Improving small-town life: How Radically Rural brings communities together to share ideas

The popular Radically Rural summit grew out of a desire to connect people who are passionate about small-town life with those who are pioneering interesting solutions to common problems. The summit — held every year in Keene — returns Sept. 24, with a new slate of sessions and solutions. Here to discuss what’s in store for this year's conference is Radically Rural Director Julianna Dodson.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Julianna, can you give us a brief history of Radically Rural, how it came to be, and who is the summit for?

Julianna Dodson:

Whether you're in a rural or urban setting, or somewhere in-between, how people, culture and a society evolve is typically a whole tapestry of things. So you might have one person that starts an initiative, another person who carries it forward, someone who kind of iterates or evolves it, and before long you kind of just completely lose track of the threads and where they started and where they stopped.

Radically Rural was kind of like that, where it was this natural evolution of so many different efforts that had evolved over time, starting with the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship back in 1997, where our founder and executive director, Marianne Christensen, started a marketplace for locally made goods and locally grown goods, because there wasn't anything like that around here at the time. And over time, we just kind of kept encountering new challenges and found creative ways to solve them. So as the marketplace was being run, we realized we needed business skills, our makers and growers need business skills. Let's start some programming to help them. As we go along, we realized we need to advocate for the needs of small businesses. We need to advocate for the needs of rural communities. It just kind of kept going and kept going.

We have an amazing relationship with our local newspaper, The Keene Sentinel, and in 2017 we had been running an annual event called Connect, which brought people from all over the region together to shape and share ideas. That was going so well for us, and we thought, “Can we do that on a national scale?” 

So here comes another thread. We have a company in our region called Badger, which makes skincare products that was started right here in Gilsum, and the owner, Bill Whyte, uses a particular method of developing ideas. So the Sentinel, Hannah Grimes, and Bill got together, and they kind of figured out how they could take these seeds of ideas to something real. That's when Radically Rural was born. 

Melanie Plenda:

What do you think makes Radically Rural unique? 

Julianna Dodson:

What I think makes it unique is that I don’t know of another summit in America that focuses on rural issues that is not also more specifically focused on one particular sector or one particular area or one political party constituency. So what I love about Radically Rural is that we are free to be responsive. We are free to meet the needs of our national rural community because we aren't kind of restricted to any one of those things.

I was actually just writing my opening comments to the summit today and really just inspiring myself while I did it. I was just kind of describing how we all in our lives have the things that we think, “If everyone could just blank” or “if the world would just blank” — everything would be better. We all have our things right? Whether it's local news and local media or whether it's education or health, or whatever it might be. We all have that thing that we think is the key to thriving communities. And that's the point — that we need all of it. 

These are all puzzle pieces that come together and fit together. So what I think makes Radically Rural unique is that we are a place, a primary place, where rural communities can bring these puzzle pieces together and fit them together. When we do that, we really weave a beautiful tapestry. I think what that does is it helps us to serve our local communities better when we can do that.

As an example, I was just speaking to one of our local Rotary Clubs, and I was describing how this platform can benefit our local region, even though we have people from all over North America who come. One of our local business owners came up to me afterward, and he said, “We really should use this platform to bring some people together who have gone through a big infrastructure overhaul in their downtown, because Keene is about to embark on a three-year infrastructure project, and the downtown businesses are nervous about being able to stay in business during that time.”

This is what this platform is for. We can put it out there to our national network and say, who's gone through something like this before. What did you do? Bring all your ideas. We don't need to re-create the wheel. We can pull those ideas and resources and connections together to then be a part of the solution, because everything that we're doing well in our region, we can share. 

Melanie Plenda:

How has Radically Rural grown over the years? And what do you attribute that growth to? 

Julianna Dodson:

It has grown to some extent, in numbers, although we've stayed pretty consistently between 500 and 600 attendees every year. It's grown in the sense that the number of states represented each year and the length that people are traveling to get here. But, in my opinion, the growth that we're aiming for — because we're really not aiming for exponential growth in numbers — is the growth in how the event is cultivated, the intention that's put into it, the quality of the programming, the quality of the outcomes and the impacts that this makes in our world. That’s the growth that’s most important to me, and in that way, our growth is off the charts, because every single year we hear more about what this is doing for folks and their communities, and it's getting to the point where it's impossible to even trace the threads and find out how it's impacted. 

We have a lot of folks that have made connections that have really benefited their work. They've gotten ideas that have started entire initiatives in their regions, including our region too. We have, for example, hosted several social practice artists in our region because of a session that was done on social practice art. And this year, in one of our art sessions, we are literally making a quilt together and talking about social practice art. So that quilt is sort of going to be a representation of our theme this year, which is “reweaving the social fabric.” The more we can find ways to bridge, the more we can find ways to come together, the better off we all are. 

Melanie Plenda:

Can you tell us about some of the highlights of the different tracks? Who are your speakers and what will they be talking about?

Julianna Dodson:

It is very difficult for me to just pick a couple of things.

One is a shameless plug, one that Hannah Grimes is going to be leading, and it is in the entrepreneurship track called “Can You Create a New Economic Sector? Lessons Learned from Trying.” Essentially, in the evolution of Radically Rural, we've continued to add different aspects of our programming. We've launched something called “Radically Rural Biotech.” It comes from that same natural evolution that I mentioned at the beginning of this call, where we decide, “This is bothering us. What can we do about it?” And what was kind of bothering us was like, rural communities don't exist only to be extracted from. They are generative. We have brilliant people living in our communities that can create, that can grow new things, so we started thinking about it, and because of some connections we had in our world, we realized that rural areas are actually perfect places to host biotech. And biotech is such a sector that is needed for now and for our future. But what we're discovering as we've tried to cultivate that sector locally is there are some missing pieces of the puzzle. There's funding gaps. Yes, there’s wealth in rural communities, but how are we going to get those investors comfortable with investing in something like biotech?

It's not just about biotech. It's about an experiment of whether this model can work for other things too. One of our sessions is about that, and I think it's going to be really, really interesting and highly relevant to every rural community or small community. 

I guess another one I will pull out that's been really popular is we have one in our Main Street track about attracting, retaining and engaging young people in your community. We have a wild number of people wanting to attend that session because that’s so important for small communities. The goal isn’t just “to grow up and just get out.” There is such a high level of value to a rural place, and what can we do to cultivate and engage young people in a way that causes them to want to stay or maybe move back some day. It’s sort of  a bit of changing the narrative that you’re not failing if you stay.

Melanie Plenda:

Julianna, to sum everything up — why should people go to Radically Rural? What can they get from it?

Julianna Dodson:

I think everyone would have their own answer to that. Mine would be how people feel when they leave is one of the most important things. For all of us, no matter what industry we're working in, no matter what our jobs are, the pace can be relentless in modern-day life. I think a lot of people are really burned out, and they're like,” I just can't fit one more thing in my schedule, like that just seems impossible.” To me, Radically Rural when you go, when you experience it beginning to end, how you feel when you leave is inspired, joyful, hopeful, connected. You have tools and resources at your disposal, and I really feel like it's so much wind in your sails so that you can do whatever you're doing better.

I'd say anyone in the state of New Hampshire should come really. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to just be given an injection of new ideas, new energy, inspiration and joy.

Melanie Plenda:

Thank you for joining us Radically Rural Director Julianna Dodson and good luck with the summit.

“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.

Audit of N.H. school voucher program to begin, but key information will be off limits

‘Most documents pertaining’ to Education Freedom Accounts won’t be available during process

By Susan Geier, Granite State News Collaborative

Sometime next spring, the public will get to see a performance audit of the N.H. Department of Education’s oversight of the Education Freedom Account program, which gives millions of tax dollars to eligible families to spend on private, parochial and home school expenses. 

But the audit will be missing “most documents pertaining to the EFA program” due to the “lack of access to primary program data and information,” according to the Office of the Legislative Budget Assistant, which is responsible for conducting the audit.

The scope of the audit was approved with noted limitations at the Aug. 27 meeting of the Joint Legislative Performance Audit and Oversight Committee, which oversees the LBA. What can be included in the audit has been subject to months of meetings and disagreement among the LBA, committee members, the education department, and the N.H. Department of Justice over who owns the Education Freedom Account program information.

House Bill 1135, which was signed into law by Gov. Chris Sununu in July 2022, requires the LBA to complete a performance audit of the N.H. Department of Education’s operation of the program, which a third party runs through a contract signed with the department.

Under the bill, which went into effect in October 2023, the audit is supposed to include a review of the eligibility of participants, expenditures of the program and identification and recovery of possible ineligible reimbursements. Also to be audited would be the “procedures and controls” involved in disbursing the funds to the Children’s Scholarship Fund as well as demographic and geographic data about students taking part in the program in the 2020-21 school year. The New York-based Children’s Scholarship Fund (CSF) is the third-party contractor that administers the EFA.

In its audit scope statement, the LBA wrote, “most documents pertaining to the EFA program are solely in the possession of (the Children’s Scholarship Fund). For example, NHED does not currently possess policies, procedures, internal memoranda, or internal guidance developed by CSF to implement the program … or documents associated with initial EFA applications, documents used for determining eligibility for differentiated aid or annually verifying residency, or specific items purchased by each student with EFA funds.”

The Education Freedom Account has been subject to a partisan divide since a sole-source contract  (see PDF attached) to manage the program and distribute the money was awarded to the Children’s Scholarship Fund. Democrats and others say it diverts essential public school funds, while Republicans and program supporters say it gives parents education choice.

Since its inception in 2021, the taxpayer-funded voucher-like program has distributed almost $45 million to families sending their children to private schools and other alternatives to their local public schools.

Debate over access

Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut — backed by Christopher Bond, general counsel for the state Department of Justice — said the state isn’t compelled to ask for those documents, and asking the Children’s Scholarship Fund for the items violates the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. Edelblut also admonished the LBA for reaching out directly to the scholarship fund for information. 

State Rep. Lucy Weber, D-Walpole, a member of the committee, said the separation of powers argument makes no sense.

“The Legislative Budget Assistant audits executive branch actions. That’s what they do,” she said. “The purpose of the LBA is to ensure the executive branch is carrying out its duties in accordance with statues.”

The education department said chapter laws only give the LBA the authority to audit the department’s oversight of the program, and not the documents and other materials it says are the property of the Children’s Scholarship Fund — not the state. 

In its scope statement, the LBA also noted the education department and justice department interpretation of the state’s standard contract — which is required to be used by all state agencies when contracting for services — does not consider data collected or generated by the contractor to be the property of the state.

But Weber and other Democratic committee members remain unconvinced.

State Sen. Cindy Rosenwald (D-Nashua) has criticized the decision to limit auditor access to Education Freedom Account information, saying that, despite Department of Education claims, the program ‘is not unique.’ (Courtesy photo)

State Sen. Cindy Rosenwald (D-Nashua) has criticized the decision to limit auditor access to Education Freedom Account information, saying that, despite Department of Education claims, the program ‘is not unique.’ (Courtesy photo)

The committee’s chair, state Sen. Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua, said every state contract with another entity uses the same “boilerplate” property ownership/disclosure language that’s in the Children’s Scholarship Fund contract. 

“Look at the Medicaid program,” Rosenwald said at the August meeting. “The state really owns all the data even though most of Medicaid is managed by private entities. This is not unique.”

The property ownership/disclosure provision, for example, is in the sole-source contracts the N.H. Department of Energy has with the five community action agencies, which operate and deliver weatherization services across the state. The program helps low-income households reduce energy costs and is funded through grants from the U.S. Departments of Energy and Health and Human Services. 

In its 2023 performance audit of the weatherization program, the LBA interviewed the state program manager, other department management and staff, and community action weatherization representatives. 

Additionally, auditors viewed documentation for each of the agencies generated from the five on-site monitoring visits. They looked at a variety of program documents, including monthly expenditure, status and production reports that were submitted by the community action agencies to the state. The status reports, for example, include program highlights, problems, production issues, and deviations from the work plan. The monthly expenditure reports contain year-to-date expenditures, budgeted amounts, and details like job cost sheets.

But state Rep. Kenneth Erf, R-Weare, a committee member, said in an interview that program audits may not always be consistent in how they are handled. In an interview, a fellow committee member, Rep. Kenneth Weyler, R-Kingston, agreed with Erf: “I’ve been reading audits for 30 years. None of these things are straightforward and none of these things are easy to do.”

Rep. Kenneth Weyler (R-Kingston) defended the limited Education Freedom Account audit. ‘I’ve been reading audits for 30 years. None of these things are straightforward and none of these things are easy to do,’ he said. (Screenshot)

Both men, however, said questions about the ownership of documents and the Education Freedom Account program are just more partisan attacks by Democrats trying to kill education choice. Democrats on the committee, such as Weber and Rosenwald, also agreed the situation is political, but they charge the education department is trying to obscure how the program is being run.

A matter of interpretation

At the August meeting, Sen. Howard Pearl, R-Loudon, did ask if the LBA had ever run into this issue before. 

 “I don’t recall ever running into an issue of this magnitude,” Christine Young, LBA’s director of audits, testified. “This is a little different, with the program being established in the chapter law and directing us to do an audit through the chapter law versus this committee directing us to do an audit.”

Jay Henry, LBA’s audit supervisor, specifically mentioned auditing other contractors, adding it’s possible those contracts have different or stronger language that allow access to program data. 

“To me, it's an interpretation of the state contract,” Henry testified. “We're abiding by their interpretation of how the contract and the law is. I think we’re still going to get a good audit out of it. It just won't be as thorough as it normally would have.”

The original contract with the Children’s Scholarship Fund was approved by the Executive Council Aug. 4, 2021. Councilor Cinde Warmington, D-Concord, cast the lone dissenting vote. She expressed concern that taxpayer money would be used to pay for private schools and that families don’t have to prove they meet the income eligibility criteria after the first year. 

To qualify for Education Freedom Account 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. 

Once a family has been means-tested, it doesn't have to prove income while the child is in school up to age 20.

At that 2021 meeting, Gov. Chris Sununu said that it would be disruptive if a family had to change schools because of a change in income and that students in the public education system aren’t means-tested. The focus of the Education Freedom Account, he said, is providing another educational pathway for New Hampshire students.

In an email statement about the EFA audit, Young wrote, “We know in some cases the data and related materials were regularly collected by the state agency and were therefore easily accessed by us for audit purposes,” adding LBA staff have interviewed representatives of contractors to help them understand how a state program is performing. 

Bond, the Department of Justice counsel, said at the March 18 committee meeting and reiterated in an email to the Granite State News Collaborative that the chapter law around the Education Freedom Account doesn’t mean the state could never look at the contested information, and there could be other avenues, “including a direct audit of the scholarship organization.”

“The ultimate issue could be the language of the law, which focuses the audit process on the Department of Education but not on the scholarship organization itself,” Bond testified. 

He added:  "I don't think the program is un-auditable, but we don't think this chapter law gets to the scholarship organization through the vehicle of this vendor contract.”

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

Post-primary push: Anna Brown discusses the road to the November general election

The 2024 primary election in the Granite State is over, but candidates are already stumping for the November general election. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Melanie Plenda discusses vetting candidates and the New Hampshire political scene with Anna Brown, director of Citizens Count, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating voters about the political process. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity. 

Melanie Plenda:

What’s your take on what happened in the primary? Any surprises in the wins or losses? 

Anna Brown:

In most cases, the better-funded candidate did end up winning the day. For example, Kelly Ayotte, an early favorite among Republicans, handily won over Chuck Morse, so she'll be moving on to the race for governor. Maggie Goodlander, who came in with a very impressive national network of fundraisers, defeated Colin Van Ostern in the 2nd Congressional District Democratic primary. 

On the 1st Congressional District side, it was an open field of Republicans, and it seemed like it was anyone's race, but ultimately, Russell Prescott did have the edge, and he also had, once again, the money edge. The 2nd Congressional District Republican primary was the exception — it was a little bit of a surprise. Lily Tong Williams raised less than both Bill Hamlin and Vikram Mansharamani, the other Republican candidates there, but was able to win the primary thanks in large part to a really good ground game. 

I did notice that this was a different story than in 2022. In 2022, a lot of the primaries, more of those farther-right, liberty-leaning Republicans, maybe Trump-oriented Republicans, had a lot of success in the primaries, but this time, at the federal and trickling down to the state level, I saw more of those institutional, maybe more moderate Republicans carry the day.

Melanie Plenda:

Before the primary, Citizens Count surveyed the candidates and posted that information for voters. Can you tell us a bit about those surveys? What did they entail? 

Anna Brown:

We survey the roughly 900 candidates for state and federal office in New Hampshire — state representative on up. We email, snail-mail, and follow up with phone calls.

The questions we asked are based on interviews with groups on both sides of the aisle, different advocacy groups. We also research campaign and party platforms, look at the biggest bills and solicit public input as well. So we come up with a list of about 20 questions, and we're looking for candidates to say are they for or against? Are they undecided? Do they have some other position that they'd like to share? 

I think that it's a really great resource for voters, because a lot of these state representative candidates, in particular — the public have no idea who they are. They might not have a website. Yes, they're local races, so maybe you do know their name from the PTA or just running into them at school sports or at the grocery store or the gas station. But it's really important to learn where these candidates stand, especially when they differ from their party, which happens a fair amount when you go down to that really local level.

Melanie Plenda:

What trends did you see in the survey data? 

Anna Brown: 

One thing that's interesting is there's not really consensus in the Republican Party right now about where they want to go on abortion policy.

Based on our research and survey results, about one-fourth of Republicans that are running for the state Legislature favor a first trimester ban on abortion, over one-third favor a second trimester ban, and a third also favor guaranteeing the right to abortion before 24 weeks. A lot of the survey responses we've gotten have also just said they’re not taking a stand on any particular theoretical ban, but just saying “I'm not looking to change the law, I want it to stand as it is now.” So there's not a majority of Republicans that would come in, it seems, looking to add new abortion laws. But it is interesting that the party as a whole doesn't seem to have one clear message on abortion. 

Also interesting, there's a certain percentage of Republicans, around 16%, based on our research and surveys, that are open to expanding net metering. That's a bit of a niche issue, but basically think of it as larger solar panel projects could get some benefits that would allow them to develop and move forward. So I think that there might be room for bipartisan agreement on that in the coming legislative session. 

Lastly — kind of interesting — over half of Democrats are open to some form of a capital gains tax. Now, over half of Democrats is still not enough to be a majority in the Legislature, because you'd need the Democrats to get a majority, and then you'd need most of them to be on board. So I'm not saying a capital gains tax is likely to come next year, but I do think it's an interesting change over time, because we are entering what is probably going to be a tough budget year. The federal money is going to be gone, so we're losing out on interest on that. The [interest and dividends] tax will have been phased out by then. There are big lawsuits coming related to school funding and the Sununu Youth Services Center. So I think that Democrats are looking at, OK, what other revenue source can we have? I've got some interesting survey responses too, saying, how about a capital gains tax on second homes that you sell, or something like that? So there may be some interesting tax ideas that come up next year.

Melanie Plenda:

What about voters? What issues are on their minds? 

Anna Brown:

Hate to be a broken record — abortion. We'll just throw that one out there and move on. 

One thing that we noticed when we were putting together our survey, immigration is definitely an issue that comes up a lot in national debates, but when we were asking voters for their input on the state level, it wasn't necessarily bubbling up as something that was really driving their vote. I think that's because most of New Hampshire — you’re not really seeing the impacts of immigration. We're very far away from the southern border, and while the northern border is a debate, I wouldn't say that we're experiencing anything close to what happens on the southern border. I think that's a pretty fair statement, regardless of how you feel about the exact numbers and what's coming in. So I wonder if Republicans are going to keep sort of trying that with voters, or if at the state level they might sort of move on. 

Then there's the issue of Trump. Quite frankly, Trump is just the one name that is absolutely on a lot of voters' minds. A lot of Republican challengers, I noticed in the primary, were saying, “I am a Trump candidate, I am aligned with Trump, and that didn't play as well in 2024 as it did in 2022. For example, even in the Congressional race in district 1, Joe Kelly Levasseur really branded himself as “I'm the only Trump candidate,” and he did not succeed. Whereas Karoline Leavitt really rode that to victory in 2022.

I think it'll be a similar tricky navigation. Voters care about it ,but is it a pro or a con? At this point, it definitely seems like in New Hampshire  anyway, you have to be careful about getting branded as too, dare I say, “Trumpy.”

Melanie Plenda:

During the general election, things can be simpler, in terms of fewer candidates. But it can still be challenging, especially in local races, to find out who to vote for. Do you have any tips or tricks for quickly and easily researching candidates? 

Anna Brown:

Shameless plug here for the Citizens Count website citizenscount.org. As I said, we survey all of these candidates, put any responses, they give us up on our website, and we will research those candidates who don't respond, looking at voting records and website statements, other media interviews and so on. 

But there are other places — you can go check out your local newspapers. Those are often great for those local races and local events as well. Events are a great time to meet these people and talk to them, because I think it's also true that the temperament of a person when you meet them can really come across differently than if you're just reading statements online.

Candidates do have websites, by the way. You can always go to a candidate's website, but be careful — there's a lot of really general statements in there, such as, “I support veterans” or “I support children.” What does that really mean? It's almost, I think, becoming coded for partisan signals, which at that point just look at the “R” or “D” next to their name. So I encourage voters to look deeper, especially on issues like marijuana legalization, which might not necessarily fall on party lines exactly.

Melanie Plenda:

For voting newbies here in the Granite State, what should they bring to the polls, and what can’t they bring into the voting booth? 

Anna Brown:

If you are 18 years old, you're a U.S. citizen, and you live in New Hampshire, you're allowed to vote. Now, if you show up without any documentation, there is going to be more paperwork for you, so if you don't want to fill out the extra paperwork and go through that, you're going to need proof of your identity, proof that you live in New Hampshire, and proof of your U.S. citizenship. So in a lot of cases, you're thinking about bringing your driver's license and your birth certificate or a passport.  You can also use, for example, leases and utility bills. If you're a student, some student IDs can also prove your identity, but keep in mind it does need to have an expiration date on it. So this is information we have on our website. It's also information you can find on the Secretary of State's website, and that's for people who are registering to vote.

If you are already registered, you should bring an ID. They do ask to see your ID. Once again, you will have options. If you don't have an ID, it will require more paperwork and follow up, but it's easiest to bring your ID, and for most people, that's probably a driver's license, although there are other options. 

In terms of what you bring into the voting booth, there are restrictions on quote, unquote electioneering. So basically, you can't walk into a polling place and then start handing out flyers for your favorite candidates. It has to stay neutral, but if you want to bring in a cheat sheet of who you want to vote for, that is totally fine. You can also open up your phone while you're in there and go to the Citizens Count website or whatever you want to do to help you make those decisions.

Melanie Plenda:

And finally, I’m sure you watched the recent presidential debate. What did you think? What were your takeaways? 

Anna Brown:

I think that Kamala Harris did a very good job with sticking to her message of “we're not going back.” And saying, “this is what I am going to do going forward” and talking about specific policy proposals. And I think Donald Trump was responding a lot to what she said, instead of offering his specific policy proposals, talking a lot about “we had the greatest economy,” so once again, that's sort of looking back.

I think that that's going to be a challenge for his campaign going forward, because realistically, Kamala Harris has positioned herself as “I'm the younger candidate, I'm more vital, I'm exciting, I'm going to do new, fresh things. We don't want to go back to chaos.” She was very clear on that message, even when you looked at their closing statements. Donald Trump had a lot of criticism. 

It certainly wasn't like the debate we saw for Trump versus Biden. Trump is a little bit rambly, if we'll be honest — I think that's his style. He sort of interrupts himself a lot and will go down a little tangent. But there wasn't any sort of sign that we saw with Biden where, I think, people are going to react and say, “He's just too old to do this.” But I do think, as I said, that Kamala Harris did come across as a little more collected in this debate.

Melanie Plenda:

Thank you for joining us Anna Brown, 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.

“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.

The legacy and impact of Nashua's The Youth Council

The nonprofit closed after 50 years as a source of support and guidance for area youth, but others have stepped in to fill the gap

By Elaina Bedio-Granite State News Collaborative

Editor’s note: This is another installment in our Nashua Nonprofit Spotlight Series highlighting some of  the Greater Nashua area’s approximately 365 nonprofit organizations and the meaningful work and crucial services they provide. Each article in this series features a different Nashua nonprofit.

On June 30, The Youth Council of Nashua permanently closed its doors after 50 years of serving as a resource for school-aged minors, with programs focused on youth guidance, counseling and intervention.

The nonprofit organization placed student assistance program counselors in Nashua's middle schools and high schools as well as at Fairgrounds Elementary School in Nashua and Merrimack High School – six area schools in total. The goal was to ensure that students had access to mental health resources and professional counseling. Additionally, its Project Succeed program provided behavioral health and counseling services for students who were either suspended or facing suspension.

The other important service of the organization was its juvenile court diversion program, one of 18 similar accredited programs in the state. These programs offer minors an alternative to formal court proceedings for minor offenses through a program of services. Research shows that juveniles who have successfully completed a diversion program have decreased rates of recidivism.

“The agency has been longstanding and has had a significant impact on the community in a variety of programs,” said Casey Caster, former executive director of The Youth Council.  “But we faced a lot of financial sustainability issues, which have also led to staffing capacity issues.” By that point, the writing seemed to be on the wall and the difficult decision was made to develop a strategy for the organization's closing. 

Caster said it was decided that ending operations at the end of June would make the most sense. “The majority of the work that we do is tied to the schools, within the school year. We looked at planning, giving ourselves time to transition programs into, hopefully, other schools, other locations. We really wanted to make sure that we were able to do that and have our programs last through the end of the school year,” she said.

Contination of crucial services

The Youth Council is moving through the necessary administrative requirements to dissolve the agency. However, a major point of focus for organizational leadership was to ensure that the crucial services it provided did not simply disappear. To them, it was imperative that the area's youth would continue to have access to these programs, said Caster.

“The board and I really looked at what was most important and it was very clear that continuing the programs was the top priority. Our hope in doing this in a proactive way was to look closely at who in the community might be able to take on these programs,” she said.

State grant funding will allow the Nashua and Merrimack school districts to hire the Youth Council's student assistance program counselors as school district staff. This means that students previously receiving The Youth Council's counseling services in school, will not experience any significant change in those services. But, due to a lack of funding, the Project Succeed program, which was only in its second year, will no longer be available.

The Youth Council has been supporting area young people for 50 years, and in that time it has had a significant impact on the community, says Casey Caster, former executive director of the organization. (Courtesy photo)

The Youth Council has been supporting area young people for 50 years, and in that time it has had a significant impact on the community, says Casey Caster, former executive director of the organization. (Courtesy photo)

The court diversion program, however, will continue to operate under a new organization, the Nashua Police Athletic League.

At the time the decision to close was made, said Caster, “we immediately met with the director of the Juvenile Court Diversion Network, which is a statewide network that accredits all the programs, and talked through some options. Then we approached a few community organizations to discuss whether or not it would be a good fit for them to take it on after we close, and the Nashua PAL stepped up. It took over operations on July 1.” The program is “based out of their agency and with our staff,” Caster added. “We have one full-time staff member who runs that program, and she'll be able to go right to that agency and it will still be supported by all of the grant funding that we've had in the past.”

And Caster herself continues to serve and advocate for the state's youth in her new role as director of resource development at the Bedford-based Granite State Children's Alliance.

The Youth Council's sustainability issue is by no means unique. Nonprofits are struggling across the board. The fate of The Youth Council should serve as an example as to why it is important to support local charities that provide much-needed services in the community. They cannot survive on service fees and grants alone. 

The Youth Council's leadership showed how to handle a most unfortunate circumstance. They sought guidance, spoke to their employees before the decision was made public, and secured new homes for the services they provided so as not to leave a gap in resource availability. For 50 years, they put people and mission first and the fact that the programs will continue to benefit the area's youth in the absence of the organization itself is The Youth Council's legacy. 

Even with The Youth Council gone, there are several Nashua organizations that continue to support at-risk youth and intervention in the area. Besides Nashua PAL, there are the YMCA of Greater Nashua, Waypoint, Girls Inc. and Boys & Girls Club of Greater Nashua.

This article was produced in partnership with Nashua Digital and Nashua Ink Link and is being shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

The power of youth: Will Gen Z voters have an impact on the 2024 elections?

A new wave of young voters will enter the electorate this fall. In this year’s presidential election, over 40 million members of Gen Z — the generation of people born in the late 1990s and early 2000s — will be eligible to vote. These voters could have a large impact on what happens at the ballot box. It’s no wonder candidates are courting this influential segment of society. Here to discuss how Gen Z’s influence may shape the 2024 election is Dante Scala, professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Dante, your research, published in January by UNH’s Carsey School of Public Policy, discussed the large pool of new voters entering the New Hampshire electorate. More than one-fifth of potential voters in the 2024 New Hampshire primary were new, either because they moved from elsewhere or because they reached voting age. Is that a typical number of new potential voters? How could that change things?

Dante Scala:

It is typical. My colleagues Ken Johnson, Andrew Smith and I have been running these numbers dating back now about 15 to 20 years, and reliably every four years the number of people new to the New Hampshire electorate is in that range of 15 to 20%, so we're talking one out of five, one out of six voters who are new to New Hampshire elections. Now, of that slice of the electorate, that new slice, most of those people are, in fact, not necessarily young, but they're migrants to the state, right? They've moved to the state over the last several years, and now they're getting ready to vote for the first time. The smaller slice are those younger voters. For instance, in 2024 we found 22% were new since 2020; 16% of those were migrants, and the other 6% were young people.

Melanie Plenda:

How uniform are the political beliefs of these young voters? Do they differ from older voters?

Dante Scala:

They do seem to be more liberal and less conservative. But it's interesting — I was watching the Democratic convention and looking at Barack Obama and thinking to myself, “I haven’t aged, but Obama's aged a bit.” You think back to that time period and his appeal to younger voters, and it was relatively uniform — roughly equal percentages of young men and young women were supportive of Obama. 

Nowadays, you see a good amount of division among young voters — especially the gender gap is quite clear between young women, who are definitely trending Democratic, and young men who have more conservative beliefs. So there's that split going on. But even among those young people who describe themselves as Democrats, they're what the Pew Research Center calls “outside left voters.” So they don't like Republicans very much, but they're a little suspicious, and they're not very patient with conventional establishment Democrats. 

Melanie Plenda:

Every new generation entering the electorate brings its own unique concerns. What are some of the key issues for Gen Z voters in this election cycle?

Dante Scala:

I would start with concerns that are not unique and kind of general to the population, which is the economy and inflation, which affects young people in all sorts of ways. College tuition, housing — young people are trying to get their first apartment, moving out of their parents homes. There are bread-and-butter issues, like the economy, health care, housing and the job market, which has been good until lately, but we've seen signs of it slowing down that could affect young people. 

Beyond that, this is a generation that's been raised and educated about climate change. They're quite ready to believe that we are in the midst of not just climate change, but a climate crisis. So that gets beyond traditional economic issues.

Abortion is clearly, for many young women, a front-burner issue, and I think that will certainly persist, especially in this presidential election, where Kamala Harris really has grounded herself and is very clear, sharp and to the point on reproductive rights, especially compared to Joe Biden, who, even though he was pro choice in his language, would express some ambivalence. That really dates back to the earlier parts of his political career and his own Catholicism. So you've got a candidate who kind of meets the moment with young female voters on an issue that has taken on such importance with the overturn of Roe.

Melanie Plenda:

After replacing Biden as the Democratic nominee, Harris has been seen front and center in the social media feeds of young voters through memes and edits featuring her speeches. Donald Trump also saw a surge of social media buzz after the assassination attempt. How will candidates’ social media content influence young voters' decisions to go to the polls in November?

Dante Scala:

I think the amount of time that young people spend on TikTok is a key point, and the ability to keep them engaged from minute to minute — just the amount of time young people, all of us, really, spend on their phones. I'm curious to see over the next nine to 10 weeks, what the novelty is on both sides to keep the ball rolling, so to speak, for these younger people. 

Debates – are they going to watch for 90 minutes? I don't think so. Are they going to watch for 30 seconds? It used to be that you could rely on people watching maybe debate clips of four or five minutes on the news. Now we're going to be taking those 90 minutes of debate and perhaps slicing it into 10 to 15 seconds. And we see this happening around the world, how politicians, even older politicians, are trying to learn to use TikTok to present images of themselves that appeal to younger people.

Melanie Plenda:

As the presidential election approaches, Democrats and Republicans will be making the final push to secure the support of young voters. What do you think both candidates will need to do to win the youth vote?

Dante Scala:

Social media is all well and good for engagement, attraction and so forth, but I still think you need people on the ground where young people are. Physically on the ground, — on college campuses, such as University of New Hampshire, St. Anselm College, Franklin Pierce and so on — that will engage with people, get them enrolled and get them to the polls. Sure, that some of that can be done via social media, no question. But it's the ability to create networks, social networks of engagement, that are going to be the key test, I think, for how these campaigns blend social media with kind of old-fashioned getting people to sign up for things.

Melanie Plenda:

Finally, to sum up, what kind of an impact do you think Gen Z voters will have in this election cycle? 

Dante Scala:

I really think it is interesting to watch, kind of mind the gaps among young people. I mean, we talked about the gender gap, we talked about possible enthusiasm gaps, identity gaps. Kamala Harris as a black South Asian woman will become a role model, a leader in particular for certain groups of voters. So I'm kind of watching for not just overall turnout, but the enthusiasm gaps — the young people getting to the polls, and will that happen evenly, or will, for young, say more conservative male voters, will Trump be seen as a figure of the past? That doesn't necessarily mean they'll go and vote for Harris, but will they show up for Donald Trump, or will they start to see him as kind of a figure who is receding from the present and someone who doesn't excite perhaps the way he excited a previous generation,

Melanie Plenda:

Dante Scala, professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. Thank you so much for joining me here on The State We're In 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.

State Corrections Department appeals reinstatement of officer in use-of-force case

Commissioner objects to finding on alleged use of chokehold

By Pat Grossmith-Granite State News Collaborative

The N.H. Department of Corrections is asking the state Supreme Court to order a new hearing after an appeals board ordered reinstatement of a corrections officer.

The officer was fired for allegedly using excessive force on a cuffed and shackled inmate who said he was suicidal.

Thomas Macholl was a longtime Connecticut state trooper before being hired in New Hampshire in 2016 as a corrections officer. He had never faced disciplinary action until April 27, 2023, when he was fired before being reinstated by the state Personnel Appeals Board. The state Corrections Department is currently appealing that reinstatement. (SEIU 1984 photo)

The corrections department contends the Personnel Appeals Board erred when it denied it a full evidentiary hearing in the termination of Lt. Thomas Macholl.

“I do disagree with the finding,” said Corrections Commissioner Helen Hanks. She said it is important for residents of the prison — she does not describe those incarcerated as inmates or prisoners — to be treated with dignity and respect. “In this particular instance, it did not exist,” she said.

However, the Personnel Appeals Board — a panel appointed by the governor whose four members include two attorneys —  found that “no reasonable factfinder could determine that Lt. Macholl had used inappropriate or excessive force on the inmate.”

The board ruled that Macholl was terminated unjustly and ordered the corrections department to reinstate him. Macholl had worked at the state prison for seven years. The appeals board said that until April 27, 2023, Macholl had an exemplary record and had been regularly promoted. 

The appeals board didn’t let Macholl off the hook entirely. It ordered that he be suspended without pay for 20 days for failing to comply with the corrections department’s Suicide Prevention Policy. To terminate him for violating that policy would be “an unjust result,” according to the board’s order on Macholl’s motion for summary judgment dated March 27, 2024.

Macholl was a longtime Connecticut state trooper before being hired in New Hampshire in 2016 as a corrections officer. He had never faced disciplinary action until April 27, 2023, when he was fired.

The corrections department asked for a rehearing on the appeals board decision, but the board rejected the request on May 21, 2024. A month later, the corrections department filed its appeal to the state Supreme Court.

"While the Department of Corrections has appealed this matter to the Supreme Court, we remain confident that the Personnel Appeals Board reached the correct and lawful decision when it concluded that Lt. Macholl used appropriate force for a lawful purpose and overturned his termination,” said Gary Snyder, the State Employees Association attorney who represented Macholl, in an email statement. “We are confident the Supreme Court will uphold the Board's decision on appeal and hope that the Department will recognize its error and return Lt. Macholl to his position in accordance with the Board's order." 

Hanks said the appeals board did not allow the corrections department to present evidence, including interviews or video recordings of the incident, to the board. She said the board relied on paper filings and an investigative report from the N.H. Attorney General’s Public Integrity Unit, which reviewed the corrections department’s videos and its investigative file of the incident.

The public integrity unit concluded there was insufficient evidence to show, under a probable cause standard, that Macholl “was outside the bounds of permissible force when he detained J.M. (the prisoner). Accordingly, this Office will take no further action and this matter is now closed,” wrote Senior Assistant Attorney General Dan Jimenez in a letter Dec. 22, 2023, to attorney Stacie Moeser of the N.H. Police Standards and Training Council.

The incident unfolds

The Granite State News Collaborative obtained videos of the incident from the corrections department. The videos have no sound. In them, the inmate’s face is obscured, and his identity is blacked out in the investigative report that the collaborative obtained from the Public Integrity Unit. He is not identified in any of the documents, including in the Personnel Appeals Board decision.

Jane Graham, strategic communications administrator for the N.H. Department of Corrections, said the agency checked with the attorney general’s office on requirements in the state’s right-to-know law, and got clearance on a privacy basis to withhold the prisoner’s identity and to blur his face.

According to the records obtained by the news collaborative, on April 27, 2023, the prisoner was involved in what the corrections department calls a “use of force incident” at the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility in Berlin. According to the corrections department, that morning Macholl arrived early to assist transport officers because he anticipated issues with a particular inmate. Three days earlier, the transport officers had attempted to take the same man to the New Hampshire State Prison in Concord, but he told them he was suicidal.

Macholl followed corrections department protocol that day, notifying medical personnel of the man’s suicidal ideations and waiting for them to make an assessment. The inmate was evaluated, determined not to be suicidal, and ordered to be transferred again to the Concord prison. 

He was being sent back to the prison because on April 10, 2023 — the day he arrived in Berlin — he beat up his cellmate, according to the investigative report. He was to be placed in the secured housing unit — what’s known as solitary confinement, or “the hole” — on his arrival at the Concord prison.

The morning of the second attempt to transport the man, the inmate again said he was suicidal, screaming it repeatedly. That time, Macholl did not notify medical staff. Instead, he told the man he would be evaluated in Concord, and with the help of two other correctional officers proceeded to drag the man, who passively resisted by going limp, from the cell, down a hallway and into the transport van.

Hanks said while the public integrity unit determined Macholl did not use an illegal chokehold under the law, it did not address or exonerate Macholl for violating the department’s internal use-of-force policy and procedure directives.

“It took three correctional officers to drag the resident down the hallway and forcibly place him in the transport van,” according to the appeal filed by Senior Assistant Attorney General Mary A. Triick.

Once in the van, which is not equipped with cameras, the man continued to say he was suicidal and began banging his head against the plexiglass divider, according to the documents.

According to a narrative of the incident, Macholl grabbed the man and applied a mandibular pressure point technique (applying pressure to a spot directly below the ear lobe) to the right side of the inmate’s head. Once he pulled the man out of the van, cameras recorded Macholl with his left arm around the area of the man’s throat while applying the mandibular pressure point to the right side of his head.

Macholl continued to apply the pressure to the inmate as he pulled him from the van and took him back to a cell. 

According to Commissioner Hanks, video shows Macholl lifting up the man, who is cuffed and shackled; at one point, his toes are not touching the ground.

When interviewed by Dan Hammer and Yail Balderrama, investigators with the Department of Corrections, the inmate described what happened from the time he was removed from the “tank” (the holding cell), taken to the transport van and then brought back.

While in the tank, the inmate said in the interview, he looked at the monitoring camera, put the “slice to my throat” and repeatedly screamed "I'm suicidal” while banging on the door. Eventually, Macholl and two other correctional officers came into the cell and cuffed him. Continuing to scream “I’m suicidal,” the inmate said, “Macholl starts dragging me down to the van.”

He said he was “really, really scared. I thought I was going to get my ass whooped at the car.”

Two inmates were already in the van when he reached it, he said. 

“They are dragging me to the van, and we are basically fighting,” the inmate told the investigators. “He dragged me, threw me on it, and I was like trying to pull my face out as he was trying to bump me up and he was trying grip me, and that's when he went underneath and started choking me, and I was screaming too when he choked me and he cut me off. Yo, I thought I was gonna die.”
The inmate told investigators that inside the van, Macholl “was choking me, I started blacking out, he was choking me. All of a sudden he let go and I breathed for air, and when I went down I breathed for air and I was like buckle, buckle, I unbuckled myself. I was like ‘Help! I'm suicidal, help!’ And he was like,’Oh, he unbuckled it,’ so that's when I started banging my head on the window, and it wasn't because I was screaming ‘suicidal’ that handlebar (the corrections officer who was the driver) said this, because he should of said this in the beginning, it’s because I believe that in all my heart he didn't want to die on the way over. He didn't want to mess up, turn the wheel back, get distracted, get into a car crash and die himself because he didn't care. At that point, he didn't care about the inmates in the car or me, He cared about his own life. Cuz that's when he said, ‘I can't transport.’ That's when Lt. Macholl rough-handled me, grabbed me out and started dragging me when I was in that road right there with no camera. He stuck something right here, in my neck, and it was bleeding a little bit.”

A Public Integrity Unit photograph of the unnamed inmate’s neck taken the day of the  use-of-force incident shows a mark underneath his right ear. The photo is included in the use-of-force report investigating the incident.

What the inmate described is the mandibular pressure point technique. A video of corrections department Capt. Scott Towers demonstrating the technique (Insert link to video demonstration) on a mannequin was made as part of the investigation and released to the Granite State News Collaborative. A photograph taken the day of the incident of the inmate’s neck and released by the Public Integrity Unit shows a mark underneath his right ear.

In his interview with investigators, the inmate said Macholl pressed some sort of object into his neck — not a finger. “It's not the first time I have had someone put something to my throat, do you know what I am saying? That was not a finger.” Macholl’s other hand, he told the investigators, was around his throat. 

The inmate said that he could breathe. After Macholl told him to walk, the inmate said, he began to shuffle a bit, and “it hurt, it hurt.” Hammer asked what it felt like. The inmate said, “A lot of pain and I could honestly feel the cut, feel like it went in and it felt like a lot of pain, a lot of pain.”

Macholl didn’t release the pressure until the inmate was back in the holding tank, according to the appeal.

The inmate said his voice was “croaky” afterward, but he didn’t know if that was because of the chokehold or because he had been screaming. 

“I was screaming, I might have lost my voice. I know it was hard for me to speak, and I tried to speak. It was hard for me to speak. I didn't have a lot of air in me. Could have been from me holding my breath, I don't know. On camera it might show that he was choking me. I really don't know, it happened like this (snaps fingers),” he said. 

The two inmates who also were in the van were interviewed as well. One said the lieutenant did not use a chokehold while the other said he used a “loose chokehold.” Both said Macholl did not use excessive force. Their names were not released.

Once the inmate was back in the holding cell, “it was only at this point, after force had been used to move the resident out of his cell and the resident had escalated from suicidal ideations to self-harming behavior, that Lt. Macholl notified medical personnel and called for backup officers to respond,” Senior Assistant AG Triick wrote in the appeal.

After he was put into the holding cell, someone brought in a camera to record what was happening. That should have been done when the incident first began, Commissioner Hanks said.

At that time of the incident, Hanks said, “unfortunately” corrections officers did not have body-worn cameras. Since July 2023, however, all of the state’s over 360 officers are fitted with a camera.

Macholl was fired for violations of multiple corrections department policies, including the use-of-force policy and the suicide prevention and intervention policy.

In its decision ordering reinstatement of Macholl, the Personnel Appeals Board said the Public Integrity Unit (PIU) noted in its report that Capt. Scott Towers, who is considered the most knowledgeable and qualified corrections department employee to analyze use-of-force incidents, was asked by Assistant Corrections Commissioner Paul D. Raymond Jr. for his expert opinion on the matter.

“Captain Towers was shown two out of four video angles of the incident and concluded that neither view supported a conclusion that Lt. Macholl had used inappropriate or excessive force. The Assistant Commissioner specifically told Captain Towers not to document his opinion on the matter. When he was interviewed by the PIU, Captain Towers was able to review two other video angles, which led him to state with even more conviction that Lt. Macholl did not use excessive force or an illegal chokehold,” according to the appeals board.

The appeals board concluded that “no reasonable factfinder would conclude that Lt. Macholl had used unlawful or excessive force to gain the inmates’ compliance. All the witnesses who were actually present, with the exception of the inmate on whom the pain compliance technique was used, agreed that Lt. Macholl had not used a chokehold or other excessive force.”

The board also said the video evidence was “deemed generally unreliable to reach the conclusions reached by the NHDOC to determine that Lt. Macholl had acted inappropriately.”

Hanks said board members never viewed the videos themselves but relied on the Public Integrity Unit’s report to reach its decision. In a statement, the Personnel Appeals Board said it “does not provide comment on cases” and couldn’t confirm or deny whether its members viewed the actual videos.

According to Graham, the strategic communications administrator, very few disputes from the corrections department wind up in front of the Personnel Appeals Board — normally one a year, at most. This year has been an exception: Two cases went through the appeals process.

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

State Board of Education gets halfway through updating its minimum standards for schools

The board has not yet tackled key issues that have drawn sharp criticism

By Rhianwen Watkins-Granite State News Collaborative

The N.H. Board of Education voted Wednesday morning to approve the first half of a new set of minimum standards for schools, a document which has gone through several rewrites and drawn sharp criticism from educators and the public.

The board has yet to approve the second half of the revised standards - the half which includes the majority of educators’ concerns about the revisions, including a change in wording from “shall” to “may” for many curriculum requirements. 

When the board invited the public to comment on its proposal to revise the standards, opinion ran 200-1 against the proposed changes.

Once the board signs off on the revised standards, the proposal goes to the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, which will ultimately decide if the proposal, as a whole, is adopted, based on whether it complies with state law. 

JLCAR is scheduled to review the proposal on Sept. 19, and the education nonprofit Reaching Higher said in a press release that JLCAR could “approve them, send them back to the (education department) for changes, or issue a preliminary objection, which would pause the process.”

By law, the education minimum standards must be updated every 10 years, and the current update effort has been led by Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut. The entire process has faced overwhelming criticism from school superintendents, teachers, teachers union members, parents and lawmakers. 

The state Department of Education has introduced multiple drafts of an update, and educators have raised concerns over key elements, such as replacement of the word “courses” with “learning opportunities,” which educators say is too vague.

A key issue is a wording change in the second half of the standards, from “shall” to “may” when referring to curriculum components. Educators say “may” makes these components optional, and could remove the state’s responsibility to adequately fund education. Educators say that will cause further division and worsen a lack of equity among school districts.

Another concern on part of educators, in prior drafts of the proposal, was the removal of class size requirements. However, Kimberley Houghton, communications administrator for the N.H. Department of Education, said the board reinstated maximum class sizes for different grade levels, in response to educators’ requests. 

Educators have voiced their mounting concerns throughout the four-year process, hoping for changes in the final proposal.

Christine Downing, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for the Cornish, Grantham and Plainfield school districts, and state Rep. David Luneau, D-Hopkinton, were both at Wednesday’s meeting. In written testimony, Downing offered a list of specific changes she wanted to see before the final proposal is approved. Items on the list were discussed extensively among Luneau, Downing and the board. 

Though some minor changes were made, Christina Pretorius of Reaching Higher said  “the changes that they made weren't the substantive ones that we have been seeing concerns about.” Those are in the second half of the proposal, which board has yet to approve.

After the discussion on standards, educators voiced their opinions.

“Public schools are the great equalizer — and the 306 Rules are intended to hold our state to that,” said Megan Tuttle, president of NEA-New Hampshire, in a statement after the vote. “Educators fought for a seat at the table in the public school standards revision process to share our experience and expertise. Unfortunately, not all of our concerns have been addressed. … As the 306 Rules revision process continues, public education leaders will continue to hold lawmakers accountable and work to ensure New Hampshire maintains strong standards for strong public schools because our students deserve it.”

Deb Howes, president of AFT-New Hampshire, had similar criticisms.

“It is really problematic that our State Board is attempting to vastly reshape public education through rulemaking in ways they couldn't get lawmakers to do over the past two years,” Howes said. 

“The State Board has already been alerted that this rules proposal conflicts with existing state law in many ways,” she said. Board members “should have taken more time and carefully considered the mountain of feedback they have already received from Granite Staters who value robust public schools for all before plowing ahead and voting to approve this proposal.” 

The N.H. Attorney General’s office raised concerns in May about the constitutionality of a former version of the education 306s, and many of those concerns have not been addressed yet. 

Past versions of the proposal have also been criticized by Andru Volinsky, lead lawyer on the Claremont Supreme Court ruling that set requirements for access to equal education in New Hampshire. Volinsky said proposals to revise the 306 rules did not uphold those laws because of wording changes, elimination of class size requirements, and other revisions that have faced backlash from the public.

Nicole Heimark, executive director at Reaching Higher, focused on how the new standards might affect the quality of education in New Hampshire.

“New Hampshire’s public schools have long been the pride of our communities and held to high standards that have resulted in rigorous, meaningful educational opportunities for all of our students,” she said in the organization’s press release. “This proposal could put our public schools on a very different path, one with lower expectations for students and public schools. Granite State students, families, and educators deserve standards that reflect the very best of us, but there are a lot of open questions and concerns with this proposal that we’ll be watching as the rules go to the next phase of the process.”

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

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that, at Wednesday’s meeting, the state board had approved only the first half of the minimum standards document that was under consideration. Action has not yet been taken on the second half, which includes the majority of educators’ concerns about the revisions, including a change in wording from “shall” to “may” for many education requirements. Kimberley Houghton, communications administrator for the N.H. Department of Education, also clarified that standards for maximum class sizes, which had been softened in a prior draft of the document, have been reinstated into the proposal in response to educators’ requests. The original version incorrectly stated this information. We regret the error.

Lack of audit for state’s Education Freedom Account program raises concerns

Despite law requiring legislative review, Department of Education has erected roadblocks

By Sarah Donovan, Granite State News Collaborative

New Hampshire legislators and public education advocates say they’re increasingly concerned that financial information about the state’s Education Freedom Account program is being hidden from public view.

Since its inception in 2021, the taxpayer-funded voucher-like program has distributed $44,918,979 to families sending their children to private schools and other alternatives to their local public schools.

A bill signed into law by Gov. Chris Sununu in July 2022 (House Bill 1135) requires the Office of the Legislative Budget Assistant — an arm of the state Legislature — to complete a performance audit of the N.H. Department of Education’s operation around the program, which a third party runs through a contract signed with the education department. 

Under the bill, which took effect in October 2023, the audit is supposed to review the eligibility of participants and the program’s expenditures program, and to identify and recover possible ineligible reimbursements. Also to be audited are the “procedures and controls” for disbursing the money to the Children’s Scholarship Fund, and demographic and geographic data about students who were in the program in the 2020-21 school year. The New York-based Children’s Scholarship Fund is the third-party contractor that administers the Freedom Accounts.

Legislators on the House-Senate Joint Legislative Performance Audit and Oversight Committee, meeting March 18, voiced frustration with the lack of an audit. At the meeting, officials of the Office of Legislative Budget Assistant notified the panel that they’d been unable to obtain the information needed to complete the audit that the law requires. 

At the meeting, as reported by New Hampshire Bulletin, the Office of Legislative Budget Assistant said it reached out to the education department in January to begin the audit process. However, the department said it did not have access to the data needed for the audit, because the Children’s Scholarship Fund is a private contractor, not a public agency. That opinion was backed by a ruling from the state attorney general’s office.

The legislative budget agency said it then reached out independently to the Children’s Scholarship Fund without consulting the education department, and the fund’s officials said that they could hand over the data after receiving approval from the education department. Shortly after that, the Children’s Scholarship Fund sent a follow-up letter to the budget agency, stating it could not share the data the agency had requested, New Hampshire Bulletin reported. 

State Sen. Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua — a member of the larger Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee, which oversees the Office of Legislative Budget Assistant and has discretion to investigate any matters that relate to state expenditures — said Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut told the legislative budget assistant it was unconstitutional for it to reach out to the Children’s Scholarship Fund, because the agency is connected to the Legislature and lacks authority to do so. Edelblut’s opinion was backed up by an opinion issued by the attorney general’s office.

Nevertheless, Kimberly Houghton, the education department’s communications administrator, told the Granite State News Collaborative, “The New Hampshire Department of Education continues to cooperate with the Office of Legislative Budget Assistant as it proceeds with the audit of the Children’s Scholarship Fund. Our agency welcomes the ongoing process to provide accountability and transparency for Education Freedom Accounts.”

Houghton did not clarify what the budget office can audit in regard to the education department, or how the audit would violate student privacy laws, cited among the reasons the information could not be provided to the budget office.

Christine Young, director of audits for the budget office, stated in an email that “in accordance with longstanding practice, our Office does not comment on ongoing audits.”

‘Defying the Legislature’

The failure to get a complete financial picture of the Education Freedom Accounts program has frustrated some lawmakers, including Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Portsmouth.

“The commissioner of education …  is defying the Legislature. That’s what's happening,” Altschiller said.

’The commissioner of education …  is defying the Legislature,’ says state Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Portsmouth, a member of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee, about the slow-moving Education Freedom Account program audit process. (Courtesy)

Like Rosenwald, Altschiller is a member of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee, and at several meetings of that committee, she has questioned the operation of the Education Freedom Accounts program, including the sudden disappearance of financial information on the state education department website that was once public. The information included a report listing how much money each vendor involved in the program has received. 

At an April 15 meeting of the committee, Altschiller asked Caitlin Davis of the education department why the information was removed from the agency’s website.

Davis replied, “The CSF is not required to provide that to the Department of Education, and while we’ve had it on the Department of Education in the past, it is not specific Department of Education data, and so we removed that from our website because of the number of informational requests we get about that that we don’t have additional information we can provide.” 

Davis said that if people have questions, they can contact the Children’s Scholarship Fund. 
Also at the meeting, Altschiller asked why the Children’s Scholarship Fund contract differs from contracts with other state departments. 

For example, she said, the Department of Health and Human Services —  the largest department in state government — “hires a plethora of third-party contractors,” Altschiller said, and information about those contracts is available. 

In an interview with the Granite State News Collaborative, Altschiller specifically cited Waypoint, a nonprofit organization that provides a range of social services through Health and Human Services. The nonprofit deals with highly sensitive information but can satisfy the requirements of an audit, she said, and it is not unreasonable to require an audit for a state contract that shows where the money is being spent and if it is being used effectively. 

She said she has received no answers to the questions she’s asked at Joint Legislative Oversight Committee meetings — answers she was told would be provided at further meetings but still has not been provided. Altschiller said that she anticipates as much obfuscation at future meetings.

“The only people asking questions are people in the Joint Legislative [Oversight] Committee,” she said, and they are not getting adequate answers.  “The EFAs are a black hole. They’re not required to give us any information, and don’t,” Altschiller said.

Some information available

Some information is available to the public on the Children’s Scholarship Fund New Hampshire website, including the gender demographic of students in the program, a breakdown of the number of students by grade level, the number of graduates from the program, other “exits” from the program and public school re-enrollments. Financial information is also available on the website — expenditure reports, an independent audit, and a parent handbook that outlines qualifications for the program, among other data. Also provided is the number of “switchers,” students who previously went to public school and are now in the EFA program. 

All of that general information can be found on the 2023 Education Freedom Account Financial Fact Sheet, as well as under the EFA Reporting and Fact Sheets on the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH website.

What is not included is the number of “non-switchers” taking part since the program's inception. “Non-switchers” are students who were already in a private school and are now receiving Education Freedom Account grants.

The program is open to any student who is a New Hampshire resident and is eligible for enrollment in a public elementary or secondary school, and whose annual family income is at or below 350% of the federal poverty level, or about $109,000 for a family of four.

The Children’s Scholarship Fund’s NH website also contains a 2022-23 EFA Vendor & Category Spending Data report that includes an itemized list of the amounts each private school and other vendors received during the 2022-23 school year. 

Who has access to the data?

Since certain information is contained on those websites, it’s unclear why the education department has not given the Office of the Legislative Budget Assistant the information it is seeking.

The Children’s Scholarship Fund 2024 contract with the state says it “shall provide available information in the form of data, reports and written and verbal testimony as requested by Education Freedom Savings Account Legislative Oversight Committee, State Board of Education, the NHED, or Parent and Education Service Provider Advisory Commission within 45 days of the request.”

The contract states that this requirement corresponds with governing federal and state laws regarding student data privacy. 

Kate Baker Demers, executive director of the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH, said the budget agency was seeking personally identifiable information and the education committee told the agency it wouldn’t provide families’ tax returns.

“They [the Office of Legislative Budget Assistant] were still working on the scope of the audit during that time of discussion when the commissioner told them they couldn’t have a piece of this from us — the tax returns,” said Baker Demers. “And so people took that to mean they couldn’t audit the program, which is not true. 

“One, we already audit the program. And two, they can definitely audit the Department of Ed’s part of the program. And then if the Department of Ed needs something, they can tell us to give it to them. 

“But for example, if we had to give them tax returns, they’d have to be redacted, because there’s privacy laws that tell me I have to do things with people’s private information, right? For example, I can’t give you a list of students that has their names on it, right? The student privacy laws would prohibit me from doing that,” said Baker Demers. 

‘The public has a right to know’

However, Gregory Sullivan — an attorney who specializes in media law, is president of the Manchester-based law firm Malloy & Sullivan, and is president of the New England First Amendment Coalition — said that he’s never seen a case similar to the Children’s Scholarship Fund audit argument. He’s been in the legal field for 46 years.

“From a legal point of view, this Children’s Scholarship Fund New Hampshire is subject to the Right-to-Know law, chapter 91-A,” Sullivan said. “So never mind a legislative budget assistant — any person should be able to request and receive specific information from CSF. It’s that simple.”

“If you’re a private organization, but you are dealing with taxpayers’ money, then the public has a right to know everything there is to know about those finances,” Sullivan said.

State Rep. Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, right, chair of the House Education Committee and vocal supporter of the Education Freedom Account Program, says that, while he’s not familiar enough with the EFA audit process, he adds ‘the LBA is asking for the information.’ He’s shown here at the N.H. Department of Education’s 2024 Excellence in Education Awards with Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, left. (Screenshot from the commissioner’s official account on X, formerly Twitter)

While it’s not clear what, if any, information the Office of Legislative Budget Assistant has received so far, it is putting together a “scope statement” for an audit — a statement that defines what the audit will examine, the time frame involved and what the audit’s objectives are. That statement is expected to be presented to the Joint Legislative Performance Audit and Oversight Committee when it meets Aug. 27.

While it’s a sign that the audit process might be getting underway, Sen. Rosenwald is not hopeful. “[There’s a] serious lack of accountability. There’s really no transparency in this program because there’s no data,” Rosenwald said.

She said lack of transparency about the Education Freedom Account data “makes you wonder what they’re afraid of” revealing.

But state Rep. Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, chair of the House Education Committee, sees the Education Freedom Account program in a more positive light because, he said, it gives children an educational opportunity they may otherwise not have.

“The program is aimed at providing the best option for students,” said Ladd, adding that he’s “all on board for increasing the income eligibility.” An effort to raise the income eligibility limits to as high as 500% of the poverty level, or $158,000 for a family of four, failed in the last legislative session after the House and Senate couldn’t reach a compromise. In 2023, the median household income for a family of four in New Hampshire was $151,546, according to U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by the U.S. Justice Department.

Asked if he was concerned about lack of program oversight, Ladd said he was not familiar enough with the audit process to comment on it, but does know that “the LBA is asking for the information.” 

“I’m looking forward to seeing any report come out of the Legislative Budget Office,” Ladd said.

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

With deadline looming, debate and concern over school minimum standards continue

An update to the 306s is meant to be completed by September, but the State Board of Education hasn’t even begun discussing the second half of the document and critics remain worried about lack of transparency in the process. 

By Kelly Burch, Granite State News Collaborative

With a September deadline looming, the State Board of Education has not finished updating the first half of the minimum standards for public school approval — which are reviewed every 10 years — and has not even begun considering the “back half” of the document. 

At a July 11 meeting of the board, there was “no vote, and no indication of when they'd take it up,” said Christina Pretorius, policy director for Reaching Higher NH, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on education in the Granite State. The board will not meet again until Aug.14, the last scheduled meeting prior to a Sept. 10 deadline. 

Under state law, rule updates like those to the minimum standards, known as the 306s, must be submitted to the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules — JLCAR — six months after a draft proposal is filed with the state. Based on that, the 306s have a Sept. 10 deadline for the “front half” of the document, which deals with operational essentials like class size, and a Sept. 17 deadline for the “back half,” which deals with specifics of the curriculum. 

The Department of Education has divided the lengthy document into two sections to streamline revisions. 

Policymakers watching the process are concerned that, after more than a year of public commentary and a behind-the-scenes consulting process that started in 2020, the state is approaching the deadline with a 306 document that reduces standards, removes equity protections, and opens the door to privatization of public schooling. 

They’re also still concerned that many changes to the draft documents are happening out of public view. 

“The central, key questions about how public schools are going to be operating from here on out haven’t been addressed yet,” Pretorius said. “The department and state board haven’t addressed the meatiest pieces of [the 306s] — the big questions around weakening requirements, class sizes, and replacing ‘shall’ with ‘may.’”

The Department of Education “currently expects to meet the … deadlines, but if not, it will seek an extension,” said Kimberly Houghton, spokesperson for the department. 

Christie Downing, a curriculum director who has worked extensively on the 306 revision but is no longer formally involved, would like the board to seek an extension so it can better integrate feedback from teachers and administrators. 

“Let’s not rush it for the sake of … an arbitrary deadline,” she said. 

Continued concerns about transparency

There are continued concerns about the transparency of the process and the ability for public input, issues that critics have pointed out for more than a year. Many changes in the draft document are made out of public view. 

“One trend that we’re seeing is there is a lot of work being done behind the scenes” by board Chairman Drew Cline and Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, Pretorius said.

The department releases an updated draft to state board members prior to each meeting, Houghton said, but that document is not made public until after the meeting. That has made it difficult for members of the public — even those most involved with the process — to submit their input. 

“I’m struggling right now to even keep up with what they are looking at,” said Downing. “When I provide feedback, it’s like they’ve already moved on from that. I don’t think I’m the only one who's experiencing that.”

At the July 11 meeting, some board members expressed confusion about the document that the board was considering, the changes that had been made, and even whether they had the most up-to-date document. (Listen to a recording of the meeting here).

Even for people who are familiar with the education system, understanding the changes between drafts can be “like drinking from a firehose,” Pretorius said.

A focus on the ‘front half’

After the July meeting, the education department released yet another side-by-side document detailing changes to the front half of the 306s. Many of the updates are on “the periphery,” Pretorius said, and don’t address more than 200 comments from the public, all but one of which was in opposition to the current draft. In addition, the changes did not address language that Statehouse lawyers flagged as possibly unconstitutional. 

"One of the things that’s really striking is they’re having these really technical conversations … but there’s nobody in the room who’s an expert on these issues to help shed light and guide them through that process,” Pretorius said. 

Fred Bramante, president of the Durham-based National Center for Competency-Based Learning, was hired to facilitate the revisions in part based on his expertise about competency-based education, yet he said that his team is “largely sitting on the sidelines right now.”

“I did talk to the commissioner. I got the impression that they’ve resolved pretty much all of the issues,” he said. 

One concern that remains outstanding, Bramante said, is the debate over shifting the word “shall,” which is legally binding, to “may,” which is not. Bramante said he believes the department will take up that issue in the future.

“They’re not going to do it in this round,” he said. “They’re going to have to open up rulemaking again. That’s what I think.”

According to the July 10 draft, students can advance in their education when they’ve demonstrated “proficiency” in a subject. Current 306 regulations don’t outline when a student can advance, but a previous draft of the revisions, introduced by Bramante’s group, required students to show “mastery” of a subject. Critics have said that using the word “proficiency” instead allows students to advance without fully grasping a subject. 

“Someone could make a case that that’s lowering the standards,” Bramante said. 

Although the mastery-vs.-proficiency debate has received attention, Bramante said that educators he spoke to didn’t have a strong opinion about the word choice. 

“I asked every single time there was a superintendent in the room and none of them cared,” he said. 

Bramante did not know how the department planned to address ongoing concerns about class size. 

More time for the second half of the document?

With a focus on the front half of the document, the state board has not even begun discussing the back half of the 306s yet, and there’s no set timeline for doing so. 

“Once the work on the front half is complete, efforts will then be focused on the back half,” said Houghton, the department spokesperson.

The rules outlined in the 306s are effective for 10 years from the time they are adopted. Currently, “there are sections in the 306s that have already expired,” Pretorius said, while other sections have been updated recently and won’t expire for seven years or more. 

In the back half of the document, five of 19 sections expired in March 2024, according to Downing’s written testimony. The remaining sections will expire between 2026 and 2032.  

Rather than “rushing some things … when in reality you don’t need to rush them,” Downing said, she would like to see the board take this year to be “more thoughtful" the second half of the 306 revision process.. 

At the July board meeting, Downing submitted a proposal to have teacher working groups assist the board in updating the back half of the 306s. The process would extend through November, according to her plan, which she first shared with the board in April. 

Although she was formally involved with the revisions between October 2023 and January 2024, Downing no longer has an open dialogue with the department, and said she doesn’t know whether it is considering her suggestion. 

Legislative efforts to change the 306 process

Meanwhile, the Legislature has passed two measures that could impact the 306 update, either during this round or in the future. House Bill 1163, which was signed into law on July 3, authorizes the Legislative Oversight Committee on Educational Improvement and Assessment to review and make recommendations about the 306s. The law takes effect 60 days after signing, so it’s unclear whether it will impact this 306 revision, but it will impact future efforts. 

“The department and state board will have to be more responsive to the Legislature with what they are proposing,” Pretorius said.

House Bill 1622, which has passed both houses but not yet been signed into law, would require agencies to report how they incorporated public feedback into the rulemaking process. It also takes effect 60 days after signing. 

“That would be very consequential for this process in particular, because the state board received so much feedback,” Pretorius said. “It would significantly change the way the board needs to talk about the public comment they’ve received.”

Whether or not the State Board of Education meets the September deadline or continues working on the 306s, those watching the process are frustrated with what feels like an ineffective approach to the revision. 

“We’ve been on this journey for three years,” said Downing. “Why are these questions just coming up now?”

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

What’s behind the demise of work release programs in New Hampshire jails?

COVID and changes in incarceration rates have led to phaseout of programs, but they’re still operating at state prisons 

By Rhianwen Watkins-Granite State News Collaborative

Work release programs have been phased out at New Hampshire's county jails, the result of a shift in the criminal justice system that has reduced the number of eligible prisoners.

As incarceration rates for lower-level offenses have dwindled, jails lack the numbers of inmates needed to continue their work release programs.

When those programs were up and running, jail attendants say, they helped inmates transition back into life after their sentences more easily. They gained job experience, time management skills, meaningful social interactions, improved mental health, and employers whom they worked for even offered them jobs after their sentences ended.

Work release programs give inmates the opportunity to work both within the facility and out in the community under supervised conditions. The opportunity to take part must always be granted by the court, and typically inmates become eligible after a specific amount of time in the facility.

Sometimes work release takes the form of an inmate going back to a job they previously held before incarceration, but often it entails helping out in the community in other ways.

The Rockingham County Correctional Facility in Brentwood had a work release program in operation in the past, said Superintendent Jason Henry. The program typically involved work for municipalities and nonprofits, doing jobs such as painting, fixing roofs, assisting with construction projects, cleaning recycling centers and cemeteries, among many similar jobs.

‘COVID took a big bite out of’ work release programs ‘because of the risk of inmates day after day coming in and out of the facility, especially during the first year to 18 months of the pandemic.’ , says Douglas Iosue, Cheshire County’s jail superintendent. (Keene Sentinel file photo by Hannah Schroeder)

Henry said 14 days has been the typical period used to assess readiness to go out into the community.

So what led to the decline in the work release programs?

“COVID took a big bite out of it, because of the risk of inmates day after day coming in and out of the facility, especially during the first year to 18 months of the pandemic,” said Superintendent Douglas Iosue of the Cheshire County Correctional Facility in Keene. “One thing that changed was eligibility for work release was temporarily suspended, and it's not really caught back on.”

Beyond that, most of the people held in New Hampshire's county jails were awaiting trial, and and due to a shift in how courts are operating, inmates have either been receiving shorter sentences or are not sentenced at all for lower level-offenses, such as petty theft and minor drug offenses. This leaves fewer and smaller jail populations to run work release programs.

In addition, New Hampshire has increasingly turned to alternatives to incarceration, including enactment of its bail reform laws of 2018, which required judges and bail commissioners to determine someone’s safety to the community before placing them in jail before trial and requiring bail. 

The purpose was to reduce the number of people in jail before actually being convicted of crime. Many were not a danger to the community and were being held in jail without the financial means to pay bail or have someone pay it on their behalf, wrote Frank Knaack, policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union New Hampshire, in an April 2023 article advocating for bail reforms.

There were other changes to the court system too —  including the increased use of drug and mental health courts, according to Anthony Naro, senior attorney with a focus on criminal defense at Bernazzani Law in Nashua.

Those courts typically apply to higher-level offenses and repeat offenders. They are three- to four-year programs that seek to focus on rehabilitative services for individuals struggling with drug addiction and more serious mental health issues. Rehabilitation includes mandatory counseling, regular drug testing and strict court supervision.

Naro said bail reform laws and alternative courts have helped lower crime rates, contrary to many beliefs, as jail time without rehabilitation often produces repeat offenders, versus treating drug and mental health disorders head-on, since they are seen as the root causes leading individuals to commit crimes in the first place.

According to data from the N.H. American Civil Liberties Union, total crimes committed statewide were 60,447 and total arrests were 33,481 in 2018, the year the first bail reform law in New Hampshire was passed. The most recent available data shows a drop in statewide crimes to 49,289 and a drop in arrests to 23,767.

Between 2018 and 2021, there was an 18.4 percent drop in crimes and a 29 percent drop in arrests. 

“The last resort should be to take away someone’s liberty,” Naro said.

But the bail reform laws have drawn criticism, particularly from law enforcement agencies. That led to the passage of House Bill 318, which Gov. Chris Sununu recently signed into law. It tightens some of the reforms contained in the 2018 law. It remains to be seen what the new law’s effects will be.

Varied opinions of work release

Many people have varied opinions about the shift away from heavy incarceration, and about work release programs by extension.  Iosue of the Keene facility thinks terminating work release has been a positive shift.

“We don't like it, not just because of COVID …. but it also is a very risky practice to allow people in and out of the jail day after day in terms of introduction of contraband into a secure correctional facility,” he said.

He favors electronic monitoring, a method jails use to monitor individuals through an ankle bracelet that tracks their location using GPS. In these circumstances, the individual lives at home and is allowed to go to a place of work as long as they are being monitored.

When asked if a monitoring bracelet could hypothetically be used for work release for individuals residing inside the facility to mitigate the instances of contraband coming into the facility, Iosue said it would not be ideal.

“I guess we could,” he said. “Part of it is the cost of ankle monitors. Part of it is having the ankle monitors in the facility ... taking it on and off each time they go in and out would be labor- and time-intensive.”

Other superintendents remain proponents of work release.

Henry said he would like to see Rockingham County’s program get up and running again, but there is a hitch.

In order to operate a work release program, says Jason Henry, superintendent of the Rockingham County jail, ‘you need robust-sentenced inmates and we just don't have that. Ninety percent of my jail is pretrial.’ (Courtesy photo)

“In order to work with this program, you need robust-sentenced inmates and we just don't have that,” said Henry. “Ninety percent of my jail is pretrial.”

He said he feels that, while once too many people were being incarcerated, the courts have swung too far in the opposite direction.

“They still committed crimes and need to be held accountable,” Henry said.

In Worcester, Mass., County Sheriff Lew Evangelidis explained that inmate populations are declining in Massachusetts as well. He feels similarly to Henry.

“I’m always very concerned about victim’s rights. I think they're being forgotten. I think unless people have been victimized by a crime, you don't understand how it impacts you, your family, your community, " said Evangelidis. “But I also believe in giving people second chances and rehabilitating people.”

But Attorney Naro has a completely different outlook.

“Science shows that more jail is not going to help,” Naro said. “I don't think you solve a problem by creating another one,” he said in reference to work release. “People who shouldn't be serving long sentences are no longer serving long sentences. That's a good thing.”

He added: “Six months to a year — that can be devastating on your life. Going to jail for 30 days can be devastating. Thirty days is long enough to get evicted from your apartment, to miss your rent, to lose your job. It’s just long enough to hurt.”

Naro said he thinks  that the need for work release is not there anymore. The focus should shift toward creating and upholding strong pretrial programs in New Hampshire county jails to further reduce sentences. 

This would include rehabilitative measures for pretrial individuals, such as mandatory counseling, regular drug testing, ankle monitoring to supervise them while they go out to look for jobs or continue to work at jobs they already hold, or attend school if enrolled. Some may reside at the jail, but the goal would be to allow them to stay at home as long as they are wearing the ankle bracelet at all times.

“If you do well on pretrial supervision, chances are that, at sentencing, you're going to have a better chance of staying out in the community,” Naro explained. “You can say to the judge, ‘look, I’ve succeeded — you can give me probation, because I can survive and succeed on supervision, because I've done it for the last six, seven, eight months.’”

Some jails in New Hampshire already have pretrial programs, including Merrimack, Rockingham and Strafford counties. 

“We conduct a lengthy evaluation process to see if they meet our requirements for participation,” Henry said about Rockingham’s pretrial program. “The person needs a job, a safe place to live, and is subject to electronic monitoring. We will do home and work checks and drug screenings.” 

In addition to the pretrial program, the Rockingham correctional facility is also creating a new community corrections complex that would accommodate a 90-day in-house treatment program. This would allow individuals who want to dedicate themselves to rehabilitation to live separately from other sentenced individuals. Henry’s goal is to include a work-release component to the treatment program, to allow the individuals to go out into the community.

The project is set to be completed around June 2025.

Programs remain in state prisons

Though work release has come to a halt in county jails, New Hampshire state prisons continue their work release program.

Nicholas Duffy, director of rehabilitative services for the state Department of Corrections, runs a work release program in the state prisons. ’ You don't get many people saying they don't want’ to participate,’ he says. ‘Most people want to engage in it because you're getting those freedoms and people want to have more control of their lives.’ (N.H. Department of Corrections photo)

That program includes three transitional housing centers and a transitional work center, said Nicholas Duffy, director of rehabilitative services for the state Department of Corrections. 

The transitional work center — the TWC — offers work release at a relatively high level of security, allowing inmates to pick up jobs within the prison facility, such as working for the facility warehouse, doing maintenance, cooking and other upkeep positions on the facility grounds. Inmates are typically allowed to go to the TWC two to three years before their minimum parole date.

The next level is allowing inmates to go out into the community to work for employers. These individuals typically reside at transitional housing centers. For some inmates, this happens after proving their readiness in the transitional housing center, or as permitted by the court after a certain period of time — typically one year before  their minimum parole date.

These workers are monitored through cellphones that the facility gives them to track their location as well as through check-ins with prison personnel throughout the day. In addition, job checks are conducted to ensure inmates are at their place of work when they are supposed to be. 

The inmates are also required to do drug testing and stay consistent with treatment programming, said Duffy.

“We're making sure that they're doing everything they need to do to be successful upon release, and some people aren't going to meet that expectation, and they're going to end up getting sent back to the prison, or TWC, depending on the level of production,” he said. “They know that they're taking a risk anytime they're not where they're supposed to be.”

Duffy said that overall, inmates respond well to work release and are enthusiastic about taking part.

“You don't get many people saying they don't want it,” said Duffy. “Most people want to engage in it because you're getting those freedoms and people want to have more control of their lives.”

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

Mental health is a major concern in Women’s Foundation report on the status of girls in New Hampshire

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

According to the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation’s 2024 Status of Girls in New Hampshire report, girls are twice as likely as boys to experience poor mental health. The report says that over half of New Hampshire girls have reported experiencing depression while one-third have considered suicide. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Melanie Plenda will discuss the New Hampshire Women's Foundation biannual report on girls in the Granite State with Devan Quinn, director of policy for the foundation.

Melanie Plenda:

What's the purpose behind the report? Why do we need to single out girls?

Devan Quinn:

This report, the Status of Girls, is the most comprehensive compilation of data on girls in the Granite State. What's unique about our research at the Women's Foundation is our gender lens. We know how vital data-driven research is to gender equality. We believe that accurate and comprehensive data must be the foundation for policies and laws that impact women and girls. Data-driven decisions by policymakers, advocates, education and community leaders will positively impact girls here in our state. Basically, if we aren't looking at the data by gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and geography, then we aren't seeing the full picture of experiences and well-being in New Hampshire.

Melanie Plenda:

What did you find about the mental health challenges New Hampshire girls are facing?

Devan Quinn:

I'll start by saying that the report highlights a strong, smart, resilient and diversifying population of girls with endless potential. The data also highlight disparate outcomes by gender, particularly in mental health.

As you mentioned, one of the most jarring highlights is the decline of mental health among all youth. However, girls are twice as likely as boys to experience poor mental health, depression, self-harm and suicide consideration. Fifty-eight percent of girls and 31% of boys felt depressed — this is higher than the national average and the highest in New England. And 32% of girls and 17% of boys reported considering suicide. When we look at hospital visits, 76% of all suicide or self-harm-related hospital visits were from girls. But girls also received mental health services at twice the rate of boys. Girls are also more likely to ask for help from services like the Crisis Text Line.

Melanie Plenda:

While mental health problems are on the rise for girls, youth substance abuse nationally is also following an upward trend, but that's not true in New Hampshire. So what's going on there, and are there any specific substances that are of concern for teen girls?

Devan Quinn:

Youth substance use has trended downward since 2019. Vaping use dropped the most, but New Hampshire girls have significantly higher rates than New Hampshire boys for misusing prescription drugs, and for current alcohol use, industry drinking and vaping. And white girls specifically are more likely to drink alcohol than girls of color.

The most recent data we have is from 2021, so it's difficult to know if these New Hampshire trends are the impact of the pandemic and a lack of socialization among peers, or it's the impact of public health efforts or something else. It's something we want to keep an eye on while also acknowledging that girls are engaging in substance use more than boys.

Melanie Plenda:

Shifting our focus to girls' education., the report says that a crucial component of closing the gender pay gap is addressing the gender gap in STEM fields which stands for science, technology, engineering and math. So what does the report reveal about ongoing gender disparities in STEM?

Devan Quinn:

We know that early on in school girls and boys perform similarly in all subject areas. But by the time they get to high school that starts to shift. Girls outperform boys in English language arts, they score similarly to boys in science but lower than boys in math. We also see much lower enrollment of girls in STEM and in high school CTE programs, or career and technology education programs. When we look at the data from the University System of New Hampshire — that includes UNH, Plymouth State College and Keene State College — we can see differences in which majors first-year students in state students are choosing. 

While we know that business and biological sciences are both in the top five for male and female students, women are actually more likely to study health sciences, psychology and education and men are more likely to study engineering and computer science. We should also note that New Hampshire has the second-highest in-state tuition costs, the lowest state funding for public higher education and the top student debt for recent graduates in the nation. So when we look at all these data points combined, we see that women are more likely to shoulder the burden of higher student debt and lower income than men once they enter the labor force.

Melanie Plenda:

So how do we address this?

Devan Quinn:

Well, it's so important that we disrupt the social and structural forces that systemically track women away from some of the most high-paying and fastest-growing occupations throughout their education.

To be clear, girls who want to have careers in fields that are women-dominated like nursing or teaching should be celebrated. The same for boys who want to have careers in engineering. What we don't want is for girls who are interested in engineering or boys who are interested in teaching to be socially or structurally tracked away from their interest. This can happen through overt sexism with comments from adults or peers about what girls are good at or not good at. It can be less obvious when girls receive more positive feedback about their work or interests that are traditionally gender-aligned. 

Girls can feel unwelcome in environments dominated by boys when we don't make an effort to make sure they feel welcome there. And it can happen on a macro level, when girls just don't see women in their communities in the roles they imagine themselves to be in, like doctors or architects. And conversely, when boys don't see as many male teachers to emulate. So this is why programs that encourage girls in STEM, all over the country and in our state are doing great work to make a difference for so many girls who are interested in those fields.

Melanie Plenda:

Another topic of conversation surrounding adolescents has been cyber bullying. How is cyber bullying impacting girls in New Hampshire?

Devan Quinn:

Bullying, which can be in person or through technology, which is called electronic bullying or cyberbullying, can cause physical, psychological, social or educational harm and contribute to health disparities. Girls are nearly twice as likely to experience electronic bullying than boys. We mentioned earlier that while girls and boys spend similar amounts of time on screens and devices, girls' social media usage has a greater negative effect on body image compared to boys.

Melanie Plenda:

What can be done to address this?

Devan Quinn:

Cyberbullying can happen anywhere or anytime, and while New Hampshire has laws that address bullying in schools, regulating bullying online can be pretty difficult. It's important to note that this generation has had a different childhood than their parents or older generations. This generation grew up with the internet, social media and smartphones in their pocket, and they also experienced really formidable years during COVID. So there are no easy solutions or overnight fixes. But I want to encourage parents and those concerned about this to start by listening to girls, and we need to follow up with the investment to make what they need possible in this area.

Melanie Plenda:

On top of presenting data, the report also highlights numerous legislative efforts and programs across the state aimed at supporting girls. Can you give us the highlights of those efforts?

Devan Quinn:

While there's so much to celebrate about New Hampshire girls, some of the data and topics can feel really heavy, which is why we also include spotlights throughout the report on organizations serving girls across the state and the amazing work that they do in our communities to lift up and support girls.

Some of our spotlights include New American Scholars, who offer targeted educational support specifically designed to meet the unique needs of refugee children. We also spotlight Breakthrough Manchester, which offers an intensive tuition-free academic programming to support Manchester students from traditionally underserved communities on their path to college. We spotlight Claremont Learning Partnership that offers support to youth experiencing abuse, racism, gender identity, questions, recovery, and more. We also spotlight Haven, which works to prevent sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking to support and empower adults, youth and families to heal from abuse and rebuild their lives. We encourage you to learn more about these amazing organizations and support them.

We also support our own advocacy efforts at the Women's Foundation, including efforts to protect the rights of trans girls and ensure that menstrual hygiene products are available for free in schools. We also supported legislative efforts on girls' mental health the past few years. We were proud to support a bill that required schools to include the 988 crisis helpline and the eating disorder hotline on the back of student ID cards. We also supported a bill developed by students that would require schools to offer mental health education just like they offer health class. So I mentioned before that things won't change overnight, but there's so much we can do to support girls right now. 

Melanie Plenda:

So the New Hampshire Women's Foundation says its mission is to invest in opportunity and equality for women and girls in the Granite State. What is the main takeaway you want policymakers and the public to have from this report?

Devan Quinn:

I want people to take away our three top points from this report.

First, the mental health crisis is among all youth, however, girls are twice as likely as boys to experience poor mental health, depression, self-harm and suicide consideration.Secondly, that girls outperform boys in English language arts, but score lower than boys in math. There's crucial work to do to close the gender STEM gap. Third, that simple headlines about New Hampshire kids don't tell the whole story, that it's imperative for us to look at the data by disparities by gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and by geography, and that these disparities are the results of historical, social and political inequality.

And I want people to know that despite the real challenges girls are facing, girls are also strong, smart, resilient, diversifying and have endless potential. I want to remind us to listen to girls, hear what they have to say, and give them the resources they need to thrive. 

Melanie Plenda:

Devan Quinn, director of policy of the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation, thank you so much 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, visit collaborativenh.org.

Granite State News Collaborative Partners Launch 'Know Your Vote' to Empower Young Voters Ahead of 2024 Elections

PRESS RELEASE -

A new youth-specific voter information project by the Granite State News Collaborative and its partners is launching today. The initiative, Know Your Vote, was inspired by the Baltimore Beat’s Youth Voter Guide and aims to educate New Hampshire’s voters under 29 ahead of the 2024 elections. 

It will feature online and social media content that will be available across the online and social platforms of the Granite State News Collaborative and its partners.

“When it comes to things like voter registration, voter information, this is all really new to us,” said Kay Bailey, the editor-in-chief of The Clock, Plymouth State University’s student paper.  “So being able to know more about these elections and getting information on these new experiences from people who are also experiencing this for the first time can be really powerful.”

Recent national polling by CBS and YouGov found that only 66% of registered voters 18-29 plan to vote in November. Additionally, 48% of the same demographic do not believe either major party candidate understands their needs. 

To kick off the project, we are asking young voters to complete this survey (also available in Spanish). Reporters will use the survey results as the basis for the articles included in the guide. The articles will be released throughout the summer and fall through GSNC’s website, its local news partners and social media. The hope is that the guide will be something young voters can use and refer to often in the lead up to the elections.

Know Your Vote is being designed, reported and produced by student and young professional journalists from GSNC, The Concord Monitor, The Laconia Daily Sun, The Ledger Transcript, NH PBS, The Clock, The Equinox, The New Hampshire and The Presidency and the Press program at Franklin Pierce University.

Laconia Daily Sun files motion to reconsider ombudsman’s rejection of legal fees

By Rhianwen Watkins, Granite State News Collaborative

The Laconia Daily Sun is continuing to press its right-to-know case against the Laconia School Board, contending the state right-to-know ombudsman’s office wrongly ruled in favor of the school board, and pushing for reconsideration of the ruling.

The news outlet’s attorney, Michael Lewis of Rath Young Pignatelli, a Concord-based law firm, contends the ombudsman based his ruling solely on the school board's arguments because he lost the Laconia Sun’s documentation during an office move. In addition, Lewis contends, the ombudsman failed to follow current right-to-know case law.

The case began in May of last year when the school board rejected the news outlet’s request to obtain two documents. The Sun argued the documents were wrongfully denied and filed a complaint with the right-to-know ombudsman’s office.

The Legislature established the ombudsman’s office in 2022 and it opened in January 2023 as a quasi-judicial government agency as an alternative to filing a lawsuit in court when an individual is unsatisfied with a public body’s response to a right-to-know request under RSA 91-A. Before the office was established, the only method of appeal was to file a lawsuit in superior court, a time-consuming, expensive process. Currently, if people are unhappy with the ombudsman’s ruling on whether a right-to-know complaint is justified, they can still appeal it in superior court.

The office consists of exactly one person, Thomas Kehr, the right-to-know ombudsman; his job is to decide whether government records must be disclosed, whether specific meetings must be open to the public, and whether penalties should be imposed for violations.

Julie Hirshan Hart, photo by  Adam Drapcho/The Laconia Daily Sun

After the Laconia Sun filed its right-to-know complaint with the ombudsman, the school board produced one of the two requested documents, saying it had been withheld because of an administrative error, according to Julie Hirshan Hart, editor of the Sun.

“It's inconsistent information because the denial-of-the-request email that we received said that, on the advice of counsel, they were not giving us the files because they were personnel files,” Hirshan Hart said.

Eventually, a hearing with the ombudsman was scheduled for April to hear both sides’ testimony. But before the hearing, the school board requested a meeting with the Laconia Sun and its lawyer at which the board provided the second piece of documentation the newspaper had requested. 

“They had given us both of the documents that we had asked for, but in order to obtain those documents it had been at significant legal costs,” Hirshan Hart said. “Since the issue of the attorney’s fees was still outstanding, we filed to keep the hearing with the ombudsman” to determine whether the school board should be required to cover the Laconia Sun’s legal fees.”

The newspaper argued that the school board should have to pay the legal fees because it wrongfully denied access to public records; had that not occurred, the newspaper would not have filed a complaint to the ombudsman.

Neither the Laconia School Board chair, Jennifer Anderson, nor the board’s attorney, Paul Fitzgerald, responded to a reporter’s inquiries about the case.

At the hearing, the ombudsman gave both parties a specific period of time to file written arguments over the issue of legal fees.

In June, the ombudsman ruled in favor of the school board. 

However, five days after the ruling, the ombudsman contacted Lewis, the newspaper’s attorney, and said he had thought the Laconia Sun had not filed its argument, but realized it had actually been lost during his office move and therefore he did not consider it. Lewis filed a motion for reconsideration on June 28 so the Sun’s arguments could be taken into account. The new ruling is yet to be made.

Court decision not considered

In 2022, a case titled Colquhoun vs. City of Nashua received statewide attention. The state Supreme Court ruled that if the city knew, or should have known, its blanket denial of access to city government emails violated the right-to-know law, then it should be liable for the resulting legal fees.

Lewis said the ombudsman’s ruling failed to cite that Supreme Court decision. Instead, Lewis wrote in the motion to reconsider that the ombudsman’s decision “relies on case law from between 1976 and 2010 while failing to cite or acknowledge very recent decisions from the New Hampshire Supreme Court, including the decision Colquhoun v. City of Nashua, 175 N.H. 474 (2022).” 

“I think it's a matter of important public accountability that a body designed to facilitate accountability — the right-to-know ombudsman, a specialist in the area — doesn't appear aware of recent New Hampshire Supreme Court case law that is binding on the state interpreting RSA 91-A, which is his specific purview,” Lewis said.

RSA 91-A is New Hampshire’s right-to-know law.

“The case was clear,” said Gregory V. Sullivan, a lawyer with Malloy and Sullivan, who has argued many right-to-know cases and is president of the New England First Amendment Coalition. 

“I'm in complete disagreement with the ombudsman's decision to deny attorney’s fees and costs in this case,” Sullivan said. “The standard is whether the governmental agency knew or should have known that the documents should be provided. The school district claimed that they weren't aware of the current state of the law until after the complaint was filed with the ombudsman's office, and then they complied with the request.”

“They either knew or certainly should have known that the documents should have been provided, and therefore attorney’s fees and costs, I think, were pretty much mandatory,” Sullivan said.

Asked why he did not cite the Colquhoun Supreme Court case, the ombudsman, Thomas Kehr, said he could not discuss the Laconia case while it is still open, but said he is “familiar with the case law that involves RSA 91-A.”

‘I belated found the pleadings’

Lewis, in his motion to reconsider, wrote, “The RKO’s [right-to-know ombudsman’s] communications indicate that the RKO did not review Laconia Daily Sun’s submissions before issuing its Decision because of the RKO’s dysfunction.” 

The document includes an email exchange between Lewis and Kehr in which Kehr states, “Due to administrative oversight, I belated [sic] found the pleadings, after the issuance of the order.”

In an interview, Kehr elaborated: “I issued a decision in the midst of taking incoming cases, deciding cases and also writing decisions for various cases, while my office was in the process of a move. Some of the paperwork that was filed in my office, through administrative oversight on my part, did not get docketed,” Kehr explained. “I assumed that there was no material when in fact there was. I issued the order, and thereafter, I found the materials that had been overlooked. At that point, I notified the party of that, and now we're reconsidering my decision. It’s pretty simple.”

Sullivan thinks the mistake was the result of a bigger issue.

“It's pretty clear to me that this is not a one-man job,” Sullivan said, noting that Kehr is the only employee in the ombudsman’s office and has no staff. “To me, that is absurd. That's on the Legislature that created the position but hasn't funded it and staffed it in order to meet the goal of efficiency.”

Kehr acknowledged his intense workload. 

In addition to creating the rules for his office and updating the website in a way that is easy to find those rules, Kehr also has 22 cases currently open and 36 closed since Jan. 27.

In total, Kehr has received 209 inquiries, of which about 30 involve right-to-know requests.

 “Trying to do this as one person is not the easiest thing in the world,” Kehr said.

The ombudsman law has an expiration date of July 2025. In other words, the office is in a trial run, to see if it serves the intended purpose.

“There's going to need to be legislation if indeed that office is going to continue to exist,” said Sullivan. “It should be an agency, not one person doing all the work. It's just too much.”

What happens next?

The Laconia Sun is awaiting the ombudsman’s decision on the motion to reconsider the legal fees issue,and hoping for a favorable ruling based on current law.

Under RSA 91-A:7-b, the ombudsman must make his final decision within 30 days, but has the ability to extend this period if there is good cause.

According to Kehr, the school board also has the right to respond to the motion to reconsider after it is sent to the ombudsman. Neither the school board nor its attorney responded to multiple inquiries on whether it will weigh in on the motion to reconsider.

If the ombudsman upholds his original denial of legal fees, the Laconia Sun could appeal to Superior Court.

 “The parties that really have a need for (RSA 91-A) are newspapers,” said Lewis, the Sun’s attorney. “And freedom of press is explicitly recognized under Part One, Article 22 of the New Hampshire Constitution as inviolable because it's connected to what our constitution says is the security of a free people.

“The people need the press to be able to inquire through these important rules and laws that ensure transparency and access for the purpose of accountability,” Lewis said. “That's how we get better as a society.”

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

Editor’s note, The Laconia Daily Sun is a partner in the Granite State News Collaborative. The Collaborative reporting and editing team maintained editorial independence in the reporting of this story. 

When property taxes overwhelm: The harsh realities behind evictions and foreclosures

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

What happens when a homeowner falls behind on property taxes, set high to offset the lack of income or sales tax in New Hampshire? One local paper explored that question in depth. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Melanie Plenda discusses the Concord Monitor’s “Seized and Sold’ a series that explored property tax-related evictions and foreclosures in the Granite State. The series told the stories of residents who fell behind on those taxes due to illness, job loss and other factors and what happened to them. Here to discuss the series is Concord Monitor reporter Michaela Towfighi.

Melanie Plenda:

Michaela, tell us about the series and what inspired it.

Michaela Towfighi:

The series is something that we've been thinking about for a while now. It started in 2015 or ’16, when an old Monitor reporter, Elodie Reed, wrote about property taxes and tax deeds and people losing their house due to unpaid property taxes in Franklin. She interviewed a man named Larry Davis, and Larry lives on his family's old property, but off to the side in a converted garage that honestly is hardly a home. For a while he didn't have running water, no electricity, but he still was taxed living in this garage, and he was unable to pay his taxes. She had interviewed him a few times about his situation. When the readers read the story in the paper, an anonymous couple paid off his taxes for that year and put money forward for a few years. 

I started at the Monitor in 2022, and one of the first assignments my editor gave me was to go check in on Larry. Money had been put forward and he should have been fine for a few years, but my editor imagined he's behind on his taxes again, and that was the case. We went up to Larry's house at Franklin, and it was the same thing. He lives off Social Security, he's unable to work and his property tax bill just grew and grew. 

I wrote a story that summer that looked at Larry's situation. We then started thinking that this is most definitely happening to homeowners across the state. Being hired at the Monitor through the Report for America means we were able to get a grant through the Investigative Editing Corps to start looking at this at-large. That involved compiling statewide data and trying to see how many people are behind on their taxes in New Hampshire, what happens to those people, and when that's the case.

Melanie Plenda:

Tell us about some of the people who were featured in the series and how you found them.

Michaela Towfighi:

There were a few common themes we found when it came to people who lost their house to tax deeds. The first is that they often were elderly. They had paid off their mortgage, they thought that they had saved and were ready for retirement, and then they had some sort of life event or medical catastrophe that drastically changed their income, and they couldn't keep up with their bills on a fixed income. They also often lived in inexpensive housing, a lot are in manufactured houses, where really quickly the property tax bill can grow to be near the total value of their house. 

We found people mostly by knocking on doors. I narrowed in on a few communities, Franklin was one of them since they had one of the highest deed rates in the state. I went to a city council meeting last July where the council voted to seize a dozen homes for unpaid taxes. The next day, I took that list of addresses and just went door to door knocking on the door to see if anyone was home and if they would talk to you about their situation. 

That is how I found John Jones, who was featured in one of the first stories. When I first knocked on his door, John had no idea that this was happening. His partner Jessica answered the door and I said my spiel and she had no idea what I was talking about. She was like, “I think you have the wrong house. That didn't happen to us.” I went back a week or two later, and she had called the city and hadn’t received the notice in the mail the city sent them letting them know that this had happened. John had had a stroke and was paralyzed basically on half of his body lying in a hospital bed in the living room. She invited me in to sit in their living room and chat with him, and that started a relationship that is still strong a year later. That was just one example. 

Melanie Plenda:

How common is it that homes are taken by municipalities? What cities or towns did these seizures happen most often or happen a lot?

Michaela Towfighi:

What was really interesting and what we found is that it's hard to say how common this is. It’s even harder to know what happens to the homes after they're taken. Some, like Berlin, had the highest number of seizures — they had seized over 200 properties in that 10-year span we looked at. But I went up to Berlin as part of my reporting and talked to the assistant city manager there, and she told me that they take a lot of houses, but those houses are often vacant. They're left behind by former owners. They’re dilapidated, and they end up getting torn down. 

So they're not displacing people in their process. Instead, they're basically getting this property back on the tax roll, and it's getting sold to the next owner. That's drastically different from Concord. Concord has only seized a handful of properties in the last 10 years, but of those properties most are sold at auction. When they go to auction, it doesn't matter if they're occupied by the owner or not — whoever buys it is then responsible for evicting people if they currently live there. 

I talked to over 50 tax collectors in the process of reporting this, and it really just varies town to town. Some of these towns are really small, and the town clerk or tax collectors say, “These are our neighbors. We don't want to displace them. We don't want to put people out of housing. We will take ownership of their property, but we won't kick them out. We'll start a payment plan. We'll try to work with the homeowner to have them back paying taxes ,even if it's not in full.” Other tax collectors read the law really thoroughly and say, “It's our job to take these houses. After three years, we sell them, and we recoup the costs. We need to do that to be fair to other taxpayers who are paying on time”.

Melanie Plenda:

You mentioned in the series that other states do have some safeguards in place to prevent residents from losing their homes due to property taxes. Can you tell us about those and how they work?

Michaela Towfighi:

New Hampshire is an outlier among New England states when it comes to what help is available. Most states have what's called a circuit breaker system that basically says if your property tax bill exceeds a certain percent of your income, the state will kick in the difference to pay your bill. That is just a protection in place, especially for people who are elderly and on a fixed income. Their property tax bill might be growing and outpacing what their Social Security payments are. If their taxes are more than 10% of their income the state will say, “You pay up to that 10%, and then we will pay the rest.”

New Hampshire has a very, very small version of that program in place right now. It applies to the statewide education property tax. It's called the Low and Moderate Income Property Tax Program, I believe, but the reality is that the SWEPT portion of your bill is less than 5%. So again, it equates to people maybe getting a $50 discount on their taxes, but nothing to the degree that other states have.

Melanie Plenda:

You also noted in the series that foreclosures were supposed to be suspended during the pandemic but that didn't necessarily happen. So can you tell us more about that and what you found?

Michaela Towfighi:

That was one of the most interesting findings throughout this whole process. That came from just calling random tax collectors with my spreadsheet pulled up in front of me. I had the data on how many deeds they'd issued in the last 10 years. Then I would ask tax collectors to walk me through that. I'd mentioned earlier that Berlin had the highest number of seizures — they seized over 200 properties in this 10-year period. When I called the tax collector, she showed that if you're looking at a year by year, you might notice that there were zero in 2020 and again in 2021 because they weren’t allowed during that time. That was the first I'd heard that. 

When I had looked at the numbers, there were hundreds of deeds during that period. It basically turns out that when the governor was suspending evictions he had issued a moratorium which provided more forgiveness on mortgage foreclosures — things like that. He also issued an executive order that paused the tax deed process. It said that municipalities were not allowed to deed during the state of emergency for the pandemic that began in April of 2020. What then was confusing was in July he lifted the eviction moratorium and the moratorium on foreclosures, and after that the Municipal Association and other lawyers provided advice to towns and cities that it applied to the tax deed process so that they could resume taking properties. Some followed that — they only suspended the process for a few months. Others followed the original order, which said it was in place for the duration of the state of emergency, that would have been through June of 2021. 

But what was most puzzling about the whole order and its enforcement was that the governor's office and the attorney general's office, who were responsible for enforcing it, refused to answer our questions about the order. We asked them numerous times, “Can you provide the duration of the order? Can you provide what was the intention with it? If a town were to seize property during this time and violate the order, what are the implications? Who's responsible for enforcing that? What penalties are involved?” They declined to comment on all of those fronts.

Melanie Plenda:

What's the status of this series? Is it still going? Do you think there is more reporting to do?

Michaela Towfighi:

I definitely think there's more reporting to do. I mean, we'll continue to follow tax deed sales and auctions. An exciting follow-up is that someone had read the series, and they looked at John Jones's current tax bill and saw that he now owed another $2,000 for the next year and paid off that portion for him. So he'll be set for the next year or so. But I think there are definitely more conversations to be had about the property tax burden growing bills, especially on the elderly, and what assistance is available to them and how that's communicated.

Melanie Plenda:

Monitor reporter Michaela Towfighi, thank you so much for joining us today. 

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is 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 as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information visitcollaborativenh.org.

Supreme Court Ends Biden Harris Student Loan Forgiveness, Leaving Borrowers Disappointed

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

The Supreme Court effectively ended President Biden's one time student loan forgiveness plan, an initiative that would have canceled up to $20,000 in federal student loans for over 30 million ballot borrowers. Here to talk about all things student loans and what recent rulings mean for borrowers in New Hampshire is Vice President of Student Financial Services at Franklin Pierce University, Kenneth Ferreira, along with a recent graduate of Franklin Pierce and reporter at the Dartmouth Week Magnolia McComish.

Melanie Plenda:

So Ken, let's begin with you. Can you tell us about your current role as a financial aid professional at Franklin Pierce, and where Student Financial Services play out in university systems?

Kenneth Ferreira:

Yeah, so at Franklin Pierce, I'm the Chief Financial Aid administrator so I oversee all of the university's institutional as well as federal and state Student Financial Assistance programs. We also are a one stop shop and so all things student finance live under Student Financial Services at Franklin Pierce. We play a critical role 100% of our undergraduate population at Ringe, full time undergraduate day students receive some sort of financial assistance. And obviously 100% of them are billed as well. And so we serve all of the student population, whether there are a day student, an evening online, grad, or a residential grad, or DPT, PA.

Melanie Plenda:

And Magnolia. You graduated from Franklin Pierce in December of 2022. Can you tell us a little bit about your college experience and what led you to Franklin Pierce as an out of state student? 

Magnolia McComish:

So I studied communications and political science at Franklin Pierce. And what really drew me to Franklin Pierce into New Hampshire was the political climate there. I really wanted to be in a purple state during an election season where a lot of candidates come. And I just knew at Franklin Pierce, I would have so many opportunities I wouldn't get at another larger or more expensive school even. 

Melanie Plenda;

And so let's start with the most recent news on student loans. President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan was just denied by the Supreme Court? Can you explain what the plan would have entailed for borrowers?

Kenneth Ferreira:

Yeah, so what the Biden Harris administration had introduced last summer actually was a plan for a one time student loan forgiveness or discharge of student debt. That would be $10,000. For students who did not have a Federal Pell Grant while they were in college, or $20,000. For students who did have a Federal Pell Grant while in college, those plans were put in motion and applications were being processed by the United States Department of Education. Data that came out from the White House includes that there were 121,000 New Hampshire student loan federal student loan borrowers, and that 77,000 applications for the one time loan forgiveness discharge were received just prior to when the department had to halt the application process as a result of lawsuits that were brought forward challenging the program.

Melanie Plenda:

So Magnolia you graduated from Franklin Pierce, as we said, back in December 22. When we weren't sure what would happen with Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, what was your reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling and how much of your loans were eligible to be forgiven?

Magnolia McComish:

So of course, my reaction is disappointed. I was qualified for $10,000 in forgiveness, which would have only left me with a couple more 1000 to pay off, which for me, and my position is very manageable. So it would have been a huge help. And looking at what that would have meant, in my term, like being uncertain when I was graduating, I graduated a semester early so I wouldn't have to take out more loans and have more debt. Had I known I would have received forgiveness for essentially, almost all of my loans, maybe I would have done another semester, that would have been a more realistic plan and had a more complete college experience.

Melanie Plenda:

And how will the rejection of this plan impact students in New Hampshire? What percent of students in the Granite State rely on loans?

Kenneth Ferriera:

Yeah, according to an article that came out this past fall, I believe it was through New Hampshire Business or New Hampshire Business Magazine. 70% of students who graduate from colleges in New Hampshire rely on federal student loans. And based on data from the project on student debt, that overall average indebtedness is just under $40,000. It's $39,950. And so, when I think about the 121,000 eligible New Hampshire borrowers and the 77,000, who submitted an application, I can only imagine how disappointed they are. The borrowers that I've heard from that I counsel on next steps are overwhelmingly disappointed by the decision that came out from the Supreme Court. 

But having said that, they are somewhat heartened by the plans that the Biden Harris administration has to use the Higher Education Act of 1965, for a new method to potentially assist as many borrowers as possible with some loan forgiveness. And those details are still being worked out, ironed out and communicated to financial aid officers. The good news, I think, in some of this is that they're talking about an on ramp. And so the on ramp in October gives another year where if there are missed payments, delinquent payments, that the student is not going to fall into a defaulted status. And so I think, you know, the students that I've spoken with, the borrowers that I've spoken with, are heartened by what is being planned in response, albeit disappointed in the current outcome.

Melanie Plenda: 

Okay, so Magnolia, in what ways would the forgiveness plan have altered your course of action and timeline for paying back your loans?

Magnolia McComish:

Well, just like Ken’s saying, having that money in my own possession and not going towards loans would have allowed me to make a down payment on a house much sooner. I could have if I need a new car, when emergencies come up. I have those savings to get those things sooner, rather than waiting to reap, accumulate that money and make it back while I'm now taking on additional expenses, like having a job that costs money in a lot of cases. So I'm making money now with my degree, but I'm also paying for that. So to have $10,000 not to say extra, but that was unexpected would have been a huge gift and a huge, almost advancement in my grown up life, if you will.

Melanie Plenda:

In your 25 plus years as a financial aid professional, how big of a factor is financial aid and loans in a student's choice of where to attend college?

Kenneth Ferriera:

Yeah, I would say in the last maybe 12 to 15 years, it is often the number one driver. So if you survey students and ask them, How important was the financial aid that you received, it's upwards of 95-98%. That coupled with the program of study that the university or college is offering is right up there earlier in my career, financial aid and, and cost were not as predominant but as, as as wages and income nationally, particularly for middle class families have either remained stagnant or or not kept pace with with inflation, or the cost of living. That cost and financial aid factor has become one of the driving factors in decision making when it comes to enrollment.

Melanie Plenda:

With the rejection of Biden's forgiveness plan, along with high tuition rates and levels of indebtedness in the Granite State. What does this mean for higher education in New Hampshire? And do you think universities will see a decline in enrollment?

Kenneth Ferriera:

So I think that colleges and universities in the Northeast in general are experiencing some, some challenges strictly based on the climate that higher ed exists in right now. You know, earlier we talked about my 25 year career in financial aid, and I just want to make a quick comment about how 18 of those years have been at Franklin Pierce University. And as I mentioned earlier, 100% of our students received some sort of financial assistance. So 100% of our Ringe full time day students receive some sort of financial assistance and to hear Magnolia and her share her experience in terms of the decision to enroll at Franklin Pierce and how cost and affordability and value. All were part of her decision making process. 

I'm really proud to work for an institution that has access and affordability at the forefront of its enrollment process with students. Do I think that colleges and universities in New England and New Hampshire will continue to be challenged in this hyper competitive enrollment marketplace? Absolutely. But I'm also very proud to work for an institution that has made a firm commitment to access and affordability and has a generous financial aid program. So that students like Magnolia, choose us and graduate from us and can realize their dreams, both personally and professionally.

Melanie Plenda:

Final question for both of you, what advice would you give prospective students starting the college decision process when it comes to financial aid and loans? What are important factors for them to consider? Magnolia, we'll start with you and wrap up with Ken.

Magnolia McComish:

So I think it's really important to first talk to your parents and find out how much they are really contributing. And once you know how much you're responsible for. And if you're already working, or you already have some sort of income while you're in high school, start saving that money open, open a savings account, get a financial advisor, don't wait plan for this, like how you would plan for retirement, you don't wait until you're 50 and you're retiring in 10 years, you got to you have to start as soon as you can putting money away and expect to pay off these loans. It feels far away. But then it's the blink of an eye, you're a college graduate with a job and piles of debt that you don't know what to do with and you don't know how you're going to tackle on starting salaries that seem like they're just getting less and less and expensive world that just seems like it's going up and up. So it's so important to know what you're going to be responsible for and plan for it, be realistic, and then find scholarships. It really does help so much. Every couple $100,000 you can get from your community from anywhere really, it's going to help and it's going to help you in such a long term. You don't realize it when you're applying to college. 

Kenneth Ferriera:

Magnolia gave some really good advice. What I would say is when it comes to student loans, and when it comes to a college education, the college education is an investment in you and in your future. And the value of a college education remains the gold standard in our society. So college graduates continue to earn more over their lifetimes than those who didn't pursue something after high school didn't pursue some type of post secondary education and student loans are part of that equation. 

My mom graduated from college when I was in the seventh grade. So she went back as a non-traditional student. My wife is the first in her family and the only in her family to have a college education. Both of us coming from lower middle class families needed student loans. It is very likely that our children will need student loans but those student loans are investments. To Magnolia’s point and I'm going to use my words, borrow wisely. There remain professions that still allow for student loan forgiveness. 

So for instance, I mentioned my wife, she's a teacher. A significant portion of her student loans were discharged as part of being a special education teacher. And so work with a financial aid counselor at the college or university that you're looking at to have those conversations about student loans, to have those conversations about what your dreams are as far as professionally and whether or not some type of student loan forgiveness that existed long before this program, through President Biden and Vice President Harris was launched and remain intact. And at the end of the day, I would never want for a young person to believe their dreams are out of reach because they're afraid of making that investment in themselves. There is always a path. I've been doing this a long time. The path may not be the path that you envision, but work with someone in a financial aid office and they'll help you figure out the path that's right for you.

Melanie Plenda:

Kenneth Ferreira, Vice President of Student Financial Services at Franklin Pierce University and Magnolia McComish, Franklin Pierce, alumna and reporter at the Dartmouth week. Thank you both so much for joining us today.

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is 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.

Nashua Nonprofit Spotlight Series: Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County’s widening mission

By Elaina Bedio-Granite State News Collaborative

Editor’s note: This is another installment in the Nashua Nonprofit Spotlight Series highlighting some of the Greater Nashua area’s approximately 365 nonprofit organizations and the meaningful work and crucial services they provide. Each upcoming article in this series features a different Nashua nonprofit. Please send all inquiries to elaina@nashuadigital.info.

The purpose of this series is to highlight local nonprofits, especially those who would benefit from a bump in visibility. So it might seem curious to select an organization with ubiquitous name recognition like Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County. Most people have at least a nominal idea of the services Meals on Wheels provides — delivering meals to people who, for one reason or another, cannot easily get to a grocery store. But that is merely the tip of the iceberg of the organization’s services.

According to its mission statement, Meals on Wheels’s aim is ’ “to create connection and enrich the lives of older and homebound adults who live independently through nutrition, social engagement, and community services.” Since its establishment in 1977, Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County has been doing just that, and it has evolved to meet the needs of the communities it serves. In addition to nutrition, MoW has focused on tackling the problem of social isolation experienced by the people they serve.

Changing times

One of Meals on Wheels’ biggest catalysts for change was the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, the challenges were mostly operational.

Jon Eriquezzo, left, president of Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County, and Zach Paone, director of development, at the organization’s soon-to-open newly consolidated headquarters at the site of the former Blake’s Restaurant in Manchester. (Photo by Elaina Bedio)

“Before the pandemic … we were just a typical Meals on Wheels program,” said Jon Eriquezzo, president of Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County. “During the pandemic, we were forced to change everything.” Among their new initiatives were offering grab-and-go meals, distributing meals to people in parking lots and creation of the Dine Out Club, a   program involving local restaurants.

However, in the months and years that followed, supply chain issues caused costs to soar, said Eriquezzo. “We started getting hit with all of these expenses ... and what that usually does to a Meals on Wheels provider is it makes you kind of implode a little bit. We're going to serve less food. We're going to have a waitlist. We're going to stop serving on Mondays. And, ultimately, some Meals on Wheels providers are forced to close and not do business anymore once expenses get too high.”

So the organization got creative in finding ways to reduce costs without reducing quality of service. The first move was to consolidate some locations. This includes the closing of the Carpenter Center in Manchester and two locations in Merrimack whose operations will be consolidated under one roof – the former Blake’s Restaurant on South Main Street in Manchester.  

Another major change is the food itself. MoW had previously utilized a large, national foodservice provider to deliver food to their nutrition centers around the county. Now, they purchase food from Birch Stream Farms in Maine.

“We get milk directly from the dairy. We get bread directly from the bakery, local. The fruits are fresher. Everything we're getting seems to taste better, but also less expensive” said Eriquezzo. In other words, they managed to reduce costs and increase quality by supporting a local farm.  

Addressing isolation

What is true of Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County is true of any of the Meals on Wheels chapters across the country. Often, the person delivering meals will be the recipient’s only company that day.  

Members of Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County’s Dine Out Club enjoy a recent meal at The Village Eatery in Merrimack. (Courtesy photo)

Eriquezzo recounted a day when he took a delivery shift and was met by an elderly woman who had been expecting him.

“I go in. Her hair is done. She's got the big earrings. She's got the pearls. She has a full dress on like ‘I Love Lucy’ or something … red lipstick. She was decked out. She was sitting there with an ashtray overflowing with cigarettes. I realized at that moment she dressed up for me.”

“My first delivery ever was in my neighborhood, " recounted Zach Paone, director of development. “I knocked on the door and saw a face I had never seen before, which is the problem.”

These interactions can be incredibly meaningful to both the person receiving the meal and the one delivering it, but it’s not the only way Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County combats social isolation.  

The Dine Out Club is a case in point. The program provides clients with a club card that can be presented at select restaurants for a free meal. Each establishment provides a few options from which they can choose. The opportunity to eat at a restaurant can be a luxury. What’s more, those who utilize the program frequently meet up and eat together regularly, fostering meaningful interactions, and even relationships.

With the purchase of the former Blake’s site, MoW will be able to utilize their own industrial kitchen and offer “community dining” to people 60 and older.

“Our focus when we first open is being able to provide community dining to people of this area and then also have enough equipment in there to prepare food for other community dining sites as well.” Eriquezzo is hopeful that the location will be ready to open early next year.

How you can help

With the purchase of the former Blake’s Restaurant in Manchester, Meals on Wheels will be able to utilize their own industrial kitchen and offer ‘community dining’ to people 60 and older. (Photo by Elaina Bedio)

When asked what the organization needs most and how the community can best support Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County, Eriquezzo and Paone said delivery drivers and volunteers are their greatest need.  

“What does it take to volunteer?” asked Eriquezzo. “First of all, it doesn't take much to volunteer. It's not a huge time commitment. It's about three hours a week, and what you get out of this is just so huge. Everybody is so happy to see you.”

Donations are also crucial, as renovations at the new site are ongoing and programs are expanding to meet more needs in the community.

“We are going to be pursuing some pretty significant capital expenses in the next couple of years to maintain this wonderful operation we have going here,” said Paone. “So you'll start to hear more about that in the next year, I think, from a capital campaign standpoint. But we are looking to really expand what we're doing.”

You can follow Meals on Wheels of Hillsborough County on Facebook. You can also visit their website to learn about volunteer opportunities, making a donation and other ways to support their mission, including registering for the Miles for Meals Run & Walk on Sept. 14 at Mine Falls Park in Nashua.

This article was produced in partnership  with Nashua Digital, Nashua Ink Link and is being shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative.  For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

Health and the electric grid: The impacts of recent heat waves in New Hampshire

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

The experiences of the week of June 23-29 have shown that heat waves are more than an inconvenience. They can cause many other problems, from exacerbating the health issues of those caught in their wake to causing electricity demand to soar, taxing an already burdened system. For many, the question becomes: Is this the new normal for summer in New Hampshire? If so, what can be done about it?

On this episode of “The State We’re in,” Melanie Plenda talks with Mary Stampone, the New Hampshire’s state climatologist and an associate professor of geography at the University of New Hampshire whose courses focus on weather, climate and natural hazards, and Matt Kakley, spokesperson for ISO New England, which operates the regional power grid and administers the wholesale electricity in the region.

Melanie Plenda:

Mary, tell us more about the future of our summers. Should New Hampshire expect warmer weather or earlier heat waves? What is going on with our climate?

Mary Stampone:

As average global temperature increases over time, this shift toward a warmer climate will bring with it more extreme heat. Heat waves have already doubled across the U.S., and models indicate that the Northeast region will likely see the greatest increases in heat exposure over the coming decades.

We're already seeing this trend play out in New Hampshire, where the number of days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit have already increased since the mid-20th century, and climate models project nearly twice as many 90+ degrees Fahrenheit days per year by the middle of this century compared to today.

Melanie Plenda:

What led to the June heat wave, and what impact did it have on the region?

Mary Stampone:

This heat wave formed within a weather system known as a heat dome, and in a heat dome, high pressure pushes warm air toward the surface, which suppresses cloud formation and kind of traps that heat and humidity near the surface for several days at a time. Then, as humidity increases, the air temperature feels even warmer and it makes it more difficult to cool off at night. So in addition to the dozens of daily high-temperature records that we set statewide, we also experienced 100+ degree Fahrenheit heat indices, and extreme nighttime temperatures in the 60s to even over 70s Fahrenheit. 

It can affect ecosystems and our water quality. When it comes to humans, we have a region that doesn't have a lot of air conditioning, so the ability for us to cool off is impacted. We're gonna see an increase in the amount of energy needed for indoor cooling over time. This is going to impact our economy in terms of how many hours people can work outside during the day as well as the health impacts for those people whose indoor spaces just don't cool off at night.

Melanie Plenda:

Matt, how is the power grid affected?

Matt Kakley:

Across New England, and really everywhere, weather is the single biggest driver of electricity use. In the summer, that means air conditioning. The hotter it is, the more humid it is, the more people are turning to air conditioning, and the longer and more hours that they're running those air conditioners drives up electricity demand across the regional system, and that means that ISO New England needs to call upon more resources to provide that electricity. That is what we're seeing right now and is largely what we have projected coming into the season. 

More broadly the last several years, we've seen a relatively flat demand due to largely energy efficiency and behind-the-meter solar that has been installed across the region. But as we look out towards the future, and we continue to electrify our heating and transportation systems, we are expecting demand to go up. We are expecting, particularly during periods of hot weather, demand to go up across the system.

Melanie Plenda:

What happens after a heat wave ends? This time we had thunderstorms and even a tornado warning. Is that typical?

Mary Stampone:

Often, persistent high pressure and heat like what we had will move out of the region ahead of cooler air that advances in behind a cold front. So in this pattern, that approaching frontal boundary will lift the very warm humid, unstable air ahead, forming a line of heavy rain and thunderstorms. Usually, under the extreme weather conditions that we had before. These thunderstorms can become severe, producing heavy downpours, strong wind gusts, possibly tornadoes — although tornadoes are still fairly rare here in New Hampshire.

Melanie Plenda:

How is this extreme weather affecting the power grid by summer electricity demands? What do preparations or precautions to keep it up and running look like during the summer as well as the rest of the year?

Matt Kakley:

It’s kind of a matter of short-term and long-term. On a day-to-day basis, we're evaluating what the next day's forecast is going to be. That allows us to schedule the necessary generation for that next day. What we've seen is that more and more, weather is playing a vital role in determining how reliable that system is going to be. It's always been true that weather is the biggest driver of electricity demand, but now as we get more and more weather-dependent resources — solar power, wind power — it's also affecting the generation side. At ISO New England, we've spent a great deal of time trying to get more and better weather data and weather forecasts so that we can add them to our software as we determine what we think is going to be the power demand for the next couple of days. We've added an on-site meteorologist to help us with that to determine exactly how the weather is going to impact the power system. 

We're also looking out towards a future where maybe historical weather is not as relevant in projecting future demand, so we’re working to incorporate more climate modeling into our forecasting to figure out what are the next five, 10, 50 years going to look like and what we need to do as a rule region to prepare for that.

Melanie Plenda:

Let's talk more about the future. What does the future look like for the power grid considering the changing climate?

Matt Kakley:

In the short term, we believe the power system is going to be reliable, but there's a lot of uncertainty as you get further out. That is for a number of reasons.

One is the general uncertainty of what the climate is going to be like in the mid-21st century. So we've worked with the Electric Power Research Institute, known as EPRI, to work on long-term forecasting, both in terms of what we would expect electricity demand from consumers to be but also what we would expect that weather to do to a power system that has more solar or wind power on it. 

That's really what we're trying to do — project out further in the future than we ever really had to. Typically, electric power planning was done over the course of the next decade. Now we're really looking out into the middle of the century to see how would we expect the power system that has a lot of wind power, that has a lot of solar power on it to behave, and what would we expect consumers to need from that powers system, as they look to charge electric vehicles, as they look to heat and cool with heat pumps and things like that. 

What we're seeing is a lot of uncertainty and a lot of variables going on. We've looked to develop better and more sophisticated tools to grapple with all those different variables and see how they play out with each other. What we're ultimately going to see is a power system that is even more sensitive to weather, both at the extremes but then also just on a day-to-day basis.

Melanie Plenda:

What can we expect for the rest of the summer?

Mary Stampone:

Above-normal temperatures, along with potentially increased humidity are strongly favored for the rest of July across all of New England. Above-average temperatures are expected to persist region-wide well into September, so this will likely be an overall warmer-than-average summer.

Melanie Plenda:

Mary Stampone, the New Hampshire state climatologist and an associate professor of geography at the University of New Hampshire, and Matt Kakley, spokesperson for ISO New England — thank you both 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 as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

NH community leaders share perspectives and hopes around Juneteenth

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Melanie Plenda talks with JerriAnne Boggis, executive director of the , Black Heritage Trail New Hampshire; Dwight Davis, owner of Senior Helpers of Southern NH and past president of Black Heritage Trail NH and a former college and NBA basketball star; and James McKim, NAACP Manchester branch president and managing partner at Organizational Ignition LLC, to learn what Juneteenth, the newly recognized federal holiday and day of observance in New Hampshire, is all about.

Melanie Plenda:

What is the history behind June 19th?

JerriAnne Boggis:

So Juneteenth is a predominantly Black celebration. It started in Texas as a result of Gen. George Granger, who led Union soldiers into Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865. This was two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but it would take this army that general Granger brought into Galveston to free the enslaved people in Texas. 

It's not that the enslaved people there didn't know that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed on Jan. 1, 1863. It's just that the enslavers did not obey that new Emancipation Proclamation. So it would take this army to force the enslavers to free the enslaved people there. 

To put this in perspective, the Emancipation Proclamation that President Lincoln signed did not free all the slaves. It was only the slaves that were in the states that wanted to secede that were freed. So that meant that states like Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri still had enslaved people as well. Slavery didn't end with the Emancipation Proclamation. June 19 then represents this emancipation, for when freedom really ended for the enslaved African Americans in our country.

Melanie Plenda:

Dwight, having been born in Texas — the last state to have freed enslaved people — and your career in the NBA taking you to many places, how would you compare your experiences in other states versus living in New Hampshire, and how was the observance of Juneteenth different? 

Dwight Davis:

To answer your question about Juneteenth being a holiday in Texas. It was a proclamation back in 1936. When I did some studying, I was quite surprised because, during 1936, Texas was still very much an oppressor state for people of color. But it did not become a state holiday until 1980. 

However, Black folk in Texas did not wait for that to start celebrating Juneteenth. I can remember from my birth in 1949, as a young kid in the early and mid-‘50s. It was a huge, huge holiday and as a young person I thought it was celebrated in all states. 

But it was not celebrated in all places likewise. One of the states I moved to and lived in, playing with the Cleveland Cavaliers, was Ohio and it was celebrated to a small extent. I was quite surprised as a 21- year-old-man to see that. 

Melanie Plenda:

James, reflecting on the protracted struggle for an official state holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. in New Hampshire, has the NAACP advocated to make Juneteenth a state holiday? Do you think such a measure would have support?

James McKim:

We have advocated for it. I think there is support for it. I think that support is challenged, though, especially because of the times in which we live. We have a backlash against learning the true history of this nation and covering up the fact that we had slavery as an institution here in the United States. I think, unfortunately, a number of folks in our legislature are afraid of that history. So I think there is support for it, but I think it would be a long haul to actually have it past as an official holiday here in the state. 

Melanie Plenda;

JerriAnne, this year’s Juneteenth celebration, presented by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, explores the theme of “Dreaming Black Art: Gateways to a New Awareness.” Tell us about the theme and how you feel it will advance understanding.

JerriAnne Boggis:

When we started looking at the themes of our prior Juneteenth celebrations, one of the things we realized that we've omitted in all of our work is looking at Black masculinity. We thought that this was a good time, using art and dialogue, to really explore that theme of what it means to be Black male in America. It just brought us to a really important place of looking at really breaking down stereotypes. 

Our first event was with a young artist named Nadroj Nina Holmes, who took an image of Gordon, known to the majority of Americans as “Whipped Peter.” He is a man who was formerly enslaved and the image shows all the scars on his back. The artist erased the scars and put other things on his back, just as a starting place for a dialogue so that people can really immerse themselves in understanding what this history is and what Black male masculinity is all about. 

Earlier, we had a discussion with eight Black African men of color on stage in Manchester. I’ll tell you, it was the most emotional, engaging, transformative conversation I've been a part of. We never allow our Black men to be vulnerable, to be emotional. They were authentically themselves and opened a door for us to see into what it really means to be Black and to be male in America. So I'm really excited about this theme. I think we have a lot of stuff to unpack and with a bigger understanding, our men can be who they are themselves, in our communities.

Melanie Plenda:

Would you say the ability to build intergroup connections and relationships is even more important, given the demographics in the future?

Dwight Davis:

We realize as people of color that if we're going to take our rightful place in this society, in this community, then we must have more business owners, we have to have more job creators in order to do that effectively and efficiently.

Those of us who have broken through to some degree must go back and share. Just like the term “sankofa” [An African phrase that loosely translates to “to return and get it”], it is not a bad thing for us to go back and share what we've learned and share our connections with others. It’s not bad to come together and gather the full force that a group can bring, as opposed to individual people of color here and there. 

Melanie Plenda:

What are some of the ways people can get involved in Manchester, or even in small towns around New Hampshire?

James McKim:

Following what is going on in the state legislature, being in touch with your representatives, and letting them know that we want a state that shows equal treatment and equitable treatment to every single person regardless of their race. Getting involved in the school board, going to school board meetings and letting your thoughts, feelings, desires and beliefs be known.

We have a number of minority-owned businesses here in the state. On our website, we have a list of those minority-owned businesses and we are encouraging people to go to that list and patronize those businesses to help them to grow and to take advantage of the various products and services which enrich all of our lives by taking advantage of them. 

Melanie Plenda:

Would you say the history of slavery lurks in the background? 

James McKim:

It absolutely lurks in the background. We were just talking about the perception of African Americans that JerriAnne brought up from the event last week, and that Black men have not been allowed to be vulnerable. They've not been allowed to be vulnerable because of this perception that Black men are dangerous, not to be trusted, not to be heard. That's based on the notion that Black people are not human. It's what we really have been taught, it's been in the air that we breathe, that there's this “danger.” 

So there's a healing that needs to go on. Not just for Black people, but for everyone. Because this notion that Black people, Black males in particular, are dangerous, causes fear in white people. It causes this notion we can't be safe, if there's a person of color there. Even if we don't act based on that, it’s something that is going on in our heads. This goes on in the heads of Black people too, by the way. So we all need this healing. It's one of the reasons why we're working with Nicole Sublette and with therapists of color to put on healing circles. These are opportunities to have these deep conversations about what's broken in the relationships both in the past and today. We all need this healing. 

Dwight Davis:

I agree with everything James said. But I'd like to add that the description of the Black male and the Black race in general, also includes being irresponsible and unintelligent. Those are things that are being propagated and promoted. Especially in the last eight years or so. Some of it may be a backlash to President Barack Obama and the light that he brought to this country and some of it is just a residual from the Civil War.

I can tell you that I’m not shocked at what has happened, but I am deeply surprised that the speed at which so many things that have been accomplished and so many milestones that have been passed were reversed. It is disheartening, but we know as descendants of slaves, even in the darkest hours, we can have victory, and it won't be just for people of color. It will be for this entire nation. Black people love this country. We just want this country to love us back.

Melanie Plenda:

JerriAnne Boggis, executive director, Black Heritage Trail New Hampshire; Dwight Davis, owner, Senior Helpers of Southern  NH and past president of Black Heritage Trail NH; and James McKim, NAACP Manchester branch president and managing partner at Organizational Ignition LLC, thank you so much 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 as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information visitcollaborativenh.org.

Addressing the heightened urgency of New Hampshire’s homelessness crisis

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

The median cost for a two-bedroom apartment in New Hampshire is about $1,584. To afford it, someone would have to earn about $31 an hour. With the minimum wage at  $7.25 an hour, someone working 168 hours a week — every hour of every day — could not afford the rent. To kick off an occasional series on homelessness, Melanie Plenda talks with Jennifer Chisholm, executive director of the New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness, about the problems and solutions related to homelessness in New Hampshire.

Melanie Plenda:

Let’s talk about some of the terms that we use when we talk about homelessness, like “housed,” “unhoused,” “sheltered” and “unsheltered.” What are some of those common terms, and why do they matter? Is homelessness a bad word?

Jennifer Chisholm:

There are some people who are shifting the language to talk about  “houselessness”’ instead of “homelessness” in that somebody can make a home for themselves, anywhere. We still choose to use the term homelessness, as it is common vocabulary. The federal government actually doesn't have one set definition of homelessness; it depends on the agency that you're talking about. 

When we are talking about our numbers, we're generally looking at (U.S. Department of) Housing and Urban Development definitions. They talk about “sheltered” versus “unsheltered.” Somebody who's unsheltered is staying in someplace like a car, a tent, an encampment on the streets, in the parking garage — places like that. Somebody who is sheltered may have a roof over their head, such as an emergency shelter or a housing program for people who are experiencing homelessness to help stabilize them. 

Another definition that's really important to know is “chronic homelessness.” That is when somebody has either been homeless for 12 months straight or has experienced at least 12 months of homelessness in four chunks or more over the last three years. For somebody to meet that definition, they also have to have a disabling condition of some sort. So when you're talking about people who are chronically homeless, then you're talking about some extremely vulnerable people.

Melanie Plenda:

What does homelessness look like across the state of New Hampshire? Where does it exist?

Jennifer Chisholm:

Everywhere — from all the way from Nashua up to Berlin, and everywhere from east to west as well. So both rural and urban homelessness do exist in the state, and it can really vary. I was referring to the HUD definitions earlier, there are people who are unhoused or maybe accessing an emergency shelter or a supportive housing program. That does not look at another section of people experiencing homelessness, who are what’s called either couch hopping or doubled-up. Those are people who are maybe crashing on my couch because they don’t have a lease or staying with family members because they can’t afford their own place. We don’t have great numbers about that population — it’s kind of a hidden population — but it’s something I always like to talk about to make sure we’re considering that as well because it’s not captured in the numbers that we generally discuss about homelessness.

Melanie Plenda:

Does homelessness look different in an urban versus a rural environment?

Jennifer Chisholm:

I would say that it comes down to lack of affordable housing and poverty in both spaces. However, people who are living in urban environments typically may have better access to services. When you think about rural New Hampshire, services are fewer and farther between and transportation may be a larger barrier. There are cities in New Hampshire that do have public transportation systems but that certainly don't exist in most of rural New Hampshire. Then you think of employment opportunities, the housing stock — we do want to make sure we’re looking at both rural and urban homelessness and assessing what the needs are for each population.

Melanie Plenda:

What do you think are the impacts of that lack of visibility in some of those more rural environments on services for folks?

Jennifer Chisholm:

When it comes to service provision and the ability to build the relationships in order to provide services to people, having worked as an outreach worker in the encampments in Manchester, I know that the first time we make contact with somebody who may need some assistance, that person isn't always going to necessarily have the trust needed in order to accept help or ask for something that they may need. I’ve seen it take six months, nine months before a person becomes comfortable to ask for support. When it’s hard to find people, such as in a rural environment or even in an urban environment, where people are being moved from the encampments, it just makes that process so much more difficult. The time that it takes to get somebody really connected with resources is so much longer.

Melanie Plenda:

Let's talk about the reasons people are homeless. What has your experience been?

Jennifer Chisholm:

The answer to that question is so amazingly complex, but I think that it boils down right now to the housing crisis in New Hampshire. We have a very significant lack of housing that's available for people. A healthy vacancy rate — meaning the percentage of apartments or rental units that are available for rent in a given time — in a healthy rental economy is between 5 and 8%. Right now, in New Hampshire, it's running at, depending on the county, around 0.6%, or about 1/10 of where it should be. 

That means that people with excellent rental histories who are looking to rent a new apartment are having trouble finding a place. Never mind somebody who may have had some housing instability –  who doesn't have a stable landlord reference history, may have an eviction on their record, their credit score may not be great — they have these other barriers that are preventing them from being that top candidate and are having extreme difficulties finding apartments. While there are many, many, many other reasons that people may become homeless, the housing economy right now is the prime driver.

Melanie Plenda:

Understanding that the reasons are very complex, but what are some of the misconceptions out there about why people are homeless? I’ve heard even well-meaning people say, “they must want to be homeless” or “they’re choosing to be homeless” and things like that, on the face of it, seem probably not true.

Jennifer Chisholm:

The New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness actually runs a program called Granite Leaders where we work with people who have experienced homelessness in their lives. So these are people who are interested in learning leadership and advocacy skills in order to help their voices become part of the solution. We just had graduated our 2024 class, and one of the conversations that we had over the course of the five-day program was exactly that — what were the things that you heard from people when you were experiencing homelessness that did not represent your experience? 

They were saying things like, “People thought that we were lazy”’; “People say we must be on drugs”; “People told us we must be crazy”; or, “If you only just got a job, then it should be fine.” 

It’s just not that simple. I’ll also say that there's data that shows, nationally, that there are more people who end up using substances who did not use substances prior to experiencing homelessness. Rather, they became homeless and then ended up using substances as a coping mechanism for the trauma that they experienced while being homeless.I  think that is a really big stigma that we really need to bust. We hear sometimes,, “Oh, they're just all addicts” — that statement just hurts my heart. I think that public education is going to be a really big part of the solution for this to help people understand the truth of the matter, rather than the complexities of it rather than the stereotypes that we might have in our head.

Melanie Plenda:

How does the state tackle homelessness? What are some of the resources out there?

Jennifer Chisholm:

The state has a Bureau of Homeless Services, and they oversee distribution of funding for street outreach programs, emergency shelter programs, supportive housing, rapid re-housing programs. They’re doing a lot. I will say that, having worked in this field for about 20 years, the conversation and attention that this issue is getting and the level of support services has grown exponentially.

Also, the Coalition to End Homelessness in combination with Community Development Finance Authority, are partnering on a resource library for homeless service providers and others to start sharing best practices for working with people experiencing homelessness. This means we can have really good information and data to share about what works. There are limited resources for this, so we want to make sure that what we're doing is effective. 

Melanie Plenda:

Are there any resources that the state provides directly?

Jennifer Chisholm:

Some of the things that the state provides that are extremely important may not fall under that Bureau of Homelessness Services — things such as the Medicaid expansion have been extremely helpful for people getting health care and even case management services from their Medicaid providers. There are also things like food stamps, so people can be food-stable and fuel themselves, and have the energy to connect with all of those resources. 

The Bureau of Homelessness Services also oversees what's called the Balance of State Continuum of Care, which is required by HUD, to come together as the homeless services providers and key stakeholders to collaborate and work in your region to make sure that everybody's working together. There are three in New Hampshire – one in Manchester, one in Nashua, and there's what's called the Balance of State, which is every other municipality in the state. 

Melanie Plenda:

How are charities and other nonprofits a part of the puzzle?

Jennifer Chisholm:

Generally, the funding that the state obtains then gets distributed down through to the nonprofits that then provide the direct services. They are a huge part of not only the direct services, but a part of the solution because they are the people who are in the weeds, seeing what's working, what's not, and what are the true needs. They're able to communicate to those who are figuring out the best solutions to this very complex problem. 

Melanie Plenda:

What can people do to help? What's the best way to move the needle on this?

Jennifer Chisholm:

Programs like this are immensely helpful for people to be able to just hear some of the information that might push against things that they may have heard in the wind and might not be fully true. Ending that stigma and bias against people experiencing homelessness is going to go a long way because we’re hoping to garner more support around some of the changes that are happening in the state.

There are a lot of really great organizations that are sharing information, sharing solutions, so getting connected on social media and hitting that share button when you see a post that you like —  pushing out and sharing any information that you think could be helpful. 

Then there’s tracking what's going on either within the municipality where you live or in the state in general.There were a lot of really interesting bills that came through this year and this legislative session around housing. I will give a shout out to New Futures, an advocacy organization that has really wonderful directions on their website about how you can check into a hearing to say, “yes” or “no” to a bill. When COVID hit, the legislature in New Hampshire was wonderful and figured out a way for people to participate in a way that wouldn't put their health at risk for the pandemic, and they've maintained that. It's super easy and super fast, so I recommend that everybody become familiar with that as well. 

Melanie Plenda:

Jennifer Chisholm, executive director of the New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness, thank you so much 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, visit collaborativenh.org.

N.H.’s 2024 legislative session: looking back and ahead

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda talks with Anna Brown, director of research and analysis for Citizens Count and host of the podcast, “$100 Plus Mileage” podcast about what State House lawmakers accomplished this year and what’s on the table for next year.

Melanie Plenda:

Let's talk about the path of a bill and how it becomes a law. 

Anna Brown:

Generally speaking, New Hampshire legislators vote on bills from January to June each year. A bill starts in the House or Senate, gets a public hearing, then a committee votes on a recommendation for the full House or Senate. At that point, the full House or Senate votes. If it passes, it flips to the other chamber and the whole process repeats. 

However, when the House and Senate can't agree on the final version of a bill, it will go to a conference committee, which is essentially a team of legislators from both the House and the Senate who try to hammer out a final compromise. That's where we're at right now and is the very last part of the legislative session. Notably, some of the most complex issues end up there.

Melanie Plenda:

What were some of the new proposals to come before lawmakers this year?

Anna Brown:

We saw an explosion of legislation related to gender — limiting sports in schools based on birth certificate sex at birth; relative to parents' notification around certain curriculum; what material can and can't be in school libraries; and whether parents can have access to their children's library records, which was a complex issue. 

Also an interesting new idea related to immigration. This is a top issue that voters identify when they're talking about national elections, but there is some impact in New Hampshire related to the northern border. There was a bill that was proposed in the Senate, SB 504, that would expand anti-trespassing laws so that police would be able to arrest someone on open land even if it was posted for hunting and hiking and so on. But the House and Senate are still negotiating on this issue. 

Another new topic was artificial intelligence. Several bills have gone through the process and are on their way to Governor Sununu that are looking to criminalize harmful deep fakes — adding fake or AI-generated images of child sexual abuse to current laws regulating  that and regulating AI use by the state. This was really a bipartisan issue that moved forward, and I expect it'll get support from Sununu.

Melanie Plenda:

What did we see in terms of old favorites, and how many of them made their way through the process?

Anna Brown:

Housing is still a huge issue for legislators. This year, the debate shifted more from funding to zoning laws. For example, the House passed HB 1291, which would allow two accessory dwelling units, called ADUs, on basically any single-family property. The House also passed a bill to limit parking requirements for new developments. The Senate mostly rejected those changes, so we aren't really going to be seeing any zoning changes coming down from the state level. 

Also an old favorite is school funding. This debate has continued for multiple decades in New Hampshire, and unfortunately there's not a sign of any resolution coming soon. The House passed bipartisan school-funding bills that would increase the state per-pupil funding a little bit. It would also increase special education funding, which is becoming a big challenge for towns and cities. The Senate pumped the brakes, and we're not sure what's gonna happen with the budget next year. These are big funding bills. There's still the lawsuits that are ongoing around school funding, so they’re not going to move those forward. 

Lastly, the House and Senate haven't agreed on an expansion to the Education Freedom Account program. As a reminder, that is a program that allows students to take the per-pupil share of state school funding and spend it on private and homeschool expenses. So we had a Republican majority in the House and Senate — granted, it was a small majority in the House. Nonetheless, the House voted to expand eligibility much more than the Senate did. The Senate, once again, is really looking to pump the brakes on more spending and is looking at that budget for next year. So we'll see if they can reach a final compromise.

Melanie Plenda:

What would you point to as some of the major accomplishments of the legislature this year?

Anna Brown:

I think it's notable to highlight when you really see some bipartisan movement among legislators. We saw that on several issues in the House of Representatives.

There was a bill that was introduced that would report some mental health records to the federal gun background check system. It was notable because it had Republican and Democratic sponsors and moved forward in a bipartisan way. 

The housing and zoning issue we just talked about was also a bipartisan agreement. You had conservatives coming in and saying, “This is an idea of individual liberty on your property, you should have more freedom to build.” You had Democrats coming in and saying, “This is a crisis and we need the state to take action”

In the House, there was also support from both Republicans and Democrats to limit new landfill development in New Hampshire in different ways. Now, the Senate shut down all of those, but I still want to note them. We hear so much about the partisan disagreements that I think it's important to highlight when people come across the aisle and there really is agreement in those areas. 

Melanie Plenda:

What doesn't look like it will get a vote this year, but we may see next year?

Anna Brown:

I mentioned zoning issues, landfill limitations, school funding — they all got shot down in the Senate, but I fully expect that they're going to be coming back next year. The other issue we haven't talked about yet is related to fentanyl penalties and how the state continues to address the opioid crisis. 

There were bills in the Senate that would increase the penalties for dealing fentanyl, crossing state lines with fentanyl and deaths resulting from overdoses. The House largely rejected this because this stricter law enforcement “drug war” approach has been shown not to be effective. The House focused on harm reduction. 

They passed bills, for example, that would legalize certain drug testing equipment so that a user could see if there is fentanyl in this drug that they are about to consume. Ideally, this would lower the risk of a deadly overdose. The Senate rejected that. So it really seems like the House and Senate were interested in the opioid crisis but couldn't reach agreement on the best approach forward. I think we all know that is still an issue that is really serious in New Hampshire.

Melanie Plenda:

So there were also several gun-related bills that came up this term, how did those fare?

Anna Brown:

There were many, many gun-related bills. Proposals for a red flag law, proposals for a waiting period, a proposal for expanded background checks — all of those failed, which is not surprising given the strong Republican majority in the Senate, where many of them were introduced.

There was a bipartisan proposal in the House that would report to the firearm background check system if a person is found not guilty by reason of insanity, not competent to stand trial, or involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. So basically, for one reason or another, they've gone before the court and they're losing some of their liberty — there is a criminal aspect involved. Right now, it's basically a loophole that this is not being reported to the federal background check system, since those people also should not be having firearms under federal law. 

There were concerns about privacy and how it’s done, but this was with bipartisan sponsors and passed with some bipartisan support in the House. So I was really surprised when it hit roadblocks in the Senate. That being said, I would think that there’s a good chance that this will come back next year because it was in response to a very specific incident where a security guard at New Hampshire Hospital was shot and killed by a person who didn’t have some of this information reported to the system and definitely should not have been in possession of firearms.

Melanie Plenda:

Switching gears a little bit. What about some of the quirkier bills like kangaroo adoption and brass knuckles? Can you tell us about those proposals and how did they fare?

Anna Brown:

You missed a few! There was also one about kangaroo farming. There was a bill about seceding from the union if the national debt reaches $40 trillion — that was actually a constitutional amendment. A bill that would allow self defense via autonomous machines — for example, can you get your self-driving car to hit someone who's trying to rob someone else? Then SB 190, for letting underage college students taste wine if they're in a culinary class that's for wine tasting.

None of these bills move forward, to answer your question, but there's always unique ideas in the New Hampshire legislature. Just because it seems a little head scratchy at first, you never know. Some of these are really interesting and unique ideas. So I'm glad you brought that up. There's roughly 1,000 bills a year. Today, we're talking about maybe a dozen, maybe two dozen at most — that’s a tiny percentage of what the legislature talks about.

Melanie Plenda:

Finally, what should people watch for as the session winds down?

Anna Brown:

Any statement from Sununu on these issues or bills — because a negative word from him could take any compromise that we see coming out of the legislature. Legislators might end up just saying it's not worth it, throw it out the window, vote it down, what have you. 

I am also gonna be looking for action from the legislature or Sununu on bills related to voter ID. That's not something we touched on, but they are debating some significant changes that, for example, might require someone to prove citizenship, which you know, goes beyond just showing your driver's license. Some bills would set up almost a live hotline at the polls on Election Day to try to verify people if they show up without ID because we do want to still have same-day voter registration in order to be exempt from some other federal laws. So that's a very complex issue, and it’s not one I’ve heard Sununu weigh in on.

Melanie Plenda:

Thank you so much for joining us, Anna Brown, the director of research and analysis for Citizens Count and host of the podcast, “$100 Plus Mileage.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.