New Hampshire, like the rest of the country, has a well-known shortage of police officers. To entice more to come to the Granite State, lawmakers might allocate $900,000 in state funds to provide sign-on bonuses for state troopers and other recruitment strategies.

“I think we’ve all seen such an increase in the last year or so of the difficulties on our highways, the wrong-way drivers, the speeding,” said Democratic Sen. David Watters, who proposed the bill. “That enforcement is really necessary.”

Seven other Democrats and seven Republicans signed onto the bill, signaling bipartisan support.

To do this, the bill would create a recruitment and retention program for New Hampshire State Police, which would allocate those bonuses and give referral fees to state employees who refer candidates for those jobs.

Over the next two years, State Police plans to use $650,000 of that funding for sign-on bonuses, $100,000 for referral incentives and the rest for recruitment materials, events and advertising. State Police Captain Matt Amatucci said the division has lost applicants due to housing shortages and costs and that a sign-on incentive could help.

Anne Perriello, the police chief in Pelham, said she thinks the bill is unfair for local police departments and other state agencies, which are also struggling to fill their workforce.

“It kind of makes a two-tier system, where they are taking highway funds and they’re given a perk,” Perriello said. “Those highway funds maybe could’ve been dispersed across the entire state, where every agency would benefit.”

In recent years, New Hampshire – much like the rest of the country – has seen increased vacancy rates in law enforcement and corrections. New Hampshire State Police currently has 62 vacant positions, about 17% of its sworn workforce. In Concord, the police department had more than a dozen unfilled positions as of the beginning of 2025.

Outside of the Legislature, other state leaders have signaled strong support for law enforcement in recent months. Gov. Kelly Ayotte assembled a Public Safety Task Force in 2024 to assess how the state can combat the labor shortage, and about two dozen law enforcement agencies across the state recently received $11 million in congressional funding through Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s office. With that money, they planned to purchase new technology and training, which they hoped would attract more officers to work for them.

Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, subscribe to her Capital Beat newsletter and send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.