With the state budget still unbalanced, New Hampshire’s Legislature will not likely wrap up this spring’s session on June 2, as scheduled.
The House and Senate teams working on the budget agreed on how to fix $270 million of a nearly $300 million shortfall, but neither is budging on the final $30 million. Gov. John Lynch has said he’ll keep lawmakers working until the job is done.
In the meantime, several bills relating to health insurance, family law and the criminal justice system have already made it through the Committee of Conference process and await Lynch’s signature.
May 28th, 2010 | Posted in child support,Commerce,Family,gambling,Government,Health,health insurance,insurance,Justice,parole,prisons & jails,recidivism,state budget | Read More »
In his 14 years as a New Hampshire legislator, Rep. David Bickford (R-New Durham) has seen efforts to re-calculate child support come and go. Many—about a dozen each year—make their way through the House or the Senate, but few succeed.
“We’re just Johnny-come-lately to make a change,” Bickford says. “We hire people, they work like dogs and come out with good reports, and the legislators say, ‘It’s over my head. We’ll study it and then get back to it maybe,’ and then we don’t. … I’ve just never seen anything move so slow.”
Bickford sponsored six of the 11 bills relating to child support this year, including House Bill 1474, which passed the House March 17. It would create a commission to move child support guidelines toward an “income shares” model. Other bills that have passed the House would tweak the support formula for multiple children and for shared custody.
March 19th, 2010 | Posted in By the Issues,child support,Commerce,Family,gambling,Money,taxes | Read More »
