As your representatives to the New Hampshire House, we’ve worked together to support legislation important to our constituents from Concord and Hopkinton as well as to people throughout the Granite State.
For example, the state’s antiquated educational funding formula treats all kindergarten students as half-day students, short-changing school districts with full-day programs. More than two-thirds of school districts in New Hampshire already provide full-day kindergarten, and that number jumps to 80 percent of schools serving communities with the lowest median household income. So we sponsored a bill to update the funding formula to support all full-day students in grades K-12 in a fair and equitable way by increasing the state’s financial support for school districts and charter schools that offer full-day kindergarten programs.
We pursued efforts to close tax loopholes, including closing the offshore business tax haven loophole and closing the individual capital gains loophole, which disproportionately benefits the wealthiest one percent. These initiatives will help the state to restore needed support for towns and cities and provide property tax relief.
We are concerned about the property tax stress on seniors with fixed incomes, so we sponsored legislation focused on property tax relief for elderly citizens and to provide a property tax credit for elderly homeowners such that their property tax would not exceed 10 percent of their income.
Almost every day we lose a Granite Stater to an opioid-related overdose death. New Hampshire’s opioid public health epidemic is devastating to our families, our communities, and our economy. There has been and will continue to be a significant amount of bipartisan work on this bipartisan problem. In November, the governor and Executive Council called for a special legislative session to address the crisis. We helped to craft and support legislation to, among other things, improve timely access to treatment and recovery by breaking down arbitrary insurance company barriers, work with the medical and educational communities to take steps to prevent misuse and build awareness, and provide needed resources to treatment and recovery, including the first ever state appropriation for supportive housing for people in recovery.
We fought against efforts to open the door to the incineration of construction and demolition debris. Although we did not have the votes in the House to kill the bill, we worked closely with the governor’s office, Sen. Dan Feltes and representatives from across the aisle to impose restrictions and set quality standards to protect the environment.
We joined our colleagues from both parties to reauthorize the New Hampshire Health Protection Plan, also known as Medicaid Expansion, by the thinnest of margins so 50,000 Granite Staters can continue to have health insurance, and without punitive premiums or deductibles that drive up uncompensated care, a hidden tax on everyone.
On the county level, we supported efforts to locate the new Superior Court in downtown Concord and to repurpose and develop the former county jail in Boscawen into a community corrections facility.
Finally, working together with Sen. Feltes, we are glad to report that the state budget restored funds to pay Hopkinton and other communities for use of lands under the Merrimack Flood Control Compact. We are grateful that we did not have to resort to our friend Stretch Kennedy’s idea to “blow the dam and flood Massachusetts!”
There’s much more work to do to expand opportunity for everyone, and that’s why we are running again. We look forward to continue to serve the people of Hopkinton and Ward 5 in Concord. Please feel free to contact us with your questions and thoughts on how to improve our state.
(Rep. Mary Jane Wallner lives in Concord and Reps. Mel Myler and David Luneau live in Hopkinton. They represent Merrimack County District 10, which includes Hopkinton and Ward 5 of Concord.)