On Thursday, February 3, at 11:00 a.m. LOB 301-303, the Municipal & County Government Committee will hear testimony on two similar bills. The first, HB 1155, states that an elected board member who is also appointed to, serving on, or is a liaison to another local board in the same jurisdiction, shall be a nonvoting, ex officio member of any such local board to which the person was not elected. One of the confusing aspects of this bill is that, as written, anyone who is elected to a local board who also “serves on” another local body is automatically deemed as a “nonvoting, ex officio” member which may, of course, encompass other positions to which they may be elected. Someone who is elected to both the select board and library trustees, for example, would, under this law, somehow be a “nonvoting, ex officio” on one of those boards, but it is unclear which one. Further, since an ex officio member is a member of a body who is part of it by virtue of holding another office, presumably, a member of a board would only qualify as an ex officio – which, by its nature has all the privileges of a regular member, including voting – if appointed to that board by some other board on which he or she is serving.

The second bill, HB 1223, requires, among other things, that all scheduled meetings shall be attended in person by all elected members. The law further provides that any member of an elected budget committee who fails to attend two or more scheduled and noticed meetings or 25 percent of such meetings annually shall be considered to have created a vacancy in the elected position, which shall be filled as provided by RSA 32:15, VII. (That statute provides that vacancies in elected budget committees shall be filled by appointment by the remainder of the budget committee.) There is no provision in the bill to allow for exceptions, such as might be needed if a board member is undergoing a lengthy medical procedure, such as cancer treatment.

While we sympathize with the concerns about elected officials not showing up, we are concerned about the practicality of requiring attendance at all meetings and automatically removing them if they do not. It is hard to imagine that individuals with good excuses – medical treatment, emergencies, etc. – are on the same footing as those who simply have no excuse for not showing up. Yet, this bill would treat both groups in the same manner. There may be very good reasons that members cannot attend meetings and, more poignantly, voters are given the opportunity to choose other individuals to serve in that capacity if they are displeased with the results being generated by the committee when it comes time to elect individuals to that committee. Complicating matters further, towns routinely struggle to find volunteers for both elected and appointed positions, so creating more vacancies to fill is unlikely to make local government more efficient. We encourage our members to contact the Municipal & County Government Committee to express their opposition to both HB 1155 and HB 1223.

Beginning next week, the House Municipal & County Government Committee will have several hearings on bills that would create statewide zoning mandates, all of which NHMA opposes.

On Thursday, February 3 at 11:30 a.m. in LOB 301-303, the committee will hear testimony on HB 1219, which would create a new section in RSA 674, devoted to “religious-use parking spaces” at a “religious institution-affiliated housing development project.” In short, the bill seeks to substantially limit the number of parking spaces required by a planning board for certain types of religious institutions. However, the bill contains no definition of “religious-use parking spaces” or “religious institution-affiliated housing development project.” While it can be surmised that the parking spaces must somehow relate to a housing development project developed by a religious institution, how exactly that relationship functions is left uncertain by the bill’s language.

On Friday, February 4, beginning at 9:30 a.m., the committee will hear two additional bills targeting municipal zoning ordinances. The first, HB 1087, would prohibit a municipal zoning ordinance from requiring a lot size of more than 10,000 square feet for single family housing lots that are serviced by public water and sewer, as long as the lot does not exceed the existing water or sewer capacity. We understand this bill is designed to promote density, but we are concerned that it would have the unintended consequence of discouraging municipalities thinking of expanding their water or sewer lines lest they be subjected to this statewide zoning requirement.

The second bill, HB 1098, is another parking restriction bill, but a simpler one. It would merely prohibit a zoning ordinance from requiring more than one parking space per dwelling unit. We are concerned that such a limitation would encourage developers to build apartment and condo complexes with insufficient parking for the number of expected vehicles, forcing residents to find alternative, offsite parking. With winter weather parking bans and already difficult parking situations in many municipalities, this could lead to serious headaches, and discourage tourists who might otherwise flock to downtowns between ski runs and leaf peeping outings.

Finally, on Monday, February 7 at 9:00 a.m., the committee will consider HB 1177, requiring all zoning ordinances to allow, by right, any single-family home in a residential zoning district serviced by public water and sewer to be used for up to four dwelling units. Under the bill, the parking requirements for a four-unit building could be no more restrictive than those required for a single-family dwelling.  Again, we are concerned about the unintended consequences of the bill, and not just with parking. The bill does not contemplate the additional burden on municipal water and sewer, or the building and life-safety code requirements to ensure that occupants can safely occupy converted units.

In addition to the above listed bills, there are several more zoning mandate bills pending in the legislature this year, including HB 1068, requiring zoning ordinances to allow tiny houses in residential districts; SB 244, mandating that municipalities allow existing non-confirming structures to be converted to an accessory dwelling unit (ADU); and, of course, SB 249, prohibiting municipalities from prohibiting or regulating through zoning the use of residential homes as short-term rental businesses. SB 249 had a lengthy hearing this past week in the Senate Commerce Committee, and we wrote about it extensively in Bulletin #4.

On Monday, February 7, at 10:30 a.m. in LOB Room 302-304, the House Executive Departments and Administration Committee will vote on its recommendation for HB 1535. That bill would provide a 1.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to all New Hampshire Retirement System (NHRS) retirees who have been retired at least 5 years by July 1, 2023, on the first $30,000 of a retired member’s annual allowance. The cost of this COLA is estimated at $1.8 billion, which would be added to future employer contribution rates to address the increased unfunded liability. The passage of this bill would result in additional employer contribution rates in the estimated amounts of 4.35% for municipal employees, 5.48% for teachers, 8.19% for police and 7.72% for fire. In dollars, that is an estimated impact of $135 million in fiscal year 2024, $139 million in 2025, and $142 million in 2026.

We continue to express concern that financing retiree COLAs through increased employer contribution rates violates the unfunded mandate provision in Part 1, Article 28-a of the New Hampshire Constitution. We have no objection to COLAs, but in the past COLAs have always been paid for by the state or from the “special account,” not by additional assessments on municipal, school, and county employers.  Unless the state is willing to fully fund the upfront cost of this proposal, this mandated increases in retirement costs will cripple local budgets and downshift the burden onto local taxpayers.

Please contact the House Executive Departments and Administration Committee to share this concern and ask the committee to support a motion of Inexpedient to Legislate.