. But for some, full tables aren’t always a reality. Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks, food pantries and local meal programs, released its “Map the Meal Gap 2024” report earlier this year, and it noted that more than 135,200 New Hampshire residents are food-insecure — a year-over-year increase of more than 41,000 people. In total, about 10 percent of New Hampshire residents — and more than 13 percent of children — are food insecure, meaning they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Several organizations in the state are doing what they can to address hunger locally. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Jenn Morton, of End 68 Hours of Hunger-Nashua and Anne Hayes of Gather talk with host Melanie Plenda on the problems and solutions. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

First, Jenn and Anne, please tell our audience about your organizations and how they are addressing food insecurity and hunger in New Hampshire.

Jenn Morton:

End 68 Hours of Hunger focuses on feeding children who face food insecurity at home. There are End 68 Hours of Hunger programs throughout the state. Ours in Nashua distributes food bags to about 17 schools and community centers locally, and we are currently feeding approximately 480 children a week. 

Anne Hayes:

We're a broad spectrum organization. Our mission is to offer innovative programs that build food security in welcoming and dignified ways, and it ranges from a bricks-and-mortar food pantry here in Portsmouth to mobile markets. We run about 40 mobile markets every month going out on the seacoast from all the way down to Seabrook and all the way  up to Somersworth and Farmington.

We also do a lot of food repurposing. We take food that would otherwise go to waste and turn it into meals and distribute about 80,000 of those meals every year, and another 1.7 million pounds of food every year to about 10,000-plus New Hampshire residents and York County, Maine, residents every month.

Melanie Plenda:

Anne, what does food insecurity and hunger look like in New Hampshire? 

Anne Hayes:

If I were to go out this morning in front of our food pantry, there would be about 30 people waiting in line, and it's all ages. It's people who are unhoused. It's seniors on fixed incomes that have felt the pinch of increases in food prices and housing prices. It's families with small children. There was a man in our pantry today with his little two-year-old in the cart. It's a huge range of people, from individuals all the way up to families with eight people in them. It's hard to say what it looks like, because you'd be really surprised at what it looks like.

Melanie Plenda:

Jenn, how big of a problem is this? 

Jenn Morton:

I think food insecurity is kind of a hidden problem in New Hampshire and across the nation. It's something that people don't always want to admit to or talk about.

We often get children that were identified at schools for behavioral reasons. It's not that they come in saying that they're hungry, but they'll come in really tired, and when the teacher asks about how their night was, they will admit to not sleeping so well. And when they ask more about why they didn't sleep so well, it turns out they didn't have dinner the night before, so they went to bed hungry. Food insecurity and hunger doesn't always present as someone saying, “I need food.” It can be an invisible problem that especially children aren't really tuned in to. We have children who are worried or nervous about going home on Fridays because they don't know where their next meal is coming from, and that's where our bags come in. They go home with the children for the weekend so that they know that they can have a source of food while they're at home.

Melanie Plenda:

There was a rise in the number of food-insecure people in New Hampshire last year. What’s fueling that? 

Anne Hayes:

Back in 2020, when the pandemic hit, things went up a lot. We all thought that it would come back down when the pandemic ended, but I think what's happened is, with food prices going up, with housing prices going up, with the end of pandemic era benefits, people are really finding themselves super squeezed. They may have been able to set aside a little bit of money earlier on when those benefits ended, but now that money is gone, and they are forced to come and access a food pantry, which we think is actually a really good idea for people. We love to see people come here first before they end up not being able to pay their rent, not being able to keep their car on the road so they can go to work, those kinds of things. But what we're really seeing is that people are just really being squeezed by the cost of living.

Jenn Morton:

Unfortunately, pay scales have not kept up with the cost of living, especially in New Hampshire. Minimum wage jobs or jobs that are barely making a living wage, maybe $12, $14, $15 an hour is not going to pay rent for a family of four. So there aren’t as many agencies that can help with rent or utility bills, but there are lots of agencies that can help with food. We’re always glad when families are able to reach out and say, “I’m really just struggling this month.” We see it throughout the school year. Our numbers increase in September, October. People just hear about our program, they're like, “No, I'm OK. I can get through this right now.” But when we really see a spike in our bag numbers is January, February, March, when people are deciding whether to pay their utility bills for heat and hot water through the winter, or whether they're deciding to put food on their table. That is especially when our bag numbers get really high, and we're glad that they have a resource to reach out to fill that gap.

Melanie Plenda:

As a community, in your opinion, are we doing enough to ensure everyone has enough to eat? 

Anne Hayes:

I think the community is very supportive of Gather’s work and of the work of other organizations like us. I feel like we have a very, very generous community, both in terms of people who donate money and in terms of people who give their time to help.

I think on the state level, there's more that we could be doing. There's more we could be doing to make sure that people who are eligible are on SNAP. There's more we could be doing by providing breakfast before the bell for students in schools, making it easier to sign up for free and reduced price lunch at schools for children, making it easier for seniors. We did get some legislation passed this year that made it easier for seniors to sign up for SNAP [the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], and that was great, but there's more to be done. 

Jenn Morton:

There were actually several bills in the Legislature last spring that would have expanded the free and reduced lunch program for students. Currently, there are not as many families qualifying for student free and reduced lunch as needed. It's based on the federal poverty income level, and we've definitely been able to expand other programs based on the federal poverty level, such as the Education Freedom Account program. We're giving out money for private schools, and yet we're not feeding the children who need to be there to eat.  So there's definitely ways that we need to support better at the state level.

But, as Anne said, our communities are really pitching in. No one wants to see children hungry in their communities. That has been my takeaway from my eight years volunteering here. We have a lot of volunteers that show up for any event that we plan. We do get a good amount of financial support, but at the state level and federally, there's definitely more to be done. I would love to see a statewide free breakfast and lunch program for students.

Melanie Plenda:

Along those same lines, what can we do? Is there a solution to this problem? 

Jenn Morton:

Definitely. Advocate, advocate, advocate for hunger solutions in your community. Pitch in and volunteer at your local level, but reach out to your state representatives, let them know that you care about the fact that there are hungry people in your community. We can work funding into the budget if that's something that we choose to prioritize. So I definitely encourage anyone to advocate for people, and that would be a great help. Also, local donations — both of actual food goods or monetary donations — are always appreciated to any of your local nonprofit food banks and food pantries,

Anna Hayes:

On the state level, reaching out to your state reps makes a big difference. The Hunger Free NH bill  [in the last legislative session] that we had was pretty much gutted, unfortunately, — there was a lot in there that could have really helped people. I think the more people who reach out and say something to their reps, the more likely it is that people start to recognize the problem.

Beyond that, I would say, definitely, Gather has a ton of volunteer opportunities. We work with between 40 and 50 volunteers every day to distribute the food that we distribute, and we would love to have more support in that way .And donating, because in the end in New Hampshire, more of the weight of this problem falls on nonprofits. So anything you can do to donate your time, talent or treasure is greatly appreciated. 

Melanie Plenda:

How can people help you with your work? What’s the best way to contribute?

Anne Hayes:

We can always use funding to support our work. If you go to our website, at gathernh,org,we would appreciate any contributions that people can make. Also on our website is a button that says “volunteer.” We would love to have people sign up to do that. And then just really helping by reaching out to state reps, reaching out to your neighbors, seeing if you can organize a food drive — participating in those kinds of things really makes a difference for us.

Jenn Morton:

Same here. Our website, end68hoursofhunger.org our website has your local communities listed that have End 68 Hours of Hunger programs. Most of them have buttons to give directly to your local community. Quite a few of them also have buttons to local volunteer opportunities. We also have an Amazon wish list at End 68 Hours of Hunger in Nashua. So all you have to do is visit that website, click through a wish list or a donate button, and you can really make a big difference in the life of a child in your community by helping to end their hunger situation, we really appreciate it.

Melanie Plenda:

Thank you Jenn Morton from End 68 Hours of Hunger-Nashua and Anne Hayes from Gather for discussing this really important topic today. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org. 

Amid political anxiety, providers see uptick in requests for long-acting birth control

The demand is fueled by uncertainties about abortion access and insurance coverage for contraceptives, experts say.

By: Kelly Burch, Granite State News Collaborative

Health clinics around New Hampshire have been fielding increased demand for long-acting and permanent birth control options since the presidential election, amid fears that the new administration might curtail access to or insurance coverage of contraception.

At Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, which has clinics in Derry, Exeter, Keene and Manchester, appointment bookings for long-acting reversible contraceptives — which include the birth control implant and intrauterine devices known as IUDs — were up as much as 82 percent in the week after the election (compared to the week before), while the number of vasectomy consultations increased slightly. 

Other health centers — including Lovering Health Center in Greenland, Equality Health Center in Concord and Lamprey Health Care, which has locations in Nashua, Newmarket and Raymond — have also seen an increase in calls about birth control options. 

“People feel very strongly that the time is now,” said Sandi Denoncour, executive director of Lovering Health Center. “There’s so much uncertainty and anxiety about what’s to come, they’re choosing a long-acting or permanent option.”

President-elect Trump has said he will not ban birth control and would veto a national ban on abortion. However, the nonprofit Center for Reproductive Rights has reported that a second Trump presidency poses “grave threats to reproductive freedoms.” Project 2025, which has been closely associated with Trump, calls for changes that include ending mandatory insurance coverage for contraception and access to medical abortion. There’s also anxiety that certain birth control methods and abortion could be banned or strictly limited, whether at the state or federal level, Denoncour said.

The result is an urgency for people to get access to long-acting birth control options before any changes can take place, Denoncour said. 

“It’s all very acute to people,” she said. “People are very worried. The anxiety is palpable.”

Lamprey Health Center hasn’t had a substantial increase in new appointments for birth control, said CEO Sue Durbin. However, providers have noticed more calls asking about replacing long-acting birth control before it’s medically necessary. IUDs can last for three to 10 years, depending on the brand. Replacing an IUD early essentially restarts the clock on that time period, ensuring a highly effective birth control option for years to come. 

For some patients, that can provide peace of mind. 

“There really is a lot of anxiety, and a lot of uncertainties in the larger landscape,” Durbin said. 

Ultimately, whether it’s possible to replace a contraceptive early comes down to an individual’s medical history and what their insurance will cover. 

“It would be making a decision on their medical situation, rather than the political situation,” Durbin said. 

Lamprey Health Center began offering vasectomies a little over a year ago, and has seen a steady increase in demand for that permanent form of birth control, Durbin noted. Although the numbers increased this fall, it’s “hard to say whether or not that’s related to the political environment right now.” 

At Equality Health Center in Concord, there’s been “an increase in panic of our patients looking to make plans for their reproductive health,” said Executive Director Jinelle Hall. It’s something she also thinks about for her two daughters, who are 19 and 23. 

“I want to make sure they have the necessary means whether they want to become pregnant or not,” she said. “It’s not just my professional life; it’s my personal life.”

Equality Health Center also reports more worried phone calls from patients receiving gender-affirming care, a trend also seen at Lovering Health Center. There’s a limit to what the health center can do for those patients, Hall said. For example, “we can’t extend scripts” beyond what’s medically allowed. 

Instead, workers at Equality are reminding patients that they can still receive all their typical health care, at least for the time being. 

“We’re making sure our patients understand we’re here for them and we understand they’re anxious,” while also providing “some solid information and advice that it’s business as usual until anything changes,” Hall said.

‘There’s no guarantee’

Delivering that message can be tricky, Denoncour said. 

The exterior of Planned Parenthood's clinic in Keene. Appointment bookings for long-acting reversible contraceptives were up as much as 82 percent in the week after the election, while the number of vasectomy consultations increased slightly at the organization’s four facilities in the state. (Casey McDermott/NH Public Radio)

“One of the challenges of messaging over the past few years, when the [24-week] abortion ban passed in New Hampshire and Roe fell, [is telling] folks, ‘services are still available, but we should be very worried,’” she said. “Services are not protected. There’s no guarantee that these couldn’t change based on federal or state actions.”

Internally, health centers are preparing for possible changes in access to abortion and contraceptives, providers said. Hall also urges patients to channel anxieties into speaking up about the importance of reproductive health care. 

"Your voice has to be heard,” she said. “We cannot sit back. Continue to have conversations with folks who make these decisions. We vote these folks in.”

This year, Equality Health Center is celebrating 50 years of providing health care in Concord, and Hall doesn’t see that changing anytime soon. 

“We’ve gone through some tough times, and we’re about to again,” she said. “We’ll come out on the other side. It’s just going to have some challenges.”

That determination to carry on is shared by other health clinics, including Lovering Health Center. 

"The anxiety we’re hearing from patients, we absolutely feel it,” Denoncour said. "But we can’t act like we’re under threat every day. We’re stubbornly optimistic.” 

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

The evolution of Black Friday: A conversation with N.H. Retail Association President Curtis Picard

The day after Thanksgiving has long been a huge shopping day, especially here in sales tax-free New Hampshire. But is Black Friday still the shopping extravaganza it was? On this episode of “The State We’re In,” host Melanie Plenda talks with Curtis Picard, president and CEO of the N.H. Retail Association, about the Black Friday phenomenon. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Black Friday, before the advent of online shopping, was crazy — especially here in New Hampshire. For our audience who may not remember, what was it like? 

Curtis Picard:

It's actually such a fascinating history because it goes back quite a few decades. The United States of America didn't have a solid Thanksgiving day on the calendar until the late 1930s-1940s, and it was only under FDR, when he finally heard from retailers like Macy's saying that they needed a solid date for when Thanksgiving should fall. So that really helped cement where we are today, and over the decades it certainly has evolved quite a bit.

I'm part of that generation from the 1980s where shopping malls were everything for retail — the midnight doorbusters and getting that large TV. But it certainly has evolved to where we are now in 2024.

Melanie Plenda:

How has online shopping changed the day? 

Curtis Picard:

I've been involved in retail associations for almost 20 years now. I've seen quite a bit in my tenure. We've seen the evolution just in my time from stores opening at midnight and having these great deals from midnight to 2 a.m. They’ve gotten a lot more savvy about the marketing. They've also expanded the window for when these deals are available to consumers — and that's really what they've always done, which is responding to consumer needs and wants.

So consumers have said that they want greater access to deals. They have more ability at their fingertips now to be able to shop for things online and compare prices. The consumer has always been in the driver's seat, but they're more in the driver's seat than they ever have been.

Melanie Plenda:

As a state without a sales tax, does that offer New Hampshire stores an advantage? Is it an incentive for others to come to the state? 

Curtis Picard:

What really helped evolve that phenomenon was the COVID pandemic. Going into the 2020 holiday shopping season, we worked with  government officials and tried to figure out the best way we could do holiday shopping that was safe for people. What we eventually were able to communicate to folks was you need to spread out the holiday shopping season. We don't want you to come on Black Friday, but we want to expand that window. Consumers really responded to it. So I think, since 2020, retailers have continued to expand that window of holiday shopping, and consumers have now learned that it's OK to do some of your holiday shopping in October or early November. You don't have to wait for Black Friday to do it. 

Melanie Plenda:

So, conversely, has it become a reason for New Hampshire residents to shop from home?

Curtis Picard:

I think the way we think of it now is — and this is also part of the pandemic as well — it wasn't just the large retailers or just the online retailers. Even small retailers had to learn how to better embrace e-commerce and what we call omni-channel. You want to meet your customers however they want to be served, whether that's in person in a brick-and-mortar store, whether they want to be able to online, order online, or pick up at the store, or just shop from home and have things delivered to their house. The COVID pandemic enabled a lot of smaller retailers to offer more of those services. So now, whether you're big or small, chances are, if you want to be successful in retail, you have to respond to customers in that way.

Melanie Plenda:

These must mirror retail trends in general. Can you tell us more about that, and how is the industry adapting? 

Curtis Picard:

That's always one of those things where you can take a look back after the holiday season and see how things do and how much of a predictor it was of the overall economy. But that really changed during the pandemic as well.

When it came to holiday shopping, we started to see a trend, even before the pandemic, of people appreciating their smaller, locally owned stores more. Small Business Saturday has been a thing for a long time, but I think our association and others have always emphasized that you need to support your small local retailers 365 days a year, not just one day out of the year. We had seen that trend before the pandemic, but the pandemic really emphasized it because people saw their locally owned stores really struggling, trying to navigate that pandemic, and I think people really embraced them. That's one of the trends that we've continued to see evolve. 

I also think that retailers benefited in those years of the pandemic because there was a lot of disposable income that was no longer used for eating out, going to concerts, doing experience type of things. People were trending back towards wanting to buy physical things. I think that's shifting back now, now that we're four years past the pandemic — people are feeling more comfortable going to concerts or lavish dinners, travel. It's a competition for dollars as well.

But then after the holiday season, we always take a look at where people actually spend their money. High-ticket items? Furnishings? Electronics? Brand-name luxury goods, or was it more the department stores or the bargain chains? But that's always a look back. It's hard to always predict how things are going to go. 

Melanie Plenda:

What about shopping trends outside the holiday season? How are stores generally adapting to balancing e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores? 

Curtis Picard:

Every retailer is working on mastering that. Some certainly do it better than others, but there's always been the evolution of retail. You're always responding to customer needs and wants. We can say that customers are always fickle, but you have to continue to earn their business, and that never gets easier.

So whether you're a popular New Hampshire-based retailer that's been around for decades, you still have to work at it. The business can't sit back on their laurels and take it for granted. You have to be responsive to customers. You have to keep your eye on different trends and wants and changing interests in the products you're offering. You’ve got to make sure your pricing is competitive, and that's certainly been a challenge more recently, with the inflationary pressures that everybody's been facing.

Melanie Plenda:

What are some creative solutions you’ve heard about to draw customers in?

Curtis Picard:

Retailers are like the best marketers out there. We talked in the beginning about Thanksgiving and the role that Macy's plays, even today. I don't know about you, but in my family, we still sit down on Thanksgiving Day and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, because it's such an icon. Retailers do a really good job, marketing-wise, and they continue to try to appeal to customers and earn their business.

We talked about how now they've expanded the window of the holiday shopping season. We've seen the rise of things like gift cards over the last 10 or 12 years. Gift cards are really great giving tools, but the benefit for retailers is if you give a gift card during the holiday season to somebody, the hope is they're going to come back in January and spend that gift card when that's usually a slower time of year. So those are all marketing tools at retailers' disposal that they try to use, and a lot of them are quite successful.

Melanie Plenda:

Beyond planning our shopping, the success of Black Friday — whether it’s one day or two weeks — has a bigger impact on the retail industry in our state. For our audience, can you talk about that impact and what it means for residents?

Curtis Picard:

A lot of that is tradition. We all look forward to Black Friday. Certainly, media outlets reach out wanting to talk about Black Friday, how it's going and what the crowds are like. But we have that window between Thanksgiving and Christmas — Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, which is the Monday following Thanksgiving, and then you have those other weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

A lot of people don't realize that the full weekend before Christmas is often as busy, if not busier, than Black Friday. So we look at all of those things. The urban myth is that the term Black Friday refers to when retailers turn from unprofitable to profitable. You go from the red side of the ledger to the black side. I'm not sure that's really true. I've also heard stories that it goes back to the 1960s in Philadelphia, and it was just in reference to how chaotic the shopping day became. I don't know what the true story is, but it is within our shared history here in the United States, and it has become quite a tradition that carries on to this day.

Melanie Plenda:

When you look ahead five or even 10 years, what do you think Black Friday will look like? 

Curtis Picard:

That's a good question. I don't want to say it's not going to have an impact, because it's always going to have an impact. It's worked into our lexicon here in the United States and in New Hampshire, but I think what we've seen, customers will continue to be in the driver's seat. I think retailers and consumers have adapted to a longer shopping period, and the ability to get what you want and what you need quicker will continue to develop as well. You know, already there's online retailers that can deliver goods to you the same day. I think you're going to continue to see that expand. Black Friday is not going to go away, it's just going to continue to evolve.

Melanie Plenda:

That was so interesting. Thank you Curtis Picard, president and CEO of the New Hampshire Retail Association, for sharing your thoughts. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

New Hampshire community TV stations scramble for funding as revenue source continues to shrink

Cable franchise fees, which support the stations, have dwindled for years in an era of cord-cutting

By: Patrick Adrian, Granite State News Collaborative

Public access television stations across New Hampshire face growing uncertainty as their funding declines, forcing stations to seek new sources of revenue to support community television. 

“The federal government should be saying that this service is essential for communities,” says Jason Cote, executive director of Manchester Public Television. (Dan Splaine Photography)

Funding for the television stations derives from franchise fees, a charge that appears on a customer’s cable bill. They are an annual payment by a cable company to a municipality in exchange for the use of public property to operate its cable lines. 

But the ongoing preference by viewers to “cut the cord” and instead opt for streaming services, as well as a growing customer preference for more customized and cost-effective television options, have led to a dramatic decrease in cable subscriptions nationwide, including in the Granite State.

Nashua Community Television, a city-owned station with four public-access channels, is currently working with the city's Board of Aldermen to cover “a sizable deficit” this fiscal year, said Pete Johnson, NCTV’s education channel access director. 

The station, which has a $600,000 operating budget, received $383,000 in franchise fee revenues this year — down nearly 7% from last fiscal year. 

“We took a pretty substantial hit this year,” Johnson said. “We knew this downturn was coming (but now) we’ve blown through our reserves.” 

For several years, the station supplemented its revenue with money from a surplus reserve, Johnson said. But that reserve is now depleted. 

Since 2017, cable subscriptions in the U.S. have declined annually by nearly 5% — from 96 million subscriptions to 68 million in 2024, according to IBISWorld, a global research firm. Comcast, the largest cable TV provider in New Hampshire and second-largest in the U.S., reported a nationwide loss of over 1.8 million cable subscribers between March 2023 and August 2024. 

A federal rule that only allows a fee charged to cable services, not to broadband providers, to support community television “hasn’t caught up to the industry,” Nick Lavallee, executive director of Merrimack TV, told the Town Council at a recent meeting. (Dan Splaine Photography)

In Nashua, the revenues from franchise fees have declined 21% since 2017, when the station received $483,000. 

The problem, said community television advocates, lies in the federal government’s funding rules for public access stations, which are 40 years old and outdated. 

“Consumers are switching to other services (through broadband) that are not regulated the same way as cable,” said Mike Wassenaar, president of the Alliance for Community Media, a national trade organization. “The irony is that there is more and more video being watched today but less and less money going toward the public stations that produce local content.”
The funding conundrum

Franchise fees are governed under the Cable Communications Act of 1984, which sets a national policy for the regulation of cable television communications. 

Under federal law, municipalities are entitled to a maximum of 5% of a cable operator’s gross revenues derived from cable subscriptions and related services, such as pay-per-view orders. In New Hampshire, the local government and cable provider negotiate the percentage of this fee when initiating or renewing a franchise agreement. Municipalities may use these revenues for a variety of local purposes, including to fund public, education and government access, or PEG, channels. 

“There should be a related public benefit in exchange for allowing private companies to make money off of public property,” said Owen Provencher, director of Derry Community Access Media and president of the N.H. Coalition of Community Media, a group of nearly 40 public access outlets in the state. 

“There should be a related public benefit in exchange for allowing private companies to make money off of public property,” says Owen Provencher, director of Derry Community Access Media and president of the N.H. Coalition of Community Media, a group of nearly 40 public access outlets in the state. (Dan Splaine Photography)

But the federal rule allows a fee charged only to cable services, not to broadband providers. 

“The law hasn’t caught up to the industry,” Nick Lavallee, executive director of Merrimack TV, told the Town Council at a meeting Sept. 26. 

“One can purchase broadband and run streaming apps to access the same video content as cable television (without paying a franchise fee),” Wassenaar said. “It’s a problem across the country, and unless there’s a change in the federal law, this problem will still exist.” 

Community television advocates believe that federal law should expand the application of franchise fees to all companies that use public right-of-ways to deliver video content, including internet providers and streaming services. 

“The broadband and fiber optics lines are going over the same public right-of-ways as the cable one,” Provencher said in an interview.

Meanwhile, community television stations are already serving a large and growing viewership on internet-based platforms, particularly due to the ability to stream recorded programs, several station managers said. 

Jason Cote, executive director of Manchester Public Television, said a live government meeting might draw between 75 and 100 viewers, whereas the video recording of that meeting online will receive “hundreds of views.”

“I brought up 10 years ago that (internet providers) should be involved in funding public access stations,” Cote said. “The federal government should be saying that this service is essential for communities.” 

The COVID pandemic, in addition to accelerating the market shift toward video streaming, opened new opportunities for public access television to engage audiences. 

Manchester Public TV’s studios are located on Canal Street in downtown Manchester. (Dan Splaine Photography)

For example, Nashua Community TV began covering live school sporting events because the games were closed to the public, Johnson said. The station still provides live game coverage due to its popularity. 

“So we find ourselves busier than ever, because people have come to expect that kind of coverage,” Johnson said. “And those are things that we want to continue for the community.”

‘Not sustainable in the long term’

As revenues shrink, some stations are seeking support from their local governments. This includes requests for additional funding or proposals to raise the franchise fee rate. 

The Merrimack Town Council, at a meeting Sept. 26, discussed whether to include Merrimack TV in the town budget and fund it from local property taxes instead of franchise fees.

The station’s franchise fee revenue this year — $368,000 — is 7% lower than in 2021, Town Manager Paul Micali told the council. A recent study projected that the station may be operating at a deficit in three years, based on the rate of declining funds and estimated cost increases. 

At the meeting, Micali proposed that the council increase the franchise fee rate, from the current 3.75% of cable revenues to 5%, when the agreement is up for renewal in 2029. This increase would not resolve the problem, though it would provide a few additional years of sustainability, Micali said. 

Several councilors expressed concern about increasing the burden on cable subscribers for a station accessed by the broader community.

Among them was Thomas Koenig, who said, “I think that’s wrong. If we need to fund it, I think we (all) need to fund it.”

The council has not yet made a decision on the station’s funding. 

On the Seacoast, Portsmouth Public Media TV which operates PPMtv, announced in July that its channel may shut down operations after 14 years unless the city council renegotiates a 2009 agreement with the station to increase its funding. 

Under that agreement, the city retains $360,000 of the annual franchise fee it receives from Comcast — 5% of the company’s cable revenues — and PPMtv receives the remainder of the revenue. In prior years, the station’s share has averaged roughly between $120,000 and $130,000, said Executive Director Chad Cordner.

But in May, PPMtv learned that its funding share this year would be $86,000 — a 27% drop from 2023 — and that next year’s funding is projected to be a similar amount, Cordner said. The allotted funding is barely enough to pay Cordner’s full-time salary, $46,000, and the station’s two part-time employees, at $20,000 apiece, he said.

The Nashua ETV studio (Dan Splaine Photography)

“PPMtv is tremendously underfunded as compared to other stations,” Studio Operations Manager Jake Webb wrote in an online petition seeking community support. “A more equal split of this fee would allow PPMtv to continue to operate and even grow.”

The station’s Youtube channel has 14,000 subscribers, and its video library has received 4 million total views, Cordner said. 

The station is seeking between $50,000 and $100,000 in additional franchise fee revenues to cover equipment and programming costs, including media education workshops and internships, Cordner said.

Several city councilors, at a meeting Sept. 3, expressed reservations about increasing the station’s funding from a shrinking revenue source.

“Even if we gave PPMtv 100% of the franchise fee, that is not sustainable in the long term because that (revenue) will go down significantly, " Councilor Kate Cook said at the meeting. 

The city’s franchise fees also fund a government channel that streams municipal meetings, which has a budget of over $200,000 a year, Cook said. 

The council directed city staff on Sept. 3 to present recommendations at a future council meeting for ways to sustainably fund PPMtv. 

State solutions 

Despite a strong consensus in support of changing the federal law, several industry members said that is unlikely to happen. 

Congress would need to approve any amendments to the Cable Communications Act. The political divide in Washington already makes bipartisanship difficult, Wassenaar noted.

And many lawmakers would be reluctant to support a fee on Internet services, said Lauren-Glenn Davitian, public policy director at Center for Media & Democracy, a public media advocacy group based in Burlington, Vt. 

The Internet Tax Freedom Act, a federal law passed in 1998, prohibits state and local governments from imposing taxes directly on the internet or online activity, including taxes on email accounts or internet access. The law’s stated intent was to support the internet’s use as a commercial, educational and informational tool. 

Some states, including Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts, are taking steps to aid their public access stations through legislation or direct funding. Provencher said there is currently no legislation in New Hampshire pertaining to community television funding.

In February, the Maine Legislature passed LD 1967, a law that allows municipalities to charge a franchise fee to any video service provider that uses a public right-of-way, regardless of the technology employed. 

The law requires any provider of video, audio or digital entertainment that owns or operates facilities in the public right-of-way to have an agreement with the municipality, said Tony Vigue, a public media advocate in Maine. 

The bill’s stated intent is to ensure that all providers of video services, regardless of the platform, receive equal treatment in respect to franchising and regulating. 

“Just because the technology has changed, the town still owns a public right-of-way,” Vigue said. 

The law, which was not signed by the governor, went into effect in August. The Maine Municipal Association and Maine Connectivity Authority are still drafting a standard agreement form for towns and cities to use, Vigue said. 

Massachusetts lawmakers are considering legislation that would levy fees on streaming companies like Netflix and Roku to help fund community media. 

Nashua Community Television is currently working with the city's Board of Aldermen to cover “a sizable deficit” this fiscal year, says Pete Johnson, NCTV’s education channel access director. (Dan Splaine Photography)

Senate Bill 2771 proposes a 5% fee on digital streaming providers, based on a company’s gross annual revenue in the state. A portion of the fee would be distributed to municipalities to support their public access television programs. The bill, introduced last year, is still under review in the Massachusetts Senate. 

Vermont is considering a similar bill, S.181, which is currently under committee review in the House. That bill would also charge a 5% tax on a company’s statewide revenue. 

Though she would like to see a legislative plan, Davitian said she does not support a streaming tax, which would result in many consumers being charged more than once for the same use of a right-of-way, such as cable customers with add-on streaming channels. 

“There needs to be a tax on the infrastructure, not streaming (services),” Davitian said.

A separate bill, proposing a $15-per-pole attachment tax for each fiber or copper line attached to a utility pole, was abandoned by the House Ways and Means Committee in February. 

The bill received heavy opposition from various stakeholders, including local telephone companies, which said they wouldn’t be able to afford the cost, Davitian said. 

In June, the Vermont Legislature approved a one-time appropriation of $1 million in this year’s budget to help Vermont’s community television stations absorb the impact of declining franchise fees.

That money is intended to be a stopgap as legislators continue to seek a funding solution, Davitian said. “It was an interesting victory,” Davitian said. “We are happy to get the money, but we didn’t get to make a public policy.” 

The money will be distributed through the Vermont Access Network, an organization representing the state’s 24 public access media centers, which operate more than 80 local cable channels in the state. 

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

NH kept $4.8 million in child support from the state’s poorest families last year. Officials say there’s ‘support’ to change that, but no action so far

The state can hold child support to recoup its costs of providing cash assistance to needy families, including more than 13,000 Granite State families last year

By: Kelly Burch, Granite State News Collaborative

Last year, New Hampshire retained more than $4.8 million in child support from about 13,000 Granite State families who are receiving cash assistance from the state, or have received it in the past. 

Although withholding the money aligns with federal law, policy experts say retaining child support to cover state costs has a negative impact on families and makes it less likely that a parent will pay court-ordered child support.

In part because of those issues, half of states around the country — including Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts — have changed their laws to allow child support to “pass through” to families who are receiving benefits. 

Similar efforts have briefly been considered in New Hampshire, but never gained real traction, experts say. 

“There certainly is a lot of support behind having pass-through so the family is receiving [cash benefits] but also the child support that is court-ordered to be paid to the family,” said Karen Hebert, director of the state Division for Economic Stability, which oversees cash assistance and child support.

The lack of action has left New Hampshire’s most vulnerable families without access to money that could help them escape poverty. 

“We want to ensure we’re lifting people up and not constraining them to remain at low-income levels,” said Rebecca Woitkowski, child and family policy director at New Futures, a Granite State nonprofit advocating for improved health through policy changes. “The more we can build up a family, the better it will be for our state’s future.” 

Withholding money that could help cover basic needs

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) provides cash to the country’s lowest-income families. In New Hampshire, families may qualify for TANF if their income is at or below 60% of the federal poverty level, or $1,560 per month for a family of four. 

“TANF families are living at very low income levels. They likely have a number of burdens they’re trying to overcome…” Woitkowski said. “Families don’t want to live at TANF levels. It’s hard.”

To qualify for TANF, federal law requires families to cooperate with the government’s child support program, which helps facilitate court-ordered child support. The state assists a family in finding a non-custodial parent and obtaining child support, often from federal tax returns, said Diana Azevedo-McCaffrey, policy analyst with the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and co-author of a recent report on the issue of retained child support. 

“For these families — most of which are very low income, overwhelmingly led by women, disproportionately women of color — these child support payments make a huge difference for children, families, and parents, not only financially but in other ways as well,” she said.

And yet, “most of the time [the family doesn’t] receive those child support payments,” Azevedo-McCaffrey said. 

Instead, “the state splits [the child support] with the federal government to reimburse itself for the cash benefits provided to the family.”

In fiscal year 2024 (which ended June 30), New Hampshire retained a total of $4,837,163 in child support from families who have utilized TANF, according to data provided by the state Division for Economic Stability, which oversees both TANF and child support. 

That includes $3,526,501 retained from families currently getting TANF, and $1,310,662 from families that were formerly on TANF, but aren’t currently getting cash benefits. 

A similar policy affects child support paid by parents whose children are currently in or were formerly in foster care. In fiscal year 2024, New Hampshire retained $27,642 from those families, according to state data.

In total, the state retained child support from 13,420 New Hampshire families last year. On average, the court-ordered child support paid to these families is $222.89 per month from families currently on TANF, and $200.80 per month from families that were formerly on TANF, according to state data. 

That may seem like a small amount of money to some people, but for TANF families it can mean the difference between housing and homelessness, eating or going hungry, according to Woitkowski. 

“Any amount of money, at that point, is going to be impactful for that family to meet their basic needs,” she said. 

Two policy changes could make a difference

Research shows many benefits to families receiving child support, including more financial stability, lower risk of involvement with child protective services, and better outcomes for kids. 

In addition, noncustodial parents are more likely to pay their court-ordered child support if they know it is benefiting their children directly, rather than being retained by the state, research shows. 

“There’s not much incentive [to pay] for parents who are having child support kept by the government,” Azevedo-McCaffrey said. 

There’s also an emotional and social factor to child support that’s different from other types of financial support.

Child support is “often representative of family relationships and dynamics,” Azevedo-McCaffrey said. “These cost-recovery policies can be very harmful, not only in the sense that they’re depriving families of an income source … but they’re disrupting families and family dynamics and relationships.”

Because of this, states around the country are reconsidering the retention of child support, and are moving to change two policies. 

The first change is to enact legislation that would allow a certain amount of child support to “pass through” to families without being retained by the state. Twenty-five states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, have adopted such policies. Massachusetts and Maine both allow $50 per month in child support to go directly to families even if they’re getting TANF; Vermont increased the pass-through amount to $100 this year. New Hampshire doesn’t allow any funds to pass through.

A second policy would alter the distribution model that states use to allocate child support funds, switching from the model outlined by a 1996 federal law to the model outlined by a 2005 law. The change “switches the payment order, essentially,” paying families their current and then past child support owed, before reimbursing the state for costs associated with TANF, Azevedo-McCaffrey said. 

Nationally, nine states, including Vermont, have made that change. New Hampshire still follows the 1996 law. 

‘A lot of support’ for change, but little action

Hebert, director of the state Division for Economic Stability, which oversees TANF and child support, says New Hampshire has considered changing its policies on retained child support twice within the 20 years that she’s been with the division, but the efforts haven’t led anywhere.

When the state provides assistance to individuals, it has a “vested interest” in covering its costs, Hebert said. At the same time, there’s a desire to get people the assistance they need. 

That’s why there’s no child-support requirement for individuals or families participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): The state wants people who need food assistance to get it, Hebert said. 

Leveraging child support as a condition for SNAP is “just not something the state has ever really been interested in,” she added. And yet, the state continues to retain child support from families on TANF, which has a much lower income threshold than SNAP.

“There are lots of reasons we would want to support pass-through,” Hebert said, citing the national research about parents being more likely to pay child support when the money goes directly to their children.

Still, there’s been no change. One reason is that when the state collects child support for a family that has had TANF, it must give a portion of the proceeds to the federal government. 

Federal law allows states to pass through up to $200 a month in child support (depending on family size) without needing to reimburse the federal portion, Azevedo-McCaffrey said. Three states — Colorado, Michigan and Minnesota — combine several federal policy options in order to pass through all child support to families, despite the federal requirement, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report. 

Making similar changes in New Hampshire “is a state policy and finance decision for the legislature,” Hebert said. 

The other reason New Hampshire hasn’t changed is more mundane: computer and logistical challenges. 

“There’s a lot of maintenance to it in the system that we have,” Hebert said. 

That’s a prominent barrier around the nation, Azevedo-McCaffrey said. Updating the software that states use to calculate TANF and child support distributions is a huge undertaking.

"For some states, the biggest cost is computer reprogramming,” she said.

A bigger issue is also at play, she added: “Sadly, sometimes there is not a lot of political will to change policies that impact people living in poverty.”

Regardless of child support, TANF in NH is underutilized

Aside from issues around retaining child support, there’s widespread “under-enrollment” in TANF in New Hampshire, according to a report from the N.H. Fiscal Policy Institute. Because fewer families are participating in the program, the state has a balance of $74.4 million in unspent TANF funding from the federal government, the fiscal policy center found.

Each state has the power to set its own definition of a “needy family,” Hebert said, so New Hampshire has the power to raise the income that qualifies for TANF, potentially increasing the number of participating families. New Hampshire’s threshold for qualifying for TANF is already among the highest in the country, and greater than neighboring states, but “if the limit were increased, it is logical we could see an increase in utilization,” Hebert said.

The state also disregards certain income when calculating TANF eligibility, she noted. The state is currently running a pilot program to disregard 75 to 100 percent of new income, in order “to mitigate the cliff effect,” which occurs when people suddenly lose benefits after hitting a certain income threshold.  

Only 5,308 individuals participate in TANF at any given time in 2024, well below the 76,922 enrolled in SNAP or the 183,955 enrolled in Medicaid, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute. Both SNAP and Medicaid have significantly higher income allowances, so more people are eligible for those programs.

Participation in TANF declined about 34% between 2020 and 2024, said Jess Williams, policy analyst with the N.H. Fiscal Policy Institute. In part, that’s positive: Families overall are more financially stable due to the state’s low unemployment, and the impact of pandemic-related financial resources, including stimulus checks. 

However, there are plenty of families that could still use TANF, Williams said. Based on U.S. Census data looking at poverty rates, about 25,000 New Hampshire families with at least one child live at or below 60% of the poverty line – an income level that qualifies them for TANF. Only about 13 percent of those families are participating in the program, she said. (Income is not the only qualification for TANF, but offers a benchmark for understanding how many families may qualify, Williams noted).

There are two main drivers of the low participation, according to Williams. 

• The first is the relatively low benefit amount, compared to the high cost of living in the Granite State. A single parent with two children can receive a maximum of $1,291 per month on TANF, which covers about 15.8 percent of the monthly cost of living in New Hampshire, the report found. “For a family receiving TANF, cash assistance may still be minimal compared to the cost of living in the state,” Williams said.

• The other reason for low participation is that “the TANF program may not be reaching all families across the state who are eligible,” she said. Families may be unaware that they qualify, or they might have trouble navigating the state’s online application for assistance at NH Easy. “It becomes very confusing for families when they’re trying to apply for services,” Woitkowski said.

The state has worked to make the application accessible, Hebert said, including having a prescreening tool that families can use to see if they might qualify. The tool took less than five minutes when this reporter tried it, much shorter than the time needed to lodge a formal application. Applicants can also reach out to any of the state's 11 district offices for help with the application, Hebert said. 

“We want to make sure we are reaching folks who are eligible for the program,” she said. “We want to make it easy for people so they have an easy and good experience if they need those kinds of services.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

What’s next for the state’s education minimum standards?

Legislative committee plans to decide on rules Thursday morning

By Rhianwen Watkins-Granite State News Collaborative

Long-awaited updates to New Hampshire’s education minimum standards for schools, otherwise known as the 306s, are being voted on this Thursday by the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, known as JLCAR. 

On Aug. 14, the State Board of Education approved the first half of the 306s, which was then sent to the JLCAR, which ultimately decided to table the rules until it received the second half of the standards in order to  review the changes in full.

The second half was approved by the State Board of Education on Sept. 16 and is being brought in front of JLCAR this Thursday, Nov 21. 

Reaching Higher, a statewide public education advocacy nonprofit, hosted a webinar on Oct 27, at which its director of public relations, Kelly Untiet, stated that the organization expects JLCAR to vote on both sections of the proposed rules during Thursday’s meeting.

For the rules to pass, they must be approved first by the Legislative Oversight Committee, then by JLCAR. After initially raising multiple concerns about significant areas of the rules, the Legislative Oversight Committee ultimately voted to approve the rules on Oct 27. Now the proposed changes are in JLCAR’s hands.

What are JLCAR’s criteria for approval?

The proposed updates have been the target of overwhelming criticism from educators, including superintendents, teachers, other school administrators, school board members and parents. 

Among the chief critics is Christine Downing, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for the Cornish, Grantham and Plainfield school districts. She sent the committee considerable written testimony based on comments made at numerous educator review sessions she held across the state. Educators say they’re particularly concerned about the removal of caps on class sizes, wording changes that eliminate requirements for certain program elements, and changes in the qualifications of educators.

On Thursday, JLCAR will review the proposed changes and vote based on four outlined categories: public interest, financial cost, legislative intent and agency’s authority.

What might JLCAR object to?

During the Oct. 27 webinar, Reaching Higher outlined why JLCAR might object to the rule changes, based on these categories:

 • First, are the rules in the public’s interest? Reaching Higher said that, based on the hundreds of pages of public feedback opposing the rules, they may not be. In addition, the consensus among educators across the state is that the rules are unclear and ambiguous in multiple places. Reaching Higher said that could lead to “inconsistent application.”

• The second category concerns whether there is a financial cost that was not outlined in the proposal. Reaching Higher worries that ambiguity and lack of detail in certain areas could result in financial burden for taxpayers. For example, if specific program elements are removed or made optional, then the state may not be responsible for funding them.

• The third category concerns whether the rules support current legislation around education standards, or if they conflict with it. One concern Reaching Higher raised is whether proposed graduation requirements align with state laws. In addition, many educators and even lawyers have expressed concern over whether the proposed rules will meet the New Hampshire Constitution’s requirement for the state to provide an adequate education for every child. This relates to finances. If certain program requirements become optional and are not state-funded, the result could be discrepancies in access to resources among school districts, based on the level of affluence, or lack thereof, in specific communities.

• The final category is whether the proposed standards are within or beyond the authority of the N.H. Department of Education to implement. The department does not have as much authority as lawmakers when it comes to imposing rules. One concern with the revised proposal is that it often refers to “state academic standards” when discussing criteria for what elements particular education programs must cover. Those standards differ from the 306s in that they determine only what students are required to learn, not what the state must fund — which is what the 306s determine. Reaching Higher is concerned that, if the 306s proposal does not define what program requirements must be offered for various subjects — such as an arts education, for example — and instead only refers to the academic standards, there will be questions about to how to deliver these programs and the state won’t be required to fund them. In addition, the academic standards are vastly outdated, with some dating back to the early 2000s. 

Downing is also preparing to testify at Thursday’s meeting about why she thinks the proposed rules changes do not meet the criteria in all four categories.

The JLCAR meeting and hearing will begin 9 a.m. on Thursday in Room 306-308 of the Legislative Office Building in Concord. The proceedings are open to the public. As of this writing, no agenda had been set for Thursday, but it has been confirmed the JLCAR plans to vote on the rules.

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

Joint Legislative Committee revises education minimum standards on a 6-4 vote Thursday

By Rhianwen Watkins, Granite State News Collaborative

*The original version was edited to clarify the next step in the process.*

Controversial updates to the education minimum standards for New Hampshire’s public schools were passed Thursday by the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, known as JLCAR. Approval came on a 6-4 vote.

The revised rules have drawn sharp criticism from multitudes of educators who contend they remove caps on the number of students in classrooms, muddle the requirements for teaching specific subjects, and make other changes that will water down what it means to receive a N.H. education. 

Educators are also concerned that the document’s removal of specific requirements and adoption of ambiguous wording are an attempt to ease requirements for state funding of public education, which could shift a bigger financial burden onto local taxpayers and worsen inequities across school districts.

Thursday’s meeting included a public comment period on the second half of the rules, in which everyone who testified objected to the proposed changes, citing many reasons. 

Both sections of the document were passed on a 6-4 vote, with Republican members in the majority.

Now that both the Legislative Oversight Committee and JLCAR have approved them, the rules will go back to the State Board of Education for one more final vote before they are officially adopted.

In accordance with a state law, RSA 541-A:13, JLCAR can adopt the rules or object on any of four criteria: if the proposed rules are “beyond the authority of the agency,” “contrary to the intent of the Legislature,” “determined not to be in the public interest,” or “deemed to have a substantial fiscal impact,” according to the statute.

Rules draw public criticism

Among the witnesses Thursday was Christine Downing, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for the Cornish, Grantham and Plainfield school districts. As the revised rules were being drawn up, Downing held 17 review sessions around the state to gather opinions from teachers and other educators. 

One of her biggest objections to the rules was ambiguity and lack of consistency in wording, particularly referring to State Academic Standards when discussing course requirements. The State Academic Standards differ from the Education Minimum Standards, in that they define only what a student must learn, not what must be included in a given program — that’s what the minimum standards do.

David Trumble of Weare, a lawyer and farmer who ran for the state Senate this year, objected to the revised standards, citing a state law, RSA 193 E-B, which outlines the state’s “accountability for the opportunity for an adequate education.’

Trumble said the law requires schools to provide an adequate education through both input and output-based accountability — “inputs” being the elements that go into a well-rounded education, such as qualified teachers, defined program elements, and maximum classroom sizes; and “outputs” being the ways a student’s success is measured, such as tests and exams.

He argued the revised rules remove “inputs” by eliminating specifics around what is required for educational programs, and the change in definition of an educator to include school personnel other than teachers. Without these “inputs,” he said, the state is not in compliance with the law.

Others raised concerns about comments by Drew Cline, chairman of the State Board of Education, about classroom size requirements. Cline said the revised standards have reinstated limits on class sizes. However, educators argued the document mentions only student-teacher ratios, not specific numbers on how many students can be in a classroom. 

Giana Gelsey, a member of the Oyster River School Board, told the JLCAR members that  “the class size maximums and class size ratios are not the same. Right now in our school district, we are having an issue with the fact that our kindergarten population exploded. And we are actually figuring out how we are going to actually add classrooms to the current elementary schools we have. And a lot of it is actually linked to the fact that we have limits on how many kids fit in the classroom.” 

Sean Parr, a member of the Manchester Board of School Committee, raised similar concerns.

“Class size is very different than student-educator ratios,” Parr said. “Our district has been very careful in defining these things very specifically in our own policies. We feel it’s very important. The research shows very clearly that class size is much more important than student-educator ratios — that actually having a room with 20 students in it and one teacher is far better than having a room with 40 students in it and two teachers, or a teacher and a para. That research is substantial and clear.”  

The consensus among Democratic legislators on JLCAR was that the proposed rules did not comply with the requirements laid out in all four categories of state law, and that the overwhelming opposition to the revisions showed that they’re not in the public’s interest.

JLCAR member State Sen. Becky Whitley urged her fellow JLCAR members to vote against the revisions.

“The quality of our public education has nothing to do with politics,” she said. “It is the foundation of our democracy. It's a constitutional requirement in the state of New Hampshire. There has been countless litigation defining what is an adequate education,” she said.

“That is what's at stake here. This should not be about politics. Yet, we seem to be going in a direction where we are ignoring the vast majority of our educators, our administrators, our parents, all who have major, major concerns with these rules,” Whitley said. “It is our obligation as elected officials to determine and make an analysis about the public interest and that's what we’re doing here.”

Department of Education defends the proposal

During discussion about the first half of the revised minimum standards, Cline, chair of the State Board of Education, emphasized that the revision process had been inclusive, with 13 listening sessions held across the state and educator input taken into account.

“We listened to that feedback. That feedback really helped shape our draft rules,” Cline said. “Christine Downing was tasked with reviewing the draft rules and giving us feedback, which we took. You will see that the draft rules that were the initial proposal in February are vastly different than the final version you have here and that’s because we took massive amounts of input.”

Downing corrected Cline later on during her testimony, saying she was never “tasked” with reviewing the rules, but rather volunteered herself.

“If you look at these, we're really making very minimal changes,” said Elizabeth Brown, an attorney for the N.H. Department of Education, after answering many questions and defending the proposed changes.

Republican members of JLCAR did not raise significant concerns or share much input during the meeting. However, one member commented that many concerns raised by educators and others opposing the changes were based on older versions of the document, not the most updated one.

It was later found during the meeting that the link to the most updated version of the proposal on the Department of Education’s website was not available at the time, because of an error with the link. The link has since been fixed, but remains absent from the Department of Education’s Minimum Standards Page, where all other information from the department on the proposed updates is found.

Readers can find the updates that were approved Thursday on the Conditional Approvals page of the N.H. Department of Education website.

What will education look like going forward?

Ultimately, the new rules will mean more decisions will become the responsibility of local school boards, said Christina Pretorius, policy director at Reaching Higher NH, a statewide education advocacy nonprofit. Pretorius attended Thursday’s meeting.

It is unclear exactly what impact the rules will have until they are implemented, and impacts could differ between districts.

"The significant concerns from educators and school board members have been repeatedly dismissed,” Pretorius said. ‘They've told the NHED and State Board over the past several years that these rules could downshift costs to local school districts, and would exacerbate the inequities while undermining our public schools."

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org

New Hampshire towns bear much of the price tag while adapting to climate disasters

Across the state, communities try to prepare for more frequent and intense storms

By Susan Geier, Granite State News Collaborative

As storms increase in frequency and intensity, municipalities across New Hampshire often find themselves recovering and rebuilding from past disasters while coping with the costs and reality of planning for and trying to mitigate future ones. 

“We know our precipitation events are becoming more intense,” said Mary Stampone, the state climatologist and an associate professor of geography at the University of New Hampshire. “We are getting overall wetter, but in bigger storm events.”

State Climatologist Mary Stampone said infrastructure upgrades ‘should be designed for our prospective future – 10 years, 30 years, or 50 years from now. And that depends on money, time, and resources.’ (UNH photo)

Waterville Valley in the White Mountains was one of the towns hard-hit by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, and more recently by a storm in December 2022, followed by storms in July and December 2023.

Town Administrator Mark DeCoteau and David Noyes, fire chief and emergency management director, said all-hazards planning in the small resort community takes teamwork to not only brainstorm possible disaster scenarios, but determine the steps to prepare for, respond to and recover from what may happen. 

“The resort is the economic hub of the town and a large stakeholder, plus we are surrounded by national forest, and they are a big stakeholder as well,” said DeCoteau. “We are virtually an island in the middle of the forest.” 

Towns and cities get support and technical assistance from the state government and can get aid from federal agencies, but the localities are ultimately the ones responsible for disaster planning and mitigation. 

“Dave and I have gone through that probably three or four times, and we’ve found what always rises to the top is ingress and egress — there is only one road into town,” DeCoteau said. “State Route 49 is a major issue — we need a second route of egress.” 

Noyes added, “We were 12 feet away from being cut off during Irene.”

DeCoteau said the state spent $1 million repairing Route 49, and the town spent $300,000 repairing a pedestrian bridge. 

Thirteen years later, access is still the town’s top priority, but it’s complicated because the town is in the White Mountains National Forest.

“We are working with the federal government to convince them to give up (access to) land and figure out how to pay for it,” DeCoteau said, adding that there are secondary access roads, but their surface is dirt, which means they are not a viable option. 

In the meantime, the town is making repairs while awaiting reimbursement from a December 2023 storm, which cost the town more than $160,000. 

“As far as the town budget, we have a small capital reserve account to use for emergency repairs for infrastructure like roads, sewer and water,” DeCoteau said. “We probably carry about $50,000 to $75,000 a year.” 

“You cannot budget for everything,” he added. “It’s why I appreciate the town funding those capital reserve accounts — we are fortunate in Waterville Valley. It’s not always the case in other communities.” 

‘All disasters start local and end local’

The state’s own hazard mitigation plan noted it needed to focus its attention on natural hazards, and that is reflected in the plan’s 2023 update. Severe winter weather, inland and coastal flooding, high wind events, and aging infrastructure were noted as key hazards.

According to the plan: 

• The average annual temperature has increased about 3 degrees in the state since the early 20th century. Warming has been greater in winter than any other season.

• Precipitation has increased during the last century, with the highest numbers of extreme precipitation events occurring over the last decade. Mean precipitation and precipitation extremes are projected to increase in the future, with associated increases in flooding.

• Rising sea levels pose significant risks to coastal communities and structures, due to inundation, land loss due to erosion, and greater flood vulnerability due to higher storm surge.

“What we have now in terms of infrastructure is different than what we had five years ago,” Stampone said. “Any upgrades should be designed for our prospective future — 10 years, 30 years or 50 years from now. And that depends on money, time and resources.”

The response to climate change, she said, has been a lot of Band-Aid solutions — not planning and mitigation for what’s next. 

“All disasters start local and end local,” said Vanessa Palange, communication coordinator with the state’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

She and Austin Brown, the department’s chief of mitigation and recovery, noted the state provides a framework for disaster planning and preparedness and technical assistance in applying for federal grants.

In an Aug. 5 letter requesting a federal disaster designation, Gov. Chris Sununu pointed out the state was managing recovery efforts for a dozen active disasters dating back to the summer of 2017. 

He wrote that damage from the storms and flooding this past July “could have been more severe if mitigation work was not previously accomplished.” 

“Since Tropical Storm Irene (August 28, 2011), the state of New Hampshire has utilized over $18,900,000 in Section 404 funding toward mitigation projects throughout the State,” he wrote in the letter. 

Crane Brook Road, a main industrial road in Acworth, was severely damaged in a 2021 storm, and remains closed for the long term, along with another key byway, Thayer Brook Road, which was a bus route and served the main corridor between Alstead and Acworth. (Hunter Oberst/The Keene Sentinel)

With a federal declaration of a disaster, FEMA funds are sent to the state, which then reimburses state agencies and local entities. FEMA will reimburse at least 75 percent of the eligible costs with a local match of 25 percent (often referred to as upfront money). 

‘You don’t know what is going to happen’

On the Seacoast, communities face unique challenges, said Rye Police Chief Kevin Walsh, who is also the town’s emergency management director.

“It is hard for each town and each individual department each year to plan because you don't know what is going to happen,” he said. “You know, sometimes a whale washes up — that has happened. You just never know.”

A whale did wash ashore in Rye back in 2016, but typically the town — like its coastal neighbors — faces regular flooding and storm-related damage. 

“The challenges are maintenance and upkeep,” Walsh said. “Things are often not kept up over the years or decades, and repairs just put it back the way it was. We are always trying to finagle funding.”

He added: “I’ve been in Rye for 30 years and some things have never been tough until now or it’s been a patchwork of repairs. (Infrastructure) needs a major overhaul. Maintenance is usually what gets cut first or put off to manage municipal budgets,”

The worst areas are the seawalls (revetments) from Rye to North Hampton and Bass Beach, which come down in every storm, he said. Significant reengineering and overhauling of problem areas is not just costly, he said, but complex due to the number of jurisdictions involved. 

Walsh cited a situation in 2018 when the sidewalk along Church, Central and Causeway roads was damaged, and the town applied for FEMA funds for repairs. 

“We waited a significant amount of time for [the N.H. Department of Transportation] to repair the revetment/seawall,” Walsh said. “The town waited to repair the sidewalk because, to repair the seawall/revetment, the construction equipment would damage the repaired sidewalk.”

Not long after those sidewalk repairs were made, it was damaged in another storm earlier this year. 

“The saying is ‘do it twice, make it nice.’ “Well, this is money wasted when we do the same repairs twice,” he said. “It’s frustrating because I don’t like to see taxpayer money washed out into the ocean.”

Each location is different

When it comes to repairs, each location is assessed independently, leading to varying degrees of complexity due to factors like environmental regulations, said Brown of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. He said the timeline can be influenced by the type of work needed and the specific issues related to making those repairs. 

“That really becomes the biggest thing — the complexities of each individual location,” Brown said. 

There is some good news. The state received more than $20 million to rebuild seawalls and revetments to protect a coastal roadway between North Hampton and Rye, according to the state DOT. The project is currently in the design and permitting phase, with construction contracts likely to be awarded in 2025.

Jennifer Lane, spokesperson for the state DOT, noted several projects to repair storm damage are in process, and the seawall project is one of those that requires more than repair. 

“You can only rebuild so much,” she said, noting that the project plan outlines how the aging seawalls are no longer adequate due to climate change and sea level rise. 

Funding for the project came from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

When applying for the grant last year, Sununu wrote to the federal Department of Transportation: “Unfortunately, the frequency of storm and flood events causing extended road closures for flooding and cleanup along NH Route 1A have increased in the last 10 years.”

The latest 1A project  is designed to ensure 3.2 miles of the roadway stays open during storms.

“The Route 1A corridor must stay open for public safety,” Chief Walsh said. “It’s considered critical infrastructure and in the emergency evacuation plan for Seabrook Nuclear Plant.”

While the project will alleviate some of the town’s infrastructure issues, Walsh said that, in an ideal world, there would be funding for design, engineering and construction “from one end of the coast to the other up into Maine in terms of drainage.”

Although that isn’t realistic, he and Town Administrator Matt Scruton said they are extremely appreciative of the support Rye gets from state and federal partners. 

The state has received more than $20 million to rebuild seawalls and revetments along protect Route 1A between North Hampton and Rye that were most recently damaged by coastal flooding in a January storm. (DanTuohy / N.H. Public Radio)

“I cannot speak highly enough of them. They always reach out and make sure we have what we need,” Walsh said. “It’s pretty special to live in New Hampshire, where we get that individual touch.”

‘The domino effect’

In the western part of the state, small communities such as Acworth in Sullivan County have been hit repeatedly by storms in recent years, and the repairs seem never-ending. 

Acworth, population 850, was hit by a storm in 2021 that destroyed 32 roads. 

“We called it the domino effect,” said Kathi Bradt, a member of the select board. “As the town was still in recovery mode, it was hit by another bad summer storm in 2023. It was not exactly back-to-back, but close enough. It had a huge impact for a town of our size.”

Previously, the town would make repairs and move on. However, the 2021 storm changed things. The damage assessment was $20 million. 

“It took a while for everyone to realize just how much damage was done,” she said.

This time around, however, it was time not to repair, but to rethink and reengineer. 

“It was a turning point. We knew we had to make changes and find an engineer with a vision and different solutions,” she said. 

After the 2021 storm, Acworth held a special town meeting to get voter approval for a $2 million loan to be used as front money to start repairs while waiting for federal reimbursement. The town paid the loan off earlier this year, as federal money has cycled back to the town for its current projects. 

But two key roads are off limits for the long term. Crane Brook Road, which is several miles long and has five stream crossings, is a main industrial road. Thayer Brook Road was a bus route and served the main corridor between Alstead and Acworth. 

At the same time, the state is overseeing reconstruction of the Forest Road Bridge. 

“We are at the engineering stage right now, and we pushed the timeline out as far as we can, so we engineer different solutions instead of just putting it back the way it is,” Bradt said. 

“We are talking about 2027 for construction, because you need a year on engineering, a year on permitting, and that kind of permitting goes beyond (the state Department of Environmental Services). It involves the Army Corps of Engineers, then you have to get it scheduled. These roads aren’t going to come back for a couple of years.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Beyond the ballot: Understanding the election’s impact

For the last few months, we’ve all been caught up in the election campaigns at both the state and federal levels. But now the election is over, and we know who won and who lost. But what do the results mean and what can we expect in the coming months? Joining us on this episode of “The State We’re In,” are veteran reporter Ethan DeWitt of the New Hampshire Bulletin and Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count, and executive director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership, and Public Service at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law.

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

Melanie Plenda:

First, let’s talk about the election results. As veterans of New Hampshire politics, were you surprised by the results?

Ethan DeWitt:

To be honest, not really. I think when you look at the top of the ticket results, the challenge for Kelly Ayotte was to outperform Kamala Harris. Polls were showing that Kamala Harris had an advantage, as Democrats have in this state since 2000 in the presidential race. But as we've seen from Governor Sununu, simply because the state elects a Democrat for president doesn't mean that they won't elect a Republican for governor. 

So at the top of the ticket, I was not too surprised. In terms of the legislative races. I think that they largely followed the top of the ticket in some ways, but also I think the House we've seen realigns itself to how it has looked in past cycles. None of this kind of one- or two-vote advantage, but a more sizable majority for the Republican Party.

Anna Brown:

Like Ethan, I wasn't surprised by these election results in New Hampshire. I think the last poll that I saw the day before the election was very telling. It showed that about 10% of voters who had voted for Biden in the last election cycle were planning on voting for Kelly Ayotte for governor. That's very consistent with New Hampshire's recent history and even longer history of ticket-splitting. It is also worth noting that in the Executive Council and Senate, the way the districts are drawn, it's very hard for Democrats to win in a majority of these districts. So going in, I was already sort of expecting the votes to go that way. I think the House of Representatives ultimately can be the least predictable and oftentimes, for me, the most interesting results. That's really where we really did see that Republican advantage in New Hampshire, which I think was probably driven by their anti-tax messaging that, once again, was sort of Kelly Ayotte coattails.

Melanie Plenda:

Anna, you and your organization have been surveying voters. Why do you think voters made the choices they did? 

Anna Brown:

As I mentioned in the New Hampshire state races, tax and budget issues are really what end up, I think, driving a lot of voters to the polls. Other issues — such as the abortion issue, for example —I think have played out in previous elections. But the Republican candidates in New Hampshire had a very unified message this time — that we are not looking to change New Hampshire abortion law as it currently stands. That obviously resonated with voters.

I think Joyce Craig and other Democrats were pointing out Kelly Ayotte's history with certain corporate boards and saying we should be taxing the rich and looking at the interest and dividends tax maybe. That did not ultimately succeed with voters. I think that Kelly Ayotte's message of ‘don't mess up New Hampshire’, was a very successful message. So I think that the Democrats sort of failed to rally around a clear issue that resonated with voters in the same way as the simplistic message that the Republicans really hit a home run with.

Melanie Plenda:

Several state races were also decided. Let’s talk about the Executive Council first. Anna, first, explain what the council does and then tell us your thoughts? 

Anna Brown:

The New Hampshire Executive Council is uniquely powerful in the United States. They approve governor-appointed contracts over $10,000, so the governor actually kind of needs to have the Executive Council on their side to implement their vision for state government for all of those appointments, including judicial appointments. We know that state courts, state supreme courts, in particular, are going to become increasingly important as the U.S. Supreme Court is sending issues back to the states, such as the abortion issue. So I think that the Executive Council is going to definitely be an ally to Governor Ayotte. We've had a 4-1 Republican majority, and I'm not expecting any great battles there. 

Melanie Plenda:

Next, let’s talk about the state senate. Republicans expanded their majority there. What does that mean for the next cycle?

Ethan DeWitt:

Again, this expanded from a 14/-10 Republican advantage to a 16-8 Republican advantage. That is a veto-proof majority. I'm unsure at the moment what issues there might be in which a Republican Senate would want to override a veto by a Governor-elect Ayotte. But that is the most apparent transformation of the Senate.

Other than that, I think it’s, just like with the council, going to give her a lot of padding. Especially with the House, which has traditionally leaned more libertarian, and that has caused problems for more moderate Republicans like Governor Sununu. Sununu throughout his time as governor, kind of used the Senate as sort of a backstop to some of the budgets that the House would put forward. Because the House gets to draft a budget before the Senate does, and the House drafted something that's deemed too conservative, he, would call on the Senate to kind of “fix it.” So this might be a tool for Ayotte, especially with the wide majorities now in the Senate. She may be able to use that, but it kind of depends on how the Senate is run.

Melanie Plenda:

Republicans also expanded their majority in the House of Representatives. What impact will that have?

Anna Brown:

I think that the biggest impact this will have is on a few issues that Republicans tried to get over the finish line last year and the year before  and didn't quite have the votes with that very tight Democrat-Republican split.

Probably the first one that leapt to mind, as soon as I saw the results come in, was some version of a parental bill of rights. There were many versions of those bills, but basically, think about — What do schools have to disclose to parents? What do schools have to get permission from parents, whether we're talking about student pronoun use, student names, books in the classroom, books in the library, different curriculum choices. So what exact form does that bill take? Yet to be seen, but it’s absolutely an issue that many Republicans are passionate about,

Ethan DeWitt:

I have heard from top Republicans that there is a bill that was filed ahead of the election that got a lot of attention. It would create a deportation task force in the state. The bill does not define that, because we don't have the text of the bill, but I've already heard from top Republicans who are also in leadership, who say they don't support that. So I think that's going to be an interesting wedge issue. 

The other thing I would point to with this increased majority, in addition to the parental Bill of Rights, is an expansion of Education Freedom Accounts. There was a push, including by Governor-elect Ayotte, to try to make those universal. But again, that comes against the backdrop of this budget and potentially having to tighten it. If you make that program universal, then the budget for that program could, theoretically, increase quite a lot.

I think that looking at the budget generally is going to be really interesting to see. When you looked at the budget two years ago under a very, very closely divided almost 200-200 House The majority Republicans did something I thought was pretty remarkable and surprising. They decided to cut a deal with Democrats. Despite a lot of them having come up the ranks from the libertarian side, including House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, they cut a deal with Democrats. A lot of the people on their side didn't like that. Now they've got a lot more security in numbers and they will try to forge ahead with a more conservative budget.

Melanie Plenda:

Now that these elections are over, things will be gearing up soon for the next election in New Hampshire, which is related to Town Meeting. These elections don’t get the same turnout, but they can have a big impact on voters’ lives. Ethan and Anna, explain why these matter and what you’ll be following. 

Ethan DeWitt:

Obviously this is the most local format to make your voice known when it comes to your own town's budget, so town meeting season is always important.

I think a few things will be interesting. There is a new voting law that will be in place that requires voter ID. There is also a new law that requires that there be accessible voting machines provided by the state to towns. I think that will be in place as well. I think that there will be some questions about special education funding. I've heard this week that the Department of Education sent out a letter to school districts saying that this state is facing a shortfall of special education funding and that towns will have to make up more of that budget expense, and I think that'll be interesting to watch as it pertains to school district budgets.

Anna Brown:

I was actually already going to be watching special education funding- related issues because we saw that to be a real problem in some towns and districts this past year as well, because the number of students in these programs has been increasing and some of that also carries increased staff costs. We've also seen health care costs for schools go up quite a bit. So Pembroke, for example, I know, had almost a crisis situation with their school funding at their local meetings last year.

So if you're in a tough budget year as well, there's going to be a lag before the state implements its budget changes, and those would filter down to the local level. But I wouldn't be surprised if those conversations do happen at the local level already, because all of these problems are going to be compounded going forward, and we haven’t talked about what’s going on with school-funding lawsuits in the state. That’s another big question mark.

Melanie Plenda:

That was fascinating. Thanks to veteran reporter Ethan DeWitt from the New Hampshire Bulletin and Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count, for sharing your thoughts.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org

Bridging the divide: Tackling America's post-election ‘perception gap’

The 2024 presidential election results are in, and it seems like Americans are more polarized than ever. For years, we’ve seemed to live in an increasingly polarized society of Democrats and Republicans, red states and blue states, liberals and conservatives. But how divided is our society? And is that perception truly the reality? On this episode of “The State We’re In,” More in Common Executive Director Jason Mangone discusses the organization’s research into the “perception gap” and its efforts to unite increasingly divided societies. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Rosemary Ford:

First, tell us more about More in Common, and what you do. 

Jason Mangone:

More in Common is a nonpartisan research organization that tries to reduce the harmful aspects of polarization. That means that we try to understand the forces driving us apart, see common ground and bring Americans together to tackle our shared challenges as a practical matter. That means we release dozens of studies and polls every year, and the punchline of a lot of our work is sort of in the name. We think that Americans have way more in common than we think we do.

Rosemary Ford:

Tell us about the perception gap study. How did that come about? How was it conducted? 

Jason Mangone:

To begin with, it's probably worth defining what we mean by perception gap. So a perception gap is the difference between what someone thinks their political opponent feels about an issue and what their political opponent actually feels about an issue. It’s implicit in the idea that we have more in common than we think we do. There's some sort of fundamental misunderstanding going on that we don't really get one another — particularly in the arena of politics. That's because we think politics is a really poor lens for understanding someone in general. 

We wanted to look into these ideas, which is sort of the inspiration study. We released our first perception gap study in 2019, and we've been releasing various perception gaps ever since. To give an example of how we conduct these studies, let's say that we wanted to gauge Democrats' perception gaps on a particular issue. We begin by asking thousands of Republicans whether they agree with something. So, for example, we've asked thousands of Republicans, “Do you agree that Americans have a responsibility to learn from our past and fix our mistakes?” Turns out, about 93% of Republicans agree with this statement. We then asked thousands of Democrats, “What percentage of Republicans do you think agree with that statement?” It turns out that all Democrats estimate that only about 35% of Republicans would agree with the statement. That means that, on the issue, “Do you agree that Americans have a responsibility to learn from our past and fix their mistakes?” there's a 58% perception gap — 93% of Republicans agree with that statement, but only 35% of Democrats think Republicans would agree with that.

Rosemary Ford:

What were the key findings of the study? 

Jason Mangone:

One in particular, I think, is the idea of patriotism, love of country and understanding of our history that's been cycling through our politics for the last eight or 10 years. I think there's a stereotype where we think that Republicans think that American history is perfect, that we've done no wrong, and we stereotype Democrats as classifying our entire history as sort of sinful. 

I've already highlighted an example of the Democrat perception gap here, but Republicans estimate that only 45% of Democrats agree with this statement. In other words, we think that our political opponents either love our history and our country blindly, or they want to dismiss our history completely. In truth, an overwhelming majority of Americans agree with the idea that our country has both achieved great things and also made some harmful mistakes along the way, and that both of these things are true at the same time. So all that is to say, our ideas of our sense of history and our ideas of patriotism are much more aligned than we think they are. We have a ton of perception gaps. 

In addition to the idea of patriotism, I also wanted to highlight one around immigration. It turns out that over 85% of Republicans agree that properly controlled immigration can be good for America. Democrats estimate that only around half of Republicans agree with this statement, so they underestimated by about 35%. On the same issue, around 75% of Democrats disagree with the idea that we should have open borders, but Republicans estimate that only around 40% of Democrats hold this view, meaning there's a 35% perception gap.

All that is to say, as it turns out, is that most Americans want a secure system of legalized immigration and most Americans want both order and compassion for immigrants. Obviously, that's not how we talk about it in the political arena.

Rosemary Ford:

How expected were these findings? 

Jason Mangone:

We knew that there would be gaps in people's understanding, particularly when the lens through which you're looking at those gaps is politics. We do a really, really bad job of understanding who people are and who are political opponents. So that wasn't altogether surprising. 

What was most surprising to me was some of the drivers of these gaps. Anytime that More in Common does a study, we break the American population down into seven segments that we think are much more representative about how people view themselves in the world than sheer red or blue demography. The farthest left and the farthest right are referred to as the wings.Those groups in the middle are referred to as the exhausted majority. So it goes from progressive activists, traditional liberals, passive liberals, the politically disengaged, the moderates, traditional conservatives and devoted conservatives.

The most surprising thing to me, pretty much, anytime we do a perception gap study is that if you look at the rates of perception gaps, it's almost a perfect V shape, which is to say the perception gaps are perception gaps are greatest among those people on the wings of politics, and they’re lowest among the politically disengaged, right in the middle. The surprising thing there is that the people that are the most politically disengaged have the best understanding of what their political opponents actually think about various political issues.

Rosemary Ford:

What role is social media playing in all of this? How does that influence the perception gap or influence it?

Jason Mangone:

First off, I never like to come across as completely anti-social media. I think that it's given people freedom to express ideas, which is vital and important. I also think that it's a relatively new technology, and we're figuring out how to fit it in to our day-to-day lives right now.

With that being said, when it comes to politics, most of the algorithms in social media are driven by engagement, and the most engaging content tends to be divisive. It's also true that the people who are likely to share political views on social media are progressive activists on one wing and devoted conservatives on the other. So I wouldn't say that it's entirely social media's fault. I would say that progressive activists and devoted conservatives tend to be the most active on social media. Those algorithms tend to highlight the most divisive views because they tend to be the most engaging. It's what we want to consume.

As a result, a lot of our political discourse becomes driven by people on the wings. I think the important distinction there is that it's not entirely the social media companies’ fault. A lot of it is who's actually willing to get out there and share political views on social media. It turns out that it’s the people who are most politically engaged, who frame things primarily through the lens of politics, and those people in general tend to be people on the wings.

Rosemary Ford:

Why should the average person be concerned about the perception gap? 

Jason Mangone:

I think it's really a call to have some political humility. Don't think about people as entirely political animals. One of the implicit ideas in perception gaps is that you could look at perception gaps between any two out groups — Democrats-Republicans, Yankees fans-Red Sox fans, and I'm sure that there are misunderstandings among a lot of them. The point is that when we look at things through a primarily political lens, we tend to misunderstand, because politics is a really, really bad lens for understanding a human being. I think how the average person should react to it and why they should be concerned by it is that, because politics shapes so much of our culture and so much of how we think about ourselves nowadays, it's a call that we're really misunderstanding one another.

Rosemary Ford:

In light of the election, what do you expect to see with the perception gap?

Jason Mangone:

I will caveat what I’m about to say by saying that we have a poll hitting the field where we ask a number of perception gap questions, because whatever is in the media tends to have the highest perception gaps. I would guess that the largest perception gaps are going to be around issues associated with the biggest news, and today it's the fact that former President Trump won not just the Electoral College, but the national popular vote. So I would imagine that the largest perception gaps will be around people's perspectives on Trump, not just as a political figure, but as a human being. 

Rosemary Ford:

Do you have suggestions for bridging this divide? 

Jason Mangone:

I'll start with what the worst idea is. The worst idea is to say, “We're going to get a bunch of us together and we're going to talk about politics, because we all disagree with each other.” We need to talk, that's fine, but an example is the holidays. Around my dinner table, around the holidays, there's some Trump voters and there's some Harris voters, there's some Republicans, there's some Democrats, there's some upper-middle-class folks, there's some working-class folks. We don't go to that holiday dinner saying, “We're gonna get together and talk about our political differences.” No, we get together because we're a family. We share our common values and traditions, and the food's really good, and all the other stuff might come up as a result. But the point is, we see one another in our common humanity, because the thing that got us there is much more important than sheer demography that's ultimately colored blue or red. 

So that's a really long way of saying, get involved in your community in ways that have nothing to do with politics. Join a club, join the board of your local Little League, become a volunteer firefighter — there's a million things that you can do. But the point is, get together, where people across the political spectrum might be getting together for reasons that have nothing to do with politics.

Rosemary Ford:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Survey reliability: How much do polls affect elections?

With the 2024 election behind us, the seemingly daily reports on new polls have ended for now. But what do polls really mean? How accurate are they? What impact do they have on voters and elections? University of New Hampshire Professor Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center, talks with host Melanie Plenda about just that.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Where do polls come from and how long have we been using them to analyze political races?

Dr. Andrew Smith:

Polls have been around for an awfully long time. The oldest one that we've been able to identify in the United States is in the 1824 election. They were referred to as straw polls back then, but they were started by a newspaper, the Harrisburg Pennsylvanian, and it was done to, frankly, increase the number of people who bought the newspaper at that time and to help inform readers as to what people in the Harrisburg, area thought about the 1824 election. Throughout the 1800s, we saw an expansion of these, particularly in the later half of the 1800s as the penny press really developed in the United States.

By the turn of the century, there were quite a few national straw polls and well over 100 individual local area straw polls. So it's not a new thing, but it's really important to remember that the reason that the media got into the polling business was to sell newspapers. I think that's a critical thing to remember, because the reason that sells more newspapers is that people are always interested in what is going to happen. I think it sold newspapers then, and it's kind of clickbait for the press now to run polls. 

Melanie Plenda:

That leads to my next question – what sort of an impact do they have on races and voters? 

Dr. Andrew Smith:

There's very little research that shows that polls have much of an impact one way or the other on elections. There's always a fear that a poll showing one candidate leading by a large amount will either lead the supporters of a candidate who's losing supporters to give up and stay home, or maybe cause the supporters of a candidate who's leading to say that they have already won and don't have to bother to go to the polls. But there's very, very little evidence that supports any of that.

The only real data that I've been able to identify that shows that polls had an impact was in the 1980 presidential election. What happened that year was that the exit polls were released early. This was the Carter v. Reagan election, and Jimmy Carter actually conceded defeat before the polls in California closed, and some Democratic congressmen in California asserted that they lost because many people that were going to go vote after work decided, “What’s the point? The election is already over.” So that's really the only evidence that we have. 

Melanie Plenda:

How has polling evolved in the past decades? I would imagine technology and changing social demographics have changed things.

Dr. Andrew Smith:

The polling industry is in the midst of a paradigm shift, and it's similar to what happened in the 1960s and 1970s, when polls moved from in-person surveys to telephone surveys. The technology for telephones improved, the coverage of telephones improved, so most households in the country had a telephone by the late 1960s. But it took a long time for researchers to come up with the best practices, the methodological strategies, in order to use this new technology. 

It's important to remember that the big driver of that methodological change in the 1960s and 1970s telephone surveys was the cost, because in-person surveys were an order of magnitude more expensive than telephone surveys and  harder to manage, and then organizing the data and analyzing it. So the time frame was worse. Telephones made that much shorter. 

Now, with web surveys and the development of the internet and the expansion of coverage of the internet to most households in the country or the internet plus a cell phone — we can kind of call that the quasi-internet — we changed how we can go at people because of the cost. It costs far less with an internet- or a web-based poll, because you don't have to have an interviewer. We're seeing the industry move to that, and the clients as well. The development of the internet, the development of cell phones, and the declining response rates, I think, are the biggest drivers of this change in methodology. 

So we're in this process where economics are driving us to change the way we do survey research, and we haven't developed the best practices as an industry yet to say this is how you should do it, this is the more accurate way, these are the procedures that lead to more accurate predictions in polling, and it's going to take several years before we're out of the woods with that. So I'm very cautious about it.

Melanie Plenda:

Let’s dig a little deeper. How can the average person tell a “good” from a “bad” poll?

Dr. Andrew Smith:

The human instinct is to trust the polls that show us the outcome that we prefer and say that the other one must have serious methodological flaws. But I think that's a bad way to approach it.

What I would trust is surveys more that start with a random sample — a probability-based survey. So if you see the word “probability” in the methodology section of the survey, which I would encourage everybody to read, I’d give that more weight.  If it makes no mention of probability, that probably means that there is no random sampling going on. 

The second thing that I would do is look for something called a transparency initiative stamp, or a logo on that survey, or an indication that this organization is showing their work. APOR, the  American Association of Public Opinion Research, recognizes that there are a lot of different methodologies out there and asks, “The best thing we can do is ask survey research to show us what they did. How did they draw their sample? Where did they get the sample from? How were the surveys collected? When were the surveys collected? Who's paying for the surveys?” All of those sorts of things you need to take into account.  If a survey does not have that transparency initiative seal approval, I would be less willing to accept the results of that because it shows they are less willing to show their work. 

Melanie Plenda:

So talk to us a little bit more about why a sample group and the makeup of that sample group is so important.

Dr. Andrew Smith:

Well, what we try to do in surveys is draw a sample from the population that is representative of the population. And by doing that at random, we can use the central limit theorem to say that the estimates that we get from our sample are within this range of where the actual population number would be if we could go out and interview everyone in the population. Even with a random sample, you don't necessarily have one that's completely representative of the population. In fact, it's pretty much impossible to do that, but you want to be pretty close, and the central limit theorem at least allows us to say within a range of how close we think our estimate is from the overall population. 

Melanie Plenda:

That’s fascinating. Thank you for joining us and talking about the polls.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

How to learn about local candidates for office, the people who can impact you directly

While national or statewide candidates get lots of coverage, and voters likely know their stances on the issues, local candidates are often unfamiliar to voters. But local politics directly touches our daily lives and families. Who is making policies and how do we choose them? In New Hampshire, that can be a daunting process, thanks to the large citizen legislature. However, there are tools out there to help research the candidates and decide who meets your needs and priorities. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating voters about the political process, as well as executive director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership and Public Service at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law, discusses these tools.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Anna, with elections on the horizon, can you tell us about some of the tools Citizens Count offers to voters?

Anna Brown:

There are 400 state representatives, which means there's roughly 900 candidates that are going to be on your ballot. So probably the tool we're best known for is our candidate profiles, where we provide background, issue positions, and so on. We offer other tools for voters as well.  If you look up your town, we can show your polling location and your clerk info. We have a section called “Prepare to Vote” under our advocacy toolkit that offers information about what to bring to the polls, registering, and absentee ballots. We also have other tutorials on what to do after the election. How do I contact an elected official? How do I advocate for my cause? Then finally, we also offer a candidate comparison tool that lets voters see, “OK just for the candidates on my ballot, where do they stand on certain issues?”

Melanie Plenda:

Why are these tools necessary?

Anna Brown:

I've been covering New Hampshire elections for a while now, and every single election I have seen there are races that come down to less than half a dozen votes. There are multiple recounts, and when you're talking about a recount in New Hampshire, it's literally paper ballots, the secretary of state's office inspecting them one by one, with observers in place. In the primaries, when there's a tie it’s not uncommon enough that they actually have official dice to help settle ties. 

So I always tell voters in New Hampshire that your vote counts. It isn't just a feel-good statement. There's all these candidates, roughly 900. It can be really hard to find information about those folks. Some of them don't have email addresses or websites, so that's where Citizens Count comes in, and we're trying to fill that gap. Because the other thing that's true, they don't always fall on party lines. In New Hampshire, you will find Democrats who are against gun laws. You will find Republicans who favor more lenient laws related to abortion than what is currently on the books. So I always encourage people to check out those individual candidates and don't just rely on the “D” or the
“R” next to someone's name.

Melanie Plenda:

How do you compile this information? Can you describe the process?

Anna Brown:

Our best tool is our candidate survey. We will contact them by email, snail mail, phone, follow up again for the folks that we can't find. I reach out to local parties and county parties sometimes, and we do get over half of candidates to respond to our survey. So most of our background information and issue positions are straight from their own mouth, and that's very important to us. We don't want to have any spin on our issue positions. 

Melanie Plenda:

How much work does that take to put all this together?

Anna Brown:

There's three of us full time, some part time, and every election we also get an elections intern. Shout out to our current elections intern, Anna Steele, who has been incredible this year. It is a lot of hounding candidates, a lot of phone calls, a lot of stuffing envelopes. We also really are trying to hold each other to that rigorous standard of staying nonpartisan and engaging with candidates. When candidates come back to us and they say, “I don't like how that question was worded, or it was biased, or I just want to submit a statement,” we want to work with them. If anybody ever comes to us, including many candidates, and says, “Where are you getting your money from? What is your real agenda? Who's on your board?” These are all questions that we want to be completely transparent about, and so we do a lot of engagement there as well.

Melanie Plenda:

There’s also a constitutional amendment on the ballot related to the ages of judges in the state. Can you tell us about that? 

Anna Brown: 

Many people may not know that the New Hampshire Constitution requires judges and sheriffs to retire at the age of 70. This is a huge contrast to the U.S. Supreme Court, where we have seen, on many occasions, people simply pass away before they retire, and it can have a huge impact on rulings. 

New Hampshire originally included this in the Constitution because they were concerned about the cognitive abilities, potentially, of judges and sheriffs. But that being said, when the Constitution was written, age expectancy was different. So now there is a proposal on the ballot, an amendment to our Constitution, that would raise the age of retirement to 75. This was actually sponsored by a member of the N.H. Supreme Court who was forced to retire at age 70 and is now serving in the House of Representatives. So that is going to be one of the questions on the ballot that you will see. It does require a super majority of voters, in order to change our Constitution. That's a kind of high threshold, but every now and then we do pass constitutional amendments. For example, in 2018 there was a new constitutional amendment that creates a right to privacy. If you do want to dig more into this, we do also have a link on our elections page, again, on https://www.citizenscount.org/ that includes a brief article on the pros and cons on that amendment.

Melanie Plenda:

Can you share a few of those pros and cons with this?

Anna Brown:

We do have some concern about what is going on with people as they are getting older. Is there perhaps some cognitive decline? That's a huge conversation that has happened with President Biden, with former President Trump, and it continues to this day. Another pro is that it actually ensures that you have sort of that fresh issue perspective coming onto the courts. So it's not so much as whether they're cognitively there, but also are they in tune with your average voter? Certainly, we know that demographics change based on what age group you're in, how you feel about certain issues. For example, we think about generational changes, things such as interracial marriage and gay marriage — there were sometimes very big gaps in terms of how younger people felt and how older people felt about the same issue. 

We also have that higher age that people are living, thriving, even working, and especially in New Hampshire we have one of the oldest states on average in the nation. And we're seeing folks who may be past traditional retirement age, say Social Security retirement age, who are still interested in working, are still vibrant, and indeed bring a lot of experience and knowledge to their jobs. The same thing is very much true for judges. The more experience you have on the bench, the more connections you have with lawyers and prosecutors and defenders, and so on. You might be able to have a more efficient court, a more knowledgeable court, as opposed to constantly bringing in new people and just giving up all of that knowledge and experience when there really isn't a reason to boot it out. I will say five years is not a huge change. We're not getting rid of the age limit entirely with this proposal. We're just saying, instead of 70 it’s 75. This also would not affect sheriffs, because there are some arguments, of course, that a law enforcement position is a little bit different. This part of the amendment would only impact the age limit for judges.

Melanie Plenda:

And, as awesome as Citizens Count is, there are also other ways to scope out the candidates. What do you recommend Anna?

Anna Brown:

Definitely, if you can find some local candidate events, parades, at town hall forums, public libraries, sometimes at your local school. There are going to be these events where the candidates are on hand. The audience is probably similar to what you might see at your town meeting. And they'll interact with you. You can get a really good sense of a person, what they'll be like as a legislator, if you have that conversation with them.

I talked about how we call a lot of these candidates and have conversations with them. The vast, vast majority are interested in engaging in that conversation. Because, realistically, these people are volunteers. They get paid $100 a year plus mileage. They're doing this because they are deeply passionate about it. Every now and then you are going to find someone who is contrary and doesn't like to talk to people. But in a House full of 400 representatives, there's always going to be that small margin. Overall, I have such positive experiences, and I hear that from other people too. However, if you're an introvert and you don't want to go out and talk to candidates, your local newspaper is often a wonderful resource in terms of finding these issue positions. They’ll do candidate profiles, have interviews. That's not something you're going to get from national news coverage, and that's one reason why local news sources are so important. You can also go directly to the candidate websites or other interest groups. Just be aware that how certain issue positions are phrased may be intended to lead you in a certain direction, or may be a little general. So if someone says, “I support veterans,” try to dig a little deeper and say, “What does that really mean?”

Melanie Plenda:

Anna Brown is the executive director of Citizens Count, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating voters about the political process. She is also the executive director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership, and Public Service at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law. Thank you for joining us. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

How the Civic Health Index sheds light on community trust and how to build it

The University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy released its 2024 Civic Health Index this month. The report examines several aspects of public life, including how much people trust each other and government institutions, attend public meetings, vote, and help their neighbors. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Carsey School of Public Policy Interim Associate Director Michele Holt-Shannon and the report’s author, Quixada Moore-Vissing, founder of Public Engagement Partners discuss the findings.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Michele, can you tell us more about the background of the Civic Health Index? 

Michele Holt-Shannon:

A lot has happened — not just the pandemic, a lot of just increasing division in our country. We had the Jan. 6 incident at the Capitol building, the murder of George Floyd, the response to that, and certainly that experience of the pandemic that really varied for people across the country, depending on their job and where they lived. We had questions around connecting with neighbors, volunteering, helping each other, feeling like you matter and belong. So there's, there's some data to look at today and to discuss and help us think about what we can do in the future.

Melanie Plenda:

Quixada, how was the data gathered for this report and how long did it take? 

Quixada Moore-Vissing:

We really wanted to understand how the pandemic and these other events of 2020 actually impact civic health in New Hampshire. Did it impact civic health? That was one of our big questions. So we looked at both pre-pandemic data, pandemic-level data, and then post-pandemic-level data to just kind of see what the changes are. Are there impacts during this point in time?

We used two data sources for the report. One so is the U.S. Census, and it has a civic engagement and volunteering supplement and a voting supplement. We pulled from both of those census supplements, but we also ran our own survey through the Granite State Poll, and we had used the Granite State Poll in the past, so we were able to make some longitudinal comparisons there as well. 

Melanie Plenda:

What were some of the report’s key findings? 

Quixada Moore-Vissing:

One of the big things that we found that was a surprise is that New Hampshire residents are feeling they matter less to their communities than they did in 2019. In 2019, we were at 76% of New Hampshire residents felt like they matter to their communities, and that fell to 43%. That's a 30 percentage point decrease. 

Connected to that, we also learned that we're generally connecting a bit less with others than we were before the pandemic. New Hampshire residents who do favors for their neighbors, helping someone, loan a lawnmower, or move an air conditioner — that fell from 11% to 5%. In  terms of people working to do positive things for their community, that fell from 27% in 2019 to 21% in 2021. Granite Staters are also hearing from or spending less time with their family and friends, from 85% to 81% — that data point is all 2021 data. So it'll be interesting to see in the next census data pool, if some of that rebounds, or if it stays the same. 

Some of the other things we found are that New Hampshire residents are attending public meetings less, so that that fell from 19% in 2019 to 12% in 2021. We also found that New Hampshire residents have a slight majority engaging across race, ethnicity, or culture that's different from their own. So that was another finding. 

In terms of voting — which I know is everyone's top of mind right now with the election coming up — we found that in the 2020 election there was record voter turnout across the nation. New Hampshire mirrored that trend, both in 2020 and in the midterm elections. In 2022, we had surges in voter turnout. We were above the rest of the country in that, but we kind of sort of mirrored that national trend. But one of the concerning things we saw about voting is that urban residents actually were voting less than suburban or rural residents in that election. 76% of rural people voted, for instance, in the 2020 election, compared with 57% of urban residents. 

We never measured belonging before in New Hampshire. What we found, in general, is that about half of New Hampshire residents are feeling like they belong to their local communities, but about half are feeling that they don't. So 49% of New Hampshire residents share that they belong in their local community; 59% felt comfortable expressing their opinions in their local community. About 55% felt satisfied with their relationships with others in the local community, and 62% felt connected to their local community. So, it depends how you slice the cake, right?  We could see this as a positive that we've got slight majorities feeling like they belong, but you could also say that there's about 50% of people in a lot of these outcomes that aren't feeling like they belong. 

Then the last thing that I wanted to mention, which is a big one, is that our trust in government in New Hampshire has dropped significantly since 2001 — that's trust both in national and local government. The trust in the national government is a more severe plummet. In 2001, about 31% of New Hampshire residents felt trust in the national government. It's now down to 17%, but actually only 1% of New Hampshire residents trust the national government all of the time, and about 49% almost never, trust the national government. Trust from 2019 to 2024 in the national government stayed about the same. So it was low in 2019 and just kind of stayed low. 

Trust in local government also fell from 2001 so we saw it fall from 53% to 36%, and then it stayed about the same from 2019 to 2024. So, interestingly, we're not seeing huge drops in trust in government from pre- and post-pandemic, but we are just seeing a general decline in trusting in both national and local governments since 2001.

Melanie Plenda:

Let’s explore some of those findings a bit more. Michele. When residents say they matter less and engage less, what does that mean and why should we all be concerned about that? 

Michele Holt-Shannon:

The mattering question is compelling, because people interpret it and answer the question differently. I'll note that some of the folks watching this may be familiar with the Youth Risk Behavior Survey that's done in schools. One of the questions on that survey a few years ago was whether or not young people feel like they matter to their community. The question wasn't there for a couple of years, and it's back now. I think it is an interesting one to think about, because I have a reaction that I hope people feel like they matter. When that number is low, it is concerning, and it says something about the state of community, of connectedness — of civic health, broadly. I think it can be a red flag when mattering numbers are low, when fewer people feel like they matter to a community. So it's a way of giving us a chance to say, we want that number to be higher. We want that number to be higher for young people, we want that number to be higher for everyone — that people would feel like they can engage, share their opinions and influence the community where they live.

Melanie Plenda:

Quixada, trust in local and national government is at an all-time low. Why is that, and what does that mean for the community? 

Quixada Moore-Vissing:

One of the frustrations about survey research is, we ask a question, such as how much do you trust the government? How much do you trust the national government? How much do you trust the local government? And people pick an option. I trust the government a lot or I trust the government not so much. What we don't know is the story behind that. What is behind the lack or loss of trust? 

But I can make some guesses. I think the one thing that's going on with trust nationally is that we've become such a polarized country, and that polarization at the national level is trickling down to the state level and is trickling down to local communities and public meetings. The fact is that whoever is elected, whatever party, there will be some people who are alienated by that leadership simply because of the party identity and how they conceptualize that now. I do think it's possible for a Democratic leader to try to really be inclusive of a lot of Republican ideas or a Republican leader to be inclusive of a lot of Democratic ideas, especially at the local level, and really, really listen to those points of view. 

The other thing that I think has been really difficult for trust in government is the amount of misinformation that we have right now, where it's very hard to know what is truth and what is something that has been fictionalized to try to sort of influence people towards a certain policy outcome. I think that's a big reason why we need lots of media literacy in our K-12 education to try to help prepare the next generations of Americans to be able to sort of make those judgments based on facts. 

I think there’s also a lot that government can do, particularly at the local level to try to build up trust. I would say some local governments are pretty good at these things, and some local governments aren’t. These are things like just being transparent about your processes. How do you make decisions? Why did you make a decision? Being inclusive about your processes. Did you really hear from everybody in the community? Did you go out of your way to hold a meeting at a time that would work for folks who were at work, or different kinds of populations in the community? Then also demonstrating responsiveness and following through when there's lots of people in the community asking about something or expressing concerns. If you gather the community and ask for their opinion, you actually follow through and tell them how their opinions were used to make a decision. 

Melanie Plenda:

Michele, now that this report is completed, what happens next? How can this information be used? What needs further study? 

Michele Holt-Shannon:

We hope people will certainly read this report and think about how it applies to their own work and community. One of the things that we're thinking about is voting. It is top of mind right now with the election coming up, and we are curious about some of those patterns. Are there linkages in terms of mattering and voting, and are there linkages across political identity and voting, and certainly digging into that urban-rural-suburban connection. We work with schools and towns and government commissions and nonprofits and help them think about how more people and more organizations are trying to engage the public or engage people in their community. How can they do that in ways that build trust, that are authentic?

I think we also are looking forward to understanding, as New Hampshire's diversity grows, what are the ways that we can foster belonging across differences in lots of different ways — racial, political, economic, and so on. Are we living in very isolated groupings, and are there ways to foster people coming together across different groups that help people feel connected to their community and interacting with people who are different from themselves, which is something that is helpful for us to do.

We all have biases. We all have experiences that you know can be limiting, and then we don't know what we don't know. Until we meet other people.  So talking across politics, I will say, is one thing that it actually can help us feel better and more hopeful about the direction of the country. If we get into a place where we're not talking with people who vote differently than us, then if I do that for too long, I'm starting to make up stories about the people who vote differently from me, and I need to interact. And for me, those people are in my family, and so I especially want to interact and save those relationships. So I think there's lots to think about personally in reading this — like, what do I want to do more of? And then also, as someone who works with communities, how do we help communities engage authentically, foster trust and enfranchise their community members?

Melanie Plenda:

This question is for both of you — what is the major takeaway for New Hampshire residents about this report, and what do you advise them to do about it?

Quixada Moore-Vissing:

We’ve presented some research findings to viewers of this show, and I hope that you can take action. The point of doing these reports is to actually inform some interventions around civic health that you build and can move positive outcomes forward and in the state. So that would be one thing. 

The other, I would say, is I think a lot of us are feeling pretty powerless when we look at national democracy and civic health right now. There's a lot going on nationally, and it can feel like you can’t even make a difference with the complexity of what's happening. The fact is, it's going to be hard to impact national policy sitting from our homes in New Hampshire, but what we can do is act locally and try to strengthen civic health at the local level.

For some of you, this may be work that you take on through an organization that you work with, that you volunteer with, but this can also be very individual behavior. Small acts, like showing someone in your community that they matter to you who might not know that. Some other things that can be done is that institutions, like local government, public schools, nonprofits, can try to brainstorm, “What are three ways this year that we can build community trust, and let's do that as part of our strategic plan.” I really encourage that at every level. I hope that we can take action around civic health. I am an idealist, but I do believe that if a lot of people are influencing their direct spheres of reference, that it can be a ripple effect, and that change can happen. So I hope to see that positive change in New Hampshire.

Michele Holt-Shannon:

I have to double down on local because it's where most of us have a stronger tie. We have relationships locally that start to be more distant the further away they are geographically. That's a place where I think you can think small but still have a big outcome, you can go out and meet more of your neighbors or go join a group in the community. From an individual level to all the things that you can do at your job, your organization, and a community group that you're a part of — I think little things pay off.

Melanie Plenda:

Thank you for joining us, Carsey School of Public Policy Interim Associate Director Michele Holt-Shannon and report author and founder of Public Engagement Partners Quixada Moore-Vissing.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Critics blast adequacy of PragerU online personal finance course

The online course consists of 15 educational videos, averaging five minutes apiece

By: Patrick Adrian - Granite State News Collaborative

CONCORD — The state Department of Education is drawing criticism again from educators and some lawmakers for renewing its partnership with PragerU, a conservative media nonprofit, to provide online instruction to students for high school credit. 

In addition to concerns about the organization’s right-wing political agenda and often-skewed educational content, education advocates said the approved financial literacy course is inadequate in content and quantity of instruction to qualify as a for-credit course. 

Megan Tuttle, president of the National Education Association New Hampshire chapter testifying against a bill earlier this year. (Post on X)

“Throughout his tenure, Commissioner (Frank) Edelblut’s agenda has been focused on weakening public schools, which are attended by nearly 90% of Granite State students,” said Megan Tuttle, president of the National Education Association New Hampshire chapter, in an email. 

“The renewal of a contract with an ideological profit-based entity to serve as a replacement for in-classroom financial literacy instruction is just another example of the Edelblut agenda that illustrates what’s at stake in the elections this fall,” Tuttle wrote. 

On Sept. 16, the State Board of Education voted unanimously to approve a five-year renewal with PragerU Kids to offer its online personal finance course, titled Cash Course, as part of the state’s Learn Everywhere program, which allows students to earn high school credits through state-approved extracurricular programs. 

The renewal extends a partnership that the board initially approved in September 2023 with PragerU for one year.

Crash Course is intended to be an alternative approach to traditional classroom learning, which is not effective with some students, a Department of Education spokesperson said. 

The online course consists of 15 videos, averaging five minutes apiece, on topics that include employment wages and benefits, budgeting, income taxes, types of investment accounts and managing credit and debt.  

A 32-question summative assessment is taken at the end of the course, according to PragerU’s renewal application to the board. A student must answer at least 26 questions correctly to receive a certificate of completion, which may be redeemed for academic credit. 

“The commissioner of education, for the last eight years, has been focused on creating quality opportunities for students to have bright futures,” the education department spokesperson explained in an email. 

‘There is a huge difference’

But many educators and lawmakers question whether Prager’s online course provides enough information and instruction to constitute a sufficient education in personal finance — or to merit half an academic credit, which is typically earned by completing a semester-long course. 

“There is a huge difference between a 60-hour semester-long course on financial literacy and 75 minutes of videos,” said John Pelletier, director of the Center of Financial Literacy at Champlain College in Burlington, Vt. 

John Pelletier Courtesy Champlain College Website

“Would (the New Hampshire Board of Education) call 75 minutes of videos an adequate course for driver’s education?” Pelletier asked. 

The State Board of Education also received strong pushback last year from educators, parents and other members of the public due largely to PragerU’s other video content. The organization, co-founded by conservative pundit Dennis Prager, frequently produces videos for children and adults that feature right-leaning viewpoints on topics that include climate change, LGBTQ and immigration. 

Educators and lawmakers said they do not object to the Cash Course content, which provides accurate information in an objective and straightforward manner. 

But five-minute videos on complex topics such as investing and retirement planning are, at best, supplemental learning materials, as opposed to a replacement for a substantive, semester-long course, Pelletier said. 

“For the (Board of Education) to say that these two are equivalent is an insult to the state legislators, the governor and to educators all across the country,” Pelletier said. 

A growing need for financial literacy

New Hampshire is one of 26 states in the country that are on track to require schools to provide instruction in personal finance literacy by 2031, said Pelletier, whose center provides resources to help educators nationwide create financial literacy programs. 

New Hampshire lawmakers passed a bill in 2022, HB 1263, making personal finance literacy a requirement in school curricula. The law took effect last school year. 

Rep. Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, chairman of the House Education Committee, said too many New Hampshire students are graduating without a basic understanding of essential personal finances, from budgeting to balancing a checkbook.

“Too many students coming out of high school do not have an awareness of what they will face financially in the real world,” Ladd said in an interview. 

The law gives schools flexibility to decide how to deliver this instruction, which could include creating a self-contained personal finance course or embedding the curriculum into other courses, such as math or an economics elective, Ladd explained. 

Under House Bill 1263, each school district must develop competencies and curriculum for personal finance literacy that align the state’s academic standards. The State Board of Education approved a set of standards for financial literacy at its meeting in September. 

These standards must receive approval next from the Legislative Oversight Committee, which was scheduled to review them, along with new proposed educational rule changes, on Oct. 17. 

‘Turning it into a nothing-burger’

Some lawmakers worry that the board acted prematurely by extending the PragerU course before academic standards are finalized. 

“Public schools haven’t been able to use the course for long enough to provide (adequate) feedback on it,” said Rep. David Luneau, D-Hopkinton, a member of the House Education Committee and Joint Legislative Oversight Committee. 

At a Monday meeting, members of the Manchester Board of School Committee peppered N.H. Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut at a meeting of the Manchester Board of School Committee earlier this year.. Andrew Sylvia—Manchester Ink Link

Members of the education committee are also concerned that Commissioner Edelblut’s proposed rule changes would make personal finance literacy a graduation requirement, which goes against the law passed by the legislature, Luneau said in an interview. 

School districts that are already financially stretched might feel compelled to enroll students in the PragerU course, which is free, rather than increase their budgets to staff a course in-house, Luneau said. 

“Watching videos online is clearly not education,” Luneau said. “It’s not even close to the rigor (and content) that a public school course would offer.”

The national standards for financial literacy, developed jointly by the Council for Economic Education and Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, spans over 40 pages and provides academic standards and learning outcomes for students in grades 4 through 12. Pelletier, who cited this as an example of an ideal curriculum model for finance literacy, said 75 minutes of videos is about 4% of the instructional time that a semester-long course would provide. 

“It feels as if the Board of Education is trying to take a substantial educational requirement (by the Legislature) and are turning it into a nothing-burger,” Pelletier said. 

‘Positive feedback’

The Department of Education said the PragerU partnership is intended to expand learning opportunities in financial literacy, not to undermine the Legislature’s goal. 

“PragerU Kids Cash Course, as one of those very successful alternative educational opportunities, has received positive feedback from its Learn Everywhere participants,” the department spokesperson said. “Financial literacy is a crucial life skill (and) students with the tools to manage their finances early helps them to become financially successful adults.”

As of last month, 37 students in New Hampshire had enrolled in Cash Course, including 11 who have passed the course, 23 who are in progress toward completion and three who have dropped the course, Dzana Homan, director of education and education outreach at PragerU Kids, told the board at its meeting Sept. 16. 

Seven of nine students who participated in a post-course survey said that they found the course an effective way to learn and that they were satisfied with the content. 

In survey comments, two students suggested updating the curricular content to show how changing economic conditions are impacting young adults or the ways that people make personal finance decisions. 

New Hampshire is one of several states that have approved PragerU as an education program vendor. Other states include Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma and Texas.

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Funding concerns weigh heavily on state’s public charter schools

Amid pending lawsuits, they seek a seat at the table over any changes in the system

By Susan Geier-Granite State News Collaborative 

Amid lawsuits over how New Hampshire funds its public schools, the level of scrutiny into how those taxpayer dollars are used remains hotly debated among educators and policymakers. 

And while proponents of so-called “school choice” say it’s good for families to have options beyond traditional public schools, those options aren’t held to the same standards. 

Outside of traditional public schools, the state will spend $60 million on public charter schools and nearly $28 million for 5,321 school vouchers in the 2024-25 school year. The vouchers are used to pay for homeschooling, private or religious education expenses to qualifying families. 

Advocates of charter schools emphasize that they are public schools monitored by the state and held to the same financial and academic standards as traditional schools, unlike non-public schools and homeschools in the Education Freedom Account program, which are not.

The EFA program is managed through a contracted third party, the Children’s Scholarship Fund, but much of the data on the program is not publicly available. 

“There is no accountability at all” for the EFA program, said Jodi Adams, executive director of the N.H. Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “Charter schools have the same type of paperwork as traditional public schools do. We have to follow the same rules.”

The state’s Office of the Legislative Budget Assistant, which is responsible for conducting a performance audit of the EFA, said during a recent meeting of the Joint Legislative Performance Audit and Oversight Committee that most documents pertaining to the EFA program are missing due to the “lack of access to primary program data and information.” 

Since EFA’s inception in 2021, vouchers have accounted for more than $73 million from public education funding.

The state’s 32 charter schools serve 6,015 students at a cost of about $60 million this school year. They are funded directly by the state at approximately $9,000 per student ($4,100 in state adequacy aid plus a $4,900 additional grant). That is considerably less than the statewide average cost of $20,000 per traditional public school student, according to state data.

Charter schools also receive differentiated aid for certain individual factors, such as English language learners, free and reduced lunch, and students with special needs. They must fundraise to cover the rest of their costs — such as renting space at market rates, and buying materials and equipment. 

While the primary focus of two pending school-funding lawsuits  – Contoocook Valley School District et al. v. State of New Hampshire and Steven Rand et al. v. State of New Hampshire –  is “traditional public-school funding … we want to make sure charter school advocates are at the table and involved,” says Jodi Adams, executive director of the N.H. Alliance for Public Charter Schools. (Courtesy photo)

“The primary focus of those (school funding) lawsuits are traditional public-school funding, but we want to make sure charter school advocates are at the table and involved,” said Adams, whose own child attended a charter school. “If there's anything that comes out of the lawsuit(s) that looks at redoing funding or making over how public schools are funded in the state, charter schools want to be part of the conversation. We don’t want to get lost in the shuffle.”

Becoming a charter school

A proposal for a new charter school must go through several steps once an application is filed, according to the N.H. Department of Education. There is a legal review of the application, a peer review, a commissioner review, then a state board review for approval. 

Once in operation, charter schools undergo reviews and site visits in the first and third years, followed by a five- year charter renewal review and site visit. Additionally, charters pay for an external audit, submit an annual accountability report, and file an annual financial report — something all public schools must do, and which are available online. 

Still, charter schools struggle with enrollment and financial issues, or worse. For example, Lionheart Classical Academy in Peterborough, which opened in 2022, is under scrutiny for its governance and financial practices. Eleven charter schools have closed since the first one opened in 2004. Most recently, LEAF Chartered Public School in Alstead filed for bankruptcy and shut its doors in April after seven years. Coastal Waters School in Exeter closed earlier this year in the face of alleged embezzlement and fraud after just two years of operation.

“There are some nefarious actors out there,” Adams said. “But our position is that N.H. DOE has safeguards in place so that these things are found out and people are monitored and audited.” 

The N.H. Department of Education’s Bureau of Federal Compliance conducts an annual risk assessment of traditional and charter schools. It oversees activities of federal grant programs to determine whether organizations are following federal fiscal requirements.

According to the bureau, risk assessment is used to determine the likelihood that a school may fail to comply with applicable rules. A high-risk level doesn’t indicate failure to comply nor does a low-risk level indicate the school is compliant. 

During the 2023-24 school year, the bureau found 19 high-risk traditional districts and five high-risk charter schools after conducting site monitoring visits. The bureau looks at a variety of things, including policies and procedures, cash management and use of money.

Adams was on the board of Making Community Connections, which had a school in Keene and one in Manchester. The Keene school was thriving, but Manchester’s was not.

“We had more at-risk students (in Manchester), and once COVID hit, we had a struggle to get these kids to continue,” Adams said. “We would try different ways to engage them, but it was hard for them to come back.”

Many students were unsheltered, worked full time, or had families with substance abuse issues. With a drop in enrollment, the school closed at the end of the 2021 school year. 

‘Public funds to support private schools’

Meryl Levin, director of Mill Falls Charter School, deliberately chose to be in Manchester. Mill Falls was opened in 2011 through a group of parents who wanted a Montessori education beyond preschool. Today, it has a freestanding kindergarten and serves students through sixth grade as the state’s only public charter Montessori school. 

It provides special education services and is reimbursed by the local school district.

“We share students,” Levin said of the school’s relationship with the local district, adding the majority of them are from Manchester, but there are students from other towns, selected through a public lottery. “We are leaning into the public piece. I am a product of public schools. More than a third of our students live below the poverty line. It is baked into our mission to be here. “

Levin has strong feelings when it comes to the EFA program.

“It’s using public funds to support private schools,” she said. “It doesn’t just affect charter public schools, but all public schools. The state doesn’t put enough money into education. They need to invest in its future so that there are more teachers, cops and firefighters, lawyers and managers.” 

To Levin, it’s not about traditional public versus charter schools, but the entire education ecosystem. 

“I don’t differentiate between charter and traditional public in terms of funding, because as a state we have not made the best choices what schools need,” she said.

She noted that, for kids who require special education and related services, such as physical and occupational therapies, there is a shortage of funds and practitioners, especially in rural areas. Only students enrolled in public schools or placed in a private school by the district have a right to comprehensive special education services. 

Emily Whelan is executive director of the Next charter school in Derry, which serves at-risk high school students. The school is capped at 80 students and is located inside the Gilbert H. Hood Middle School in Derry. About 10 percent of its students come from outside of Derry, but the majority are tuition students from Derry.

“The idea of the school came from the district,” Whelan said. “The superintendent said, ‘There are students who are not finishing high school,’ and came to us with a solution to offer those students a different kind of education.” 

The school receives federal Title I, II, VI funding to support its students, and Whelan supplements that money by lining up grants. She said slow, intentional growth has been key to the school’s success over the 11 years since it opened with the help with a federal charter school startup grant. 

When it comes to oversight, Whelan said no one on the board has access to money or students. There is a double signature policy in place — only the board president or treasurer can sign a check with Whelan. 

She declined to comment about the EFA program and its effect on public schools. 

Whelan did question how feasible it will be to continue to increase the number of charter schools, since they must raise so much money to stay in operation. 

“New Hampshire is not a young and vibrant state. School enrollment across the state is decreasing,” she said. “I don’t see charter schools popping up all over the place.” 

Two new charter schools, Synergy in Concord and Seacoast Classical in Newton, opened this school year. Four are set to open next year: Cornerstone in the Mount Washington Valley, Wellheart in Milford, Northstar in Ossipee and New Hampshire Career Academy (which will have multiple sites in partnership with the Community College System). 

Decreasing enrollment

Charter schools have reported a steady increase in enrollment, while homeschooling attendance has dropped since the height of the pandemic, according to a 2023 Reaching Higher NH report. Private school enrollment has dipped slightly. 

News reports have touted that public school attendance has been in a steady decline, but that tracks with the fact that there are fewer school-age children. The state experienced the largest percentage reduction in people under age 18 (about 10.5 percent) of any state from 2010 to 2020, according to the N.H. Fiscal Policy Institute. 

For Levin, the greatest challenge for charter schools is funding. She said she is fortunate to have dedicated staff members, but cannot offer them the kind of retirement and health care packages available in traditional districts.

Plus, there are the lingering effects of COVID. 

“It’s hard to find people to volunteer their time,” she said. “COVID is still clearly in play. It is not in the rearview mirror. The mindset of the community has shifted.” 

Levin said Mill Falls had a robust after-school program, but since COVID there has been a lack of participation. 

“People are slow to volunteer and come to things. It impacts funding,” she said. 

That is why the fate of public school funding is so important, said Christina Pretorius, public policy director of Reaching Higher NH, a nonprofit public education policy organization. 

“Every dollar spent on vouchers is money that is not being spent in district schools and public charter schools,” Pretorius said, referring to the EFA program. “Year after year, we have bills to do things like increase special education funding that don’t succeed … but we have $28 million (this year) to give to school vouchers?” 

Reaching Higher, Pretorius said, doesn’t support or oppose any specific legislation but it does want to shed light on the voucher program. 

“We are not unique in this trend here in New Hampshire,” she said. “We are seeing across the country that wealthier families are receiving them, and there is a real lack of transparency and accountability on how they are being used. “

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

How the ‘Counting the Vote’ special on PBS debunks concerns about the election process

On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Melanie Plenda talks with Margaret Hoover, host of PBS’s “Firing Line” about the show’s recent one-hour special, “Counting the Vote.”  It contains fascinating sections about election procedures and all things that, perhaps in the past, people didn't think about much, but today have become embroiled in controversy.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda: 

When you were conceiving the special with your team, what went into it? What was it like putting this show together? 

Margaret Hoover:

I’m glad to help shine a light on what I think is ultimately one of the most important functions of democracy, which is how we administer a vote in a way that engenders confidence with the electorate. After 18 months of conceiving of this project and bringing it to air, I have concluded, and I hope viewers will conclude, that there is a very, very good case to be made that elections in the United States are safe, secure, transparent and trustworthy. They are not only those four things – they are the most safe, the most secure, the most transparent and the most trustworthy in the world by a lot, and probably in the course of human history. We have a lot to be confident about, but we also need to shine a light on how we do it, so that we can demystify and answer some of the conspiracy theories and doubts that circulate, so that people will have confidence in the integrity of our elections.

What went into it was simply traveling and talking to people and doing the research. We don't have one election for president in this country on Nov. 5, 2024. We have 50 state elections for electors, and those 50 states administer the elections in 10,000-plus jurisdictions across the country, and in a way that federalism really protects the security of our elections. There's no way to rig the presidential election in this country, which is a wonderful sort of innovation of the founding fathers that is embedded in the Constitution. Every state gets to choose how to administer its votes. What it also means is, when there are states that are incredibly close, one has to really understand how that state chooses to administer its elections. 

Melanie Plenda:

As you went through this process and conducted these interviews what surprised you?

Margaret Hoover:

One of the things that surprised me is that you hear as you evaluate — and we all hear some of the doubts and concerns that are circulated on the Internet amongst our friends and neighbors — one you hear frequently is, “Well, we should just all have paper ballots” because there's this concern or fear that some of the election machinery might be susceptible to being hacked or manipulated. People suggest that perhaps the algorithms can be changed, or we don't know what they are. Actually, as it turns out, about 98% of the ballots in the United States have a paper trail. In other words, you count on a machine, but there is an actual paper ballot correlated to each individual's vote. So we do have a way of checking. There is no way of hacking or manipulating the election machinery or the algorithms or the computers to change the votes because we have a process for hand-counting ballots in certain states just to ensure that they work. Also, many states implement automatic audits, where you audit the vote almost immediately following the vote itself, just to ensure the integrity of the vote. 

The other thing that was really wonderful to see, particularly in the battleground states we visited, but also in the states that are deep red — states like Utah, that administers 100% mail-in voting. The election boards love to have people come and watch. They have basically created facilities where journalists, media, civic groups — any kind of group — can come and visit and see how elections are administered. 

I really encourage anyone who has concern about how your local elections are administered to get in touch with your local election board and see if you can set up a visit or volunteer, because there is, first of all, a real dearth of people who are wanting to volunteer because there have been so many threats leveled at individuals who volunteer. These are volunteers in a service that is critically necessary for representative democracy, that depends on ensuring that we have a stable and confident vote amongst our people in order to secure our elected representatives. Go volunteer and take a look around, because those folks are doing really great work. They're fastidious in every single state about how they count the ballots, secure the ballots, process the ballots, and are doing really good work on behalf of all of us.

Melanie Plenda:

Which states do you think might face some challenges? 

Margaret Hoover:

The first time we saw real challenges to the counting in many, many states, which led to the challenging of accepting the slates of electors at the counting of the electoral ballots last Jan. 6, 2020. The states that were questioned last time are still of concern this time maybe perhaps with the exception of Michigan. But I think Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia are all states that are going to be very, very close, but they have done different things in each state to prepare. 

So Georgia, for example, passed an election law which actually led to more people voting in 2022 than had ever voted in the state of Georgia before. They've really done a number of things to increase the transparency, security, trustworthiness and integrity of the elections in Georgia. 

On the other hand, Pennsylvania we know will be very, very close. The legislature tried to consider several bills, but they just could never get anything passed in order to lock down any of these standards of election integrity or apply any of these new standards of election integrity.

You'll see in the film a very frustrated election commissioner from Philadelphia, who actually was the only Republican from Philadelphia Election Commission to stand up — well, not the only one, but one of the ones who stood up — and said, “In fact, I've counted and I've recounted and we've re-audited, and I can confirm that Joe Biden won Philadelphia and won Pennsylvania,” to much criticism, frankly, and direct threats by the Republican Party and Donald Trump. But still, Pennsylvania has not taken the steps it needs to pre-process ballots, and so it will take longer for them to process and get a result in Pennsylvania — in particular the Philadelphia area, because in Philadelphia, they cannot start opening ballots and counting ballots until 7 p.m. on Election Day.

Melanie Plenda:

We recently had state primaries for congressional districts and governor. New Hampshire officials have always talked about how secure our elections are — even before 2020, that was really a point of pride for our former secretary of state. What struck me when I listened to the most recent slate of candidates was the number of them who didn’t outright deny the election results, but said, “they had questions” or thought there were “irregularities.” What is the advantage for candidates to say this? You would think in some respects it would depress turnout because they are essentially saying the process might be rigged. What do you think the political calculus is there?

Margaret Hoover:

Well, there isn't a sensible one, honestly. Arizona is a great example actually, where people would say, “Maybe there were some uncertainties or problems in Arizona.” Except Republicans won all down the ballot in Arizona in 2020, but Donald Trump didn't win the state. What happened, as election officials and also former state representatives and electors in Arizona explained, is that many, many Republicans — as many as 12,000 — left the top of the ballot blank, didn't vote for Donald Trump and then voted for Republicans all down ballot. So it's hard if you're a Republican in Arizona to say there was election fraud because you got elected as a Republican, even though Donald Trump didn't. 

I say this as a Republican who has observed what has happened in the Republican Party and the realignment. There has been, I've observed, a shift in how we talk about elections. I think it's so important to shine a light on this issue because, for certain Republicans, it has become a litmus test to suggest there might be something untoward about elections, and if New Hampshire Republicans say the election was great in New Hampshire, it's just somewhere else that there might have been trouble they’re contributing to this sowing of doubt because we have audited elections in all four of the states that were challenged in for the Electoral College in 2020 on January 6. Those ballots have been counted and recounted. They have been audited. They have been viewed by outside groups. You can go look at all of the information and all of the theories, and that's why administration officials from the Trump administration, in the Department of Justice, in the Department of Homeland Security, in the Department of Defense have all said that 2020, was actually the most secure election in American history. 

This is about politics, not about how well we administer our elections, and I think as long as we can point that out to people and people can recognize or actually just ask themselves, if they're hearing some kind of uncertainty around the elections, is this a political point or is this actually about the transparency and the integrity of how my local elections are being administered? 

Because one of the other things that we see recently in the news is that many people believe that their state and their locality does a good job administering elections, but they worry about other states. I think that's another piece of this too, that transparency helps shine a light on how every state does this, and how we can improve the functioning of the election administration in each state. It's up to each state legislature and each secretary of state and governor to get that done in their state. But, I think, too often casting doubt on the integrity of our elections has become a political talking point on the right that actually undermines the public's confidence in our elections. 

Melanie Plenda:

What are you working on now for “Firing Line?” What’s coming up in the next few weeks? 

Margaret Hoover:

I think I can tease that we’re planning to have Gen. H.R. McMaster on the program in the coming weeks. I also plan to have some election administration officials on the program to talk about what has been happening in some of these key swing states that are likely to be states that we're talking about on election night and election week that take a little bit of time to vote. 

An election official from Arizona will be on along with an election official from Michigan, and a Republican election lawyer, will also be on. We're going to just spend some time making sure that the public is aware that we're probably not going to know the answer of who won the election on Nov. 5. It's going to take several days, maybe even a week or two, to ensure that all the ballots are counted, especially with the tragic and really cataclysmic storms that have hit Florida and North Carolina that will just inevitably slow down the process. We want to make sure we count every ballot and ensure that it is secure and transparent and trustworthy and fair.

Melanie Plenda:

Margaret Hoover, host of “Firing Line,” thank you so much for joining us. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Fostering civic engagement: New Hampshire's initiative to strengthen voter education

Pretty much everyone agrees — civic education is important. But why? And what exactly does that entail? On this episode of “The State We’re In,” New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan and Lily Woo, the state’s Civic and Voter Education Coordinator talk about a new initiative to foster civic education in the state.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity. 

Melanie Plenda:

First, let’s talk about civics. Secretary Scanlan, how would you define what that is and why it’s important? 

David Scanlan:

Well, civics is a basic understanding of our government, and from my perspective, state government is just very, very important. Every citizen of New Hampshire has the opportunity to participate in their government, and they do that through their right to vote, and if they are a registered voter, then they also have the right to run for office. That process is integral, integral to our society and the way that it operates. So it is really, really important that that system function very, very well.

Melanie Plenda:

Tell us about the role of the civic and voter education coordinator and what you hope comes from it. 

David Scanlan:

In my experience in government, which has spanned over several decades in a number of different areas, there just seems to be a general decline in confidence that voters have when they go to the voting booths. Along with that comes a lot of misinformation and disinformation that is out there flowing around, and it is becoming more and more prevalent through the use of social media and the sophisticated and technical ways that we have to communicate today, as opposed to the way we communicated 20 years ago. That coincides with a decline in the knowledge that voters have about how their electoral system works.

While I have spent a lot of time over the last 20 years helping to educate poll workers and individuals that are engaged in the actual process of conducting elections, I find now that it is really important that we reach out to voters and educate in those processes as well. 

Most voters, when they go to their polling place, they check in, they receive a ballot, they mark the ballot, and they turn it into the moderator, and then they leave the polling place. What they may not be aware of when they go through that process is the many checks and balances that are built into our system that help guarantee and make sure that their votes are accurately counted and that the process is working properly. We have to take the time to help our voters understand that, and the way we do it is to be more transparent and educate the voting public — not only when they go through the polling place, but at every opportunity that we have when they engage in their civic government. 

So that's why I believe it's important that we have this position now of civics and voter education outreach coordinator, so that we can be proactive in reaching out to students and groups and everyday citizens about how our governmental system works, and why it is important that they understand that process and participate in it.

Melanie Plenda:

Lily, I'd love to know how you are finding the role, and tell us more about what you've been up to.

Lily Woo:

First of all, not having a blueprint has been a bit challenging. I think the atmosphere is very fraught right now with misinformation, disinformation, and that is challenging. But I think with all of these challenges, there comes excitement for the opportunity to be part of a team that works hard to be proactive and that combats the misinformation, the disinformation.

I think, as a former teacher, it's ironic to me that we teach our students to hand in work that is theirs. We teach our students to do the right thing when nobody's watching. So the excitement of this position is to be part of a team that combats the misinformation, the disinformation and the artificial intelligence that's out there. I think that's pretty common with challenges and opportunities. 

One of the things that I really enjoyed was being part of the election training and talking to the election officials out there and hearing from them what they're seeing in the public, and eventually putting together a curriculum that will address the issues that the election officials are bringing up.

Melanie Plenda:

What are they seeing in the public? What are the issues?

Lily Woo:

They are issues that can be as foundational as, what do you need to register to vote? I think there can be issues that are more complex, like, what are you allowed to wear in a polling station to, when can I change my party affiliation? There's a primary election, there's a general election, and the rules are different — or at least to a certain extent — not vastly different, but there are things that are different. So I think there are issues that certainly we can help to educate the public on that will help election officials be able to concentrate on having a polling station that is run efficiently and eliminate all of those layers of having to repeat the answer to the same questions.

Melanie Plenda:

Lily, you mentioned the curriculum. What are your goals for developing a curriculum about civics? 

Lily Woo:

Anytime you develop a curriculum, you always have to begin with the end in mind. In this case, you begin with an end in mind of two pillars. The one pillar being the foundational elements of civics, which is individual rights, the rights guaranteed in the Constitution, the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. The other pillar is civic responsibility. 

So if you begin with that end in mind, the other piece you need is the why. If you can get to the foundational elements of “what does it mean to be a citizen with individual rights?” you can start to give students the tools to combat the misinformation, the disinformation. If you can give students a sound relation to what it means to be civically responsible. Well, then you give them a tool to be good citizens in society, and then ultimately that's going to hopefully build trust in foundational systems that have been the bedrock of communities and this country.

Melanie Plenda:

This question is for both of you. How will this help educators? Lily, let's start with you.

Lily Woo:

Being an educator myself, I think it's not just about handing the school a curriculum and saying, “have at it.” I think there are a lot of factors that go into being in front of a body of students, whether it's 15, 25, 35. So I think knowing classroom teachers have a resource here, knowing that I understand what it is like to be in a classroom, I hope is helpful to educators.

David Scanlan:

This is really a multi-stage program, and the curriculum part of it is the long-term planning. How do we get a program, a solid program, that school districts can use around the state to teach students in the classroom? But beyond that, there are other groups out there that are important to this process, and it’s important that we reach out to them as well.

So we have some initiatives going where we've been working with veterans’ groups to try and get out and communicate with veterans.They already know about civics because they have sacrificed for our country in different ways, and we want to pull from that experience that they've had and the respect that they have in their own communities and try and engage them to become participants in the election process in terms of helping at polls and other things.

We had a great “I Voted” sticker contest that was in the school system. That's something that we can continue as a program. That's kind of a short-term initiative, but it generates tremendous interest and gets students engaged at a very early level. There may be other things that we can do, like essay contests in the higher grades. There are some awards that we can issue that are sponsored by national organizations, like the National Association of Secretaries of State, to young adults — whether they're high school seniors or college students or even slightly beyond that — to recognize individuals for their efforts in the community that have engaged in a civic way. 

Melanie Plenda:

That leads to our next question for the both of you: How will this help students and/or the general public?

David Scanlan:

The idea is just to help students and the general public understand things about the election process that they might not know. And if they do know, we'll give them confidence that we have a great system in New Hampshire, and that because of that, you should have confidence in the results of the elections. And to let them know that the opportunity is certainly there for them to become active participants in that process, so they can see firsthand and experience firsthand how these systems work and understand the checks and balances that are at play.

If we can encourage adults and voters to do that, then I think the misinformation part is going to take care of itself. When people become aware and knowledgeable, it is less easy to fall victim to incorrect facts out there about the election process itself. 

Lily Woo:

One of the things that I know about this office, and I know the secretary is very keyed in on, is recognizing and acknowledging when students or when the public is engaged in the civic process. If we can continue building the foundation for students and creating civically literate graduates who enter into this world, hopefully that spirit of engagement will continue and will carry on for a lifetime — whether it is volunteering at the polls on Election Day or whether it is continuing to look out for neighbors, be part of the community, that everyone's moving in the same direction toward the public good. When everybody's rowing in the same direction, good things are going to happen.

Melanie Plenda:

Here’s another question for the both of you: As we approach the election, what would you like people to know about the process as it stands right now? 

David Scanlan:

Well, New Hampshire has a unique system in terms of its elections, and what makes it unique is the fact that we elect our local election officials at the local level, so people's neighbors, their peers, family and friends, are actually the ones that are running the election — the polling place that voters will go to in that community. Those individuals are elected because people have faith in their ability, they believe in their integrity and their honesty, and that goes a long way in giving them some confidence. 

We have a very human process too, and errors can be made. I mean, people can make an error in adding numbers together when they're reporting final results, but our system is built to withstand that because it is easy to request a recount in the state. We now perform audits of ballot counting devices and things like that. So while the system was not designed to be perfect, it was built to accurately reflect who won an election when the dust settles, and New Hampshire does a great job. 

I mentioned that there are checks and balances at play in the polling place, and some of those involve the political parties themselves. They are allowed to make appointments of participants in the polling place, and the best example of that are the inspectors of election, which are more commonly known as the ballot clerks. Those individuals are the ones that hand a ballot to the voter when they're checking in, while the other individual crosses the name of the voter off the checklist. That's usually a Republican and a Democrat sitting side by side, engaging in that process. So not only can they keep an eye on each other, but they can also see what is going on in the polling place itself — and it's those checks and balances that are really important to just making sure that the system works properly. 

At the end of the night, when the moderator announces the results, the ballots are all packaged up and placed in boxes with security tape. There's a seal that is placed over those boxes that has to be signed by the selectmen in the town, and those seals are not broken unless there is a request for a recount or a court orders a ballot box be opened up for some reason. So those are the things that we need voters to understand and become aware of, and that's part of the importance of the program that Lily is engaging in right now. 

It’s also important for voters to understand the three different branches of government and the role that each plays in the process of elections. That's something that people are becoming less and less knowledgeable about, and it's time that we reverse that trend and make sure that people understand that the judicial branch of government, the executive branch of government and the legislative branch of government all have really important roles to play in our democratic process.

Lily Woo:

Having gone with the election trainers from this office and meeting with the election officials in the different towns across the state, what I would want the public to know is, as the secretary said, these people are your friends and your neighbors, and they are the ones that are making the process as efficient and as comfortable as possible for everyone. I think the public needs to know that.

As somebody said to me in one of the training sessions, “New Hampshire is working hard to do it right.” I think that is something that is a credit to the office here that is training the officials. I think it's a credit to the election officials, and I think it's a credit to the patience of the public — that if something is not going right at the polls, well, it's time to find the moderator and to ask the moderator questions about what is going on. But I think, as the secretary said, there are checks and balances built into the process. I think certainly voters should go in confident that New Hampshire is getting it right.

Melanie Plenda:

Well, you two have a lot on your plate, especially in the coming weeks. Good luck with these endeavors. Thank you for joining us, Secretary of State David Scanlan and Lily Woo, the state’s civic and voter education coordinator

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org. “The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

Percentage of low-income families receiving school vouchers has dropped significantly since start of EFA program

Analysis of state numbers shows proportion has dropped from 54% to 37% since 2021

By Susan Geier-Granite State News Collaborative

More New Hampshire families that don’t qualify as low-income are receiving publicly funded school vouchers to pay for private, religious and homeschooling expenses through the state’s Education Freedom Account program.

The information, based on data from the New Hampshire Department of Education, shows enrollment in the school voucher program grew 25 percent since last school year. The state will now fund 5,321 school vouchers in the 2024-2025 school year, for a total estimated cost of $27.7 million for the year, according to an analysis by Reaching Higher NH, the nonprofit that studies education and education policy.

It's striking that the data shows proportionally fewer students receiving the vouchers are low-income, said Christina Pretorius, Reaching Higher’s public policy director. 

In 2021, nearly 54 percent of the total student enrollment were low-income (879 students out of 1,635), Reaching Higher found. This year, 37 percent of students, or 1,974 out of 5,321 students, were low-income.

In its analysis, Reaching Higher measured low-income students as those eligible for participation in the Free and Reduced Price Meals Program.

The vouchers are given through the state’s Education Freedom Account program and funded through the state’s Education Trust Fund.  To qualify for EFA money, a family household income may not exceed 300 percent of the poverty level. In 2021, that was $79,500 for a family of four, and now it is $93,600.

After that first year, families are not required to prove income eligibility while the child is in school up to the age of 20.

The EFA program has been subject to a strong partisan divide since a sole-source contract to manage the program and distribute the money was awarded to the New York-based Children’s Scholarship Fund in 2021. Democrats and others say it diverts essential public school funds, while Republicans and program supporters say it gives parents education choice.

The Children’s Scholarship Fund and details of the EFA program are not subject to the same level of accountability – financially and academically – as traditional public schools and public charter schools in the state. 

“Every dollar spent on vouchers is money that is not being spent in district schools and public charter schools,” Pretorius said in an interview. “Year after year, we have bills to do things like increase special education funding that don’t succeed … but we have $28 million (this year) to give to school vouchers.” 

Reaching Higher noted by the end of this school year, $73 million in school vouchers will have been distributed through the EFA program.

Gov. Chris Sununu and EFA proponents say the money is justified to give parents options beyond traditional public schools. 

But, Pretorius said, other public programs, like Medicaid, WIC (the Women’s, Infants and Children food nutrition program), fuel assistance and free and reduced lunch, require annual income verification and are subject to public scrutiny. Recipients of EFA funds aren’t.

Sununu has said it would be disruptive if a family had to change schools because of a change in income, adding that public school students are not means-tested.

Pretorius also questioned whether families would actually withdraw from private, religious or homeschooling if their family went over the income limit. 

“Between 70 and 80 percent of these (EFA) students had already been enrolled in homeschooling or private schools,” she said. “What we are seeing is the subsidizing of choices that were already made.”

Reaching Higher, Pretorius said, doesn’t support or oppose legislation and is focused on tracking public education policy and sharing how vouchers are being used in New Hampshire. 

“We are not unique in this trend here in New Hampshire,” she said. “We are seeing across the country that wealthier families are receiving them, and there is a real lack of transparency and accountability on how they are being used.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.