Legislative Update: A New Session Begins

The information contained in this article is not intended as legal advice and may no longer be accurate due to changes in the law. Consult NHMA's legal services or your municipal attorney.

The 2024 election brought about a few changes at the State House. Along with a crop of new faces, the Republicans gained a decisive edge in the house (222-178), a larger share of the senate (16-8), and the governor's office. In total, the House welcomed some 130 new members, while the Senate welcomed six. With such a big change, a major focus over the beginning of the session will be introducing NHMA – who we are and what we do – to new legislators.

While that is occurring, there will be plenty of bill hearings to attend. Although it is too early to know what specific bills will be a major focus this year, we have some early indications of topics:

The State Budget: A perennial topic, the state budget is likely to be tight. There was little in the way of surplus this year, and we anticipate further belt tightening over the coming budget cycle. State agencies were instructed to cut around 4% from their current budgets, and we are concerned that similar cuts will be proposed for state aid to municipalities. While we are hoping for additional monies for infrastructure like roads, water, and sewers, the reality is that those additional allocations are unlikely.

Municipal Budgeting: In line with tightening the state belt, several bills propose different options on municipal budgeting. Most would focus on tax caps or other restrictions on municipalities being able to raise revenue, while some would increase opportunities for non-property tax revenue, either through transferring existing monies, allowing local option fees, or changing an existing revenue structure.

The Right to Know Law: With a refiling of two different variants of last year’s HB 1069 (which we opposed) and at least six additional Right-to-Know Law bills, cities and towns will have to pay particular attention to proposals to change that law.

Statewide Zoning Mandates: Many legislators ran on a platform that included doing something about the cost of housing. More than a dozen bills have been filed in the aftermath of the election, and many of those would override local control. Repeated appearances of bills on Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), changes to the state building code, and other proposals will likely feature prominently in the news over the next few months.

If you have not already, please subscribe to our weekly Legislative Bulletin to be sure that you are kept up to date as we find out more about what legislators are interested in this year and have hearings on the hundreds
of bills of municipal interest. And, remember, we also have our bill tracking software on our website under the Advocacy tab, which allows you to see what bills we are tracking both by subject area as well as our very
long all bills list. If you are interested, you can subscribe to weekly or daily updates to bill tables, ensuring that you have information about what’s happening that affects you as soon as it happens.

We also ask that you introduce yourselves and your municipality to any new legislators who represent you. We know that many of the incoming legislators have never served in local government and our experience
is that they appreciate knowing whom to call locally when they have questions about how bills about local government would impact their own towns.

Last, if you have not already, please remember to loop us in on any bills that you have requested your legislators submit on behalf of your city or town. We keep track of that internally so that we can report to our policy conference committees what cities and towns have asked for in the past biennium. Our reports ensure that our committees know what our membership cares about and allow them to set policies that help improve local government for everyone.