After waiting several months and getting a waiver to bypass the state’s hiring freeze, Lily Wellington got a job offer: She would lead New Hampshire’s State Commission on Aging.

Not a week later, when lawmakers working on the next state budget announced a plan to slash the commission’s funding, she had no idea whether the job would even exist in a few months.

She decided to take it anyway.

“I believe in this work so wholeheartedly that it was a no-brainer for me to just jump right in,” Wellington said. “Even if it’s for a very temporary amount of time, this is so important that we have to have somebody at the helm who can kind of drive us toward a vision of what we all want for the state as we look at aging.”

Six weeks into her role as executive director of the commission, which advises lawmakers and advocates for the interests of New Hampshire’s older residents, Wellington is working to save the organization and her own job from the threat of extinction.

Members of the Senate Finance Committee appear receptive to Wellington’s plight.

Sen. Tim Lang, a Sanbornton Republican, said he wants to “resuscitate” the commission one way or another. That could mean nixing the executive director’s position to make the commission fully volunteer, he said after a recent meeting. Or, he might preserve its establishing language in the law but strip its taxpayer funding, directing the commission to seeking funding through donations or grants instead.

Lang said he is “trying to get it back in some shape or form.”

Except for Wellington and a part-time administrator, the Commission on Aging is volunteer-based with 26 members, including lawmakers, state officials and people appointed by the governor. Established in 2019, it provides no direct services and instead performs an advisory role, helping to collect data and craft state policy and planning on issues that impact senior citizens.

New Hampshire has one of the oldest populations in the country, with more than a quarter of residents – over 368,000 people – age 60 or older, according to data from the 2025 Healthy Aging Data Report.

State representatives voted in April to abolish the commission along with a batch of other small state agencies that Republican budget writers deemed not vital. The commission’s budget is one of the smallest, with the Legislature allocating around $232,000 to it for 2025.

The cuts weren’t based on any shortcomings, legislators said, but as they stare down the barrel of lower-than-expected tax revenue and an end to pandemic relief funding, many are looking to slim down spending.

Wellington, however, is attempting to convince lawmakers of what she sees as the commission’s value: a vital role in improving care and services for New Hampshire’s aging population.

“There’s tangible impact for days,” Wellington said. “I think what’s so complex is that when you’re looking at a budget, it’s really hard to reflect that back on a line item.”

For example, she said, the commission advised lawmakers this year on a bill that would create a new kind of credential to help ease the healthcare workforce shortage. They pushed for more robust training and tracking of who earns these licenses to ensure a high quality of care.

“That was really important, and that, to me, is the real beauty of the commission, is that we aren’t just one thing,” Wellington said. “We aren’t going to just rush through to solve a problem ... We have people from all these different angles who can turn a problem over and say, ‘OK, what will we encounter if we go in this direction?’”

She said the Commission on Aging also prepares for the long term, anticipating that in a few years New Hampshire will have more residents over the age of 65 than there are children. With that in mind, the commission is trying to determine how the state needs to prepare for that demographic shift by collecting data, assessing population needs and creating a 10-year blueprint for how to meet them.

“How can we as a state see this as an opportunity instead of a burden?” Wellington said. “What do we need to adapt and plan for so that we can meet this shift with intentionality?”

Charlotte Matherly can be reached at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.