Josiah Bartlett Institute is a free market think tank based in Concord. They gave a "how the NH Budget works" talk last night which I attended. The speaker was Charlie Arlinghaus and the hall was well filled.
The State budget is complex, possibly deliberately so. Much, but not all, spending comes from the "General Fund" But there are a lot of special dedicated funds like Highways and Turnpikes and Fish and Game. There is an "Education Trust Fund" which is sort of, partly, but not completely, separate from the General Fund. In actual fact the legislature can and does move money between the General Fund and the Education Trust Fund pretty much at will. And Education Trust Fund money can be used for purposes other than educational. The General Fund accounts for only 44% of state spending, the other funds kick in to supply the remaining 66%.
Then the budget is supposed to be for two years. But the funds allocated are allocated by year, so the two year budget looks a lot like two one year budgets packed into the same yellow manila envelope. Whether the legislature gets to revise the two year budget every year was not made clear.
Between the "44% budget" and the "100% budget" and the one and two year budgets there lie enormous possibilities for confusion. From now on, I will be skeptical of claims that the budget has been cut, raised, saved, spindled, stapled or mutilated. I will suspect that the advocate is comparing the two year budget with the one year budget, or the 44% budget with the 100% budget.
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