HB 1264 is the bill that contains the language originally included in SB 496, providing state financial assistance toward the costs of meeting water and wastewater quality standards associated with PFAS. The House concurred with the Senate’s amendment by a vote of 210-116. NHMA’s position was a point of discussion during the debate, and we were pleased that last week’s Legislative Bulletin explaining our support was referenced on the House floor. 

Despite significant opposition in the House, we are hopeful that the governor will sign the bill into law. 

As we reported last week, HB 1129 is intended to provide relief to towns that have been unable to hold their annual meetings this year. The bill, as amended, authorizes a town, school district, or village district to hold a meeting using an alternative procedure that a few school districts have already employed. This is described in Bulletin #25. 

The amended bill also extends the benefits of RSA 32:13, II, to towns and districts that have a May town meeting and/or a June 30 fiscal year, enabling them to make expenditures between the beginning of their fiscal year and the date of their meeting that are reasonable in light of prior years’ appropriations and expenditures.  

Those parts of the bill may be largely moot by the time the bill gets to the governor. Many of the towns that postponed their meetings have found ways to hold them since the prohibition on large gatherings was rescinded; and those that haven’t done so will probably not want to wait to see whether the governor signs HB 1129, as it typically takes several weeks for bills to get to the governor. The expenditure issue has been solved by the governor’s Emergency Order #56, which extended the benefits of RSA 32:13, II, to towns with June 30 fiscal years. 

Nevertheless, we hope the governor will sign HB 1129, primarily because of the underlying bill, whose original language remains intact and implements an NHMA policy. Section 1 of the bill allows a planning board to publish notice of hearings on proposed zoning amendments on the municipality’s website, rather than in a newspaper as currently required. If a municipality uses this option, it would still be required to post notice of the hearing in two other public places—but using the website instead of a newspaper will save significant amounts of money as well as avoiding the common problem of meeting the newspaper’s deadline for submission of advertisements. Putting the notice on the website is also a logical step now that most local boards are providing electronic access to their meetings; if residents are going to the website to watch and participate in the hearings, it makes sense that they would also go there to find out when the hearings are. 

The bill passed the Senate 23-1 and passed the House 248-64.

HB 1558 addresses a number of issues dealing with public education, which NHMA does not follow closely, but there is one section that is relevant to towns. Section 19 changes the majority vote required for the legislative body of a town, school district, or village district to issue a bond or note from two-thirds to three-fifths. (The requirement for SB 2 towns and districts is already three-fifths; this change would affect only towns and districts with a traditional town meeting form.) 

The language in section 19 came from SB 563, which passed the Senate in February on the consent calendar, before getting stranded in the House. HB 1558 itself passed the Senate on a voice vote, but it ran into Republican opposition in the House, where it passed by an almost straight party-line vote of 201-129. That could suggest a veto by the governor, but we do not have any further information.

NHMA received information this week from the offices of both U.S. Senators Hassan and Shaheen that the Senate window for municipal local governments to receive direct or flexible funding is closing. We understand that the Senate will consider the coronavirus relief package when it returns from its two-week July 4 recess, with the goal of finishing before both chambers depart for their lengthy August break. There are several pieces of legislation floating in the Senate that include support for local governments, but there is still no agreement in Congress to include federal aid to local governments in the next coronavirus relief package. We have also expressed concerns that the current GOFERR municipal relief allocations set to expire on December 30 may not be adequate, especially given the recent nationwide spike in COVID cases. 

To aid in advocating for direct and flexible funding to towns and cities, the offices of Senators Shaheen and Hassan would welcome first-hand information directly from New Hampshire municipalities that have experienced significant issues relative to expenditures and revenue shortfalls. If your municipality wishes to provide this information, please provide it in a narrative-type “story” format. To ensure that your stories can be shared in support of New Hampshire municipalities during these critical deliberations, please send your narrative directly to NHMA at governmentaffairs@nhmunicipal.org. 

Additionally, NHMA will be working to gather actual revenues and expenditures of all 234 New Hampshire municipalities through July 31 and to capture the July 1 tax collection rates. NHMA is planning to issue this comprehensive follow-up COVID-19 financial impact survey the week of July 20 with an early August response deadline. Please be on the lookout for this important survey to ensure that it is directed to the appropriate staff for completion.

This will be our last weekly Legislative Bulletin for this legislative session. As always, our Final Legislative Bulletin, to be published in August, will summarize all the new laws enacted this year that affect municipal government. 

These have been strange days indeed, and we hope for something closer to normal in 2021. In the meantime, we wish all our readers a happy holiday weekend and an enjoyable and virus-free summer.