• Remind members of the Senate Finance Committee that passage of SB 496, which provides funding for PFAS remediation, was part of the bargain to put strict PFAS limits into statute.
• Call or e-mail your senator and members of the Election Law & Municipal Affairs Committee and urge them to oppose the statewide zoning mandates in SB 458 (short-term rentals) and SB 482 (tiny houses). 
• Urge your senator to support SB 667, allowing for an increase in the local option municipal transportation improvement fee. 
• Take a look at the several labor bills described in this Bulletin and let your legislators know if you have concerns.

As we reported in last week’s Bulletin, the Senate Election Law and Municipal Affairs Committee voted 3-2 to recommend Inexpedient to Legislate on SB 667, the NHMA policy bill that increases the cap on the local option transportation improvement fee from $5 to $10. This local option fee, which has had a statutory cap of $5 since first enacted nearly 25 years ago, provides municipalities with non-property tax revenue to fund a diverse variety of public transportation needs, such as road improvements, bridge repairs, sidewalks, and senior transportation services.  SB 667 does not increase the fee, but merely allows the legislative body of a municipality to decide whether to charge up to $10 annually to help pay for specific transportation projects in their community.  

Please urge your senator to support local control by voting NO on the committee recommendation of Inexpedient to Legislate and voting YES on a subsequent motion of Ought to Pass on SB 667.

We have some concerns about several labor bills that are making their way through the legislature. 

Payment for unused vacation time.  HB 532 requires an employer to inform employees of any policy regarding accrual or use of vacation time, provide a means through which vacation time requests and approvals are processed, and provide employees with an accounting of vacation time used and remaining. More significantly, it also requires an employer to pay an employee for unused vacation time upon termination of employment. 

Many municipalities already do pay employees for unused vacation time upon termination, but it is not required. An employer that does not pay for unused vacation time may have adopted a generous accrual and carryover policy. If so, some employees could have significant accrued vacation time that would, under this bill, represent a large unfunded liability for the employer. 

For municipalities with union employees, vacation accrual policy is typically covered in the collective bargaining agreement. If the agreement does not require payment for unused vacation time, it is usually because the union has bargained for something else in its place, such as a larger wage increase or better health benefits. This bill would rewrite a bargain that has already been made—and thus is probably an unconstitutional impairment of the obligation of contracts (not to mention an unfunded mandate). 

The bill has already passed the House, but it still needs to go through the Senate. We will let you know when it is scheduled for a Senate hearing; in the meantime, if you have concerns, please contact your senator. 

OSHA compliance. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) applies only to private employers and employees. About half the states have OSHA-approved plans that cover public employees. New Hampshire does not, but the state Department of Labor has adopted rules that provide comparable protection to public employees.

 HB 1171 would require public employers to provide employees with “at least the level of protection provided under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.”  We are not experts, but it is our understanding that the state rules are not significantly different from OSHA in terms of the substantive protections they provide, so HB 1171 may not require significant changes. The one concern we have is that recordkeeping and reporting requirements under OSHA may be significantly more burdensome than under the existing state rules. 

The bill is in the House Labor Committee, which will vote on it next Wednesday. If you have concerns, please contact members of the committee and your own representatives. 

Reporting on wage differences.  HB 1144 requires that every employer with more than 100 employees in the state disclose, biennially, to the Department of Labor:  (1) the difference between the mean wages of male exempt employees and female exempt employees for each job classification; and (2) the difference between the median wages of male exempt employees and female exempt employees for each job classification. “Exempt” employees are defined as those who are not subject to overtime requirements as an administrative, executive, or professional employee. 

The only apparent purpose for this exercise is to provide the Department of Labor with information to publish on its website. We believe municipal administrators have enough to do, and should not be forced to compile statistics for the state. If people want to do an analysis of pay by gender, they can request a copy of each municipality’s payroll and do the calculations themselves. 

This bill is also in the Labor committee and scheduled for a vote next Wednesday—so you know what to do. 

Union elections. Two bills that we reported on before are on the House calendar for a vote next week. 

• HB 1290, with a proposed committee amendment, would allow a union to elect to have all votes cast by mail ballot in an election to certify a union as the representative of a bargaining unit. This would remove the protections of the existing election process, which is controlled carefully to ensure fairness and avoid intimidation. 

• HB 1399, also with a committee amendment, would allow for a “card check” process, under which the PELRB would certify a union as the exclusive representative of a bargaining unit upon receipt of “a written majority authorization for the purpose of collective bargaining of all the employees in the bargaining unit.” This goes even further than HB 1290, essentially creating a secret election with no opportunity for any views to be presented other than those of the individuals circulating the petition. A similar law was enacted in 2007 and repealed in 2011. 

Both bills came out of the House Labor Committee with fairly close votes of Ought to Pass with Amendment, and both are on the House calendar for action next Thursday, March 5. Please ask your representatives to oppose HB 1290 and HB 1399. 

Meanwhile, another “card check” bill, SB 448, is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday, March 3, at 2:00 p.m. in State House Room 103. We will, of course, oppose that bill as well.

Two bills, one in the House and one in the Senate, address the issue of allowing dogs on open-air restaurant patios, an issue we would not ordinarily consider our concern, were it not for the possibility of preempting local regulations. 

HB 1483 states that a restaurant owner may allow dogs onto a patio if the dog and its owner access the patio from the exterior of the restaurant, so long as a notice is posted advising customers that dogs are allowed. SB 450 says the same thing, but only for patios at brew pubs. 

These bills would preempt state food service regulations; of more concern to us, they would preempt local regulations, too. In most of New Hampshire, food service establishments are licensed and inspected by the state Department of Health and Human Services; but there are fifteen municipalities (presumably you know who you are) where the local health officer, having obtained approval from DHHS, performs those functions. In so-called “self-inspecting” municipalities, a food service establishment is subject only to local regulation and is exempt from state licensure. 

Some and perhaps all of the self-inspecting municipalities have adopted some version of the FDA Food Code, which the state also follows. At least a few of those municipalities have adopted processes for restaurants to obtain a variance to allow dogs, as allowed by the Food Code. Those processes have very clear and specific conditions intended to safeguard the health and safety of restaurant customers. 

HB 1483 and SB 450 would preempt the local codes and their variance processes, requiring a municipality to let restaurant owners allow dogs on patios with no health or safety precautions, and with no opportunity for review by the health officer. 

We have nothing against dogs, but they can present issues. They may get into fights; they can interfere with service animals; they make messes; they can stink and generally be disruptive. Some people are deathly afraid of dogs or are allergic to them. These are the kinds of factors that local officials take into consideration when reviewing an application for a variance. This is one more area where decisions are best left to local officials who understand local conditions. 

HB 1483 is still in the House Commerce Committee, which will vote on the bill this coming Tuesday, March 3.  Express your concerns to members of the committee and your own representatives. 

SB 450 is on the Senate calendar for action by the full Senate on Thursday, March 5. Express your concerns to your senator.