CONCORD, N.H.. — On Thursday, February 13, New Hampshire’s 79th governor, Craig Benson, just five weeks into office, presented his new budget dubbed, “The Kitchen Table Budget.” With a large deficit and New Hampshire fearing new taxes, Benson revealed numerous new initiatives and no new or increased taxes.
In a new initiative called Startup NH, Benson will commit $350 thousand out of this biennium budget for college students who graduate from New Hampshire colleges or universities and who want to found companies and grow them in NH. Benson is responding to the daunting fact that more than 50% of children leave New Hampshire when their education is completed to pursue their careers elsewhere.
Benson finds this statistic disturbing. “These are good kids,” Benson said at his budget address of the 2004-2005 NH budget, “and I want them to grow and stay here, but they need a great job to pursue their dreams in NH.”
Benson believes Startup NH is one way to spur the NH economy and keep those educated minds that we have invested in, here in NH. Details of just how Startup NH will work are not yet available.
In his budget address, Governor Benson repeatedly mentioned the need for the State of New Hampshire and our education system to continue to rapidly expand in the way of technology. “Government’s front door should not always be accessed with a door knob, it should also be accessed with a mouse,” Benson stated. He continued, saying, “New Hampshire is the second most technologically literate population in the entire country, it is more time effective for citizens and more cost effective for the state (to do business electronically).”
On that note, the Governor announced his new Department of Technological Implementation. Benson says this department will bring together all of the different technology personnel and assets under one roof. It will allow for a universal look and design that will make all departments work more efficiently and allow for easier access to government and information by citizens.
Also announced was a program named E-Ticket to Learning. The state will spend $4 million for the development and implementation of internet based course learning software that Benson hopes to deliver in every classroom around the state.
Governor Benson will also send $4 million to the development and startup of charter schools as part of the program he calls Choice Now, giving the parents of NH more choices of where their children get educated. He has created other new initiatives. Garage Grants is a new program that will help entrepreneurs to fund their visions and inventions. No doubt dubbed for the way in which his own venture, Cabletron, started in his own garage.
A proposed program called Nurses Stat will fund $2 million in tuition reimbursement to nurses who guarantee to stay employed as nurses and practice in New Hampshire.
This is not a budget without pain, however. Numerous cuts are in order if the state is to overcome its enormous deficit and add new programs. By June 30th of this year the state will be $70 million in debt, and by the end of the next biennium (2005) the state will be a whopping $230 million in debt.
In his address Benson stated, “Living in debt is not only in violation of the NH constitution, it’s also morally wrong”. Benson states that we need to identify the state’s wants versus the state’s needs in order to gain any ground. In fact even before he was officially in office he began to make changes. On December 5, 2002, the then Governor-elect Benson asked State Departments to resubmit their 2003 budgets, this time reflecting a five percent cut.
New Hampshire’s Health and Human Services Department, the largest state agency, took the biggest hit. The new budget cuts to state agencies are promised by Benson to not interfere with any normal state operations. Some of these cuts are simply a call to state employees to give the governor’s office ideas about wasteful spending.
The new ‘Governor’s Initiative Award’ will take the Governor’s salary and give it back to state employees willing to help and make those changes.
Now begins the balancing act that citizens of NH deal with every day – the balance of earnings and expenditures. Benson has stated no new or increased taxes; in fact he has proposed tax cuts. He has planned a 14% decrease in state property taxes this biennium budget, cumulatively growing to a 50% overall state property tax cut within five years.
Benson didn’t give details in his address on how a 5% across-the-board state budget cut could fix our problems and fund large tax cuts, but it’s all available to interpretation in the newly submitted, 1100 page budget.
Looking long term, the Governor aims to start what he calls a Taxpayers Bill of Rights to ensure that future NH government will not grow at a rate faster than inflation and always live within its means to ensure future generations will not be faced with our current situation.