Week Twelve - April 10, 2009

This electronic publication, known as The Advocate, is brought to you each Friday by your Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with our friends at Devine Millimet & Branch, and ActiveEdge. Please use this piece to review what has happened in Concord this past week, read about our Chamber's lobbying efforts relating to those activities, and preview what we are doing on behalf of our Chamber members in the coming week.

This Week’s Update

Crossover is finally here. We are officially halfway through the legislative process for the year., and as always, there are both good and bad bills moving forward.

PROBLEMS

SB 40: Duty to Warn of Layoffs
The fight continues. SB 40, which requires advanced notice for plant closings and mass layoffs for all businesses and non-profit organizations with 75 or more employees, is clearly our top legislative priority at this point. It narrowly passed the Senate this week on a 12-10 vote.

We owe a huge thank-you to Senator Bette Lasky, one of our own two senators from Nashua, who always listens and understands the business concerns and needs of the Nashua businesses area as well as the state businesses. Lasky joined two other senators from our region, Senators Peter Bragdon and Sharon Carson, in support of our failed attempt to ask for more time in the Senate for this bill to undergo further review. We had hoped that, given the tremendous impacts of this bill and the many questions about it that are yet to be answered, the Senate would use one of its legislative options to hold the bill for further study. Unfortunately, the Senate thought better of this, and passed the bill onto the House, where we will now have to work out our concerns.

The bill that passed eliminates personal liability provisions but still contains classic ‘piercing the corporate veil’ provisions. The language very specifically applies liability to “any entity that directly or indirectly owns and operates a business enterprise in New Hampshire ... and goes to say that “any parent corporation is an employer as to any business enterprise that is directly owned and operated by its corporate subsidiary.”

Some of the floor debate on this bill was very discouraging from the perspective of understanding the current business climate specifically in New Hampshire, and in terms of the state’s message being sent to businesses thinking of locating or expanding in New Hampshire.

Senator Hassan of Exeter stated on the floor that, “…I understand that corporations don’t like the parent corporation piece very much. They would like things to stay just as they are. They would like a WARN Act to be on the books in the State of New Hampshire in which, if there’s a violation, there is no way to actually make the employees whole.” This statement completely ignores the multiple times we have publicly said that we support a state version of the federal WARN Act, and it also ignores the fact that it was the business community itself that proposed the lien language that is now a part of the bill, as a way to make sure the employees are indeed made whole under future violations. Finally, the statement also implies that the private sector is actively trying to shirk their responsibilities to their employees, which could not be further from the truth for so many of our Chamber members who work hard every day to ensure that their employees are well taken care of.

Senator Cilley of Barrington went even further by lumping the entire NH business community under one umbrella, and blaming it for the sins of national companies like AIG. In her statement, she noted the terrible violations of these national companies (which, by the way, aren’t located in New Hampshire), and then used them as a basis to say that “we will no longer tolerate irresponsible corporate behavior [in New Hampshire].”

The Chamber, along with other business groups, is continuing to work on SB 40. New Hampshire must not lose its perception as a good place where good businesses come to do business.

House Budget Gets Passed
The $11.5 billion budget for the next fiscal year, with all sorts of new fees and taxes, has passed the House. The vote on the spending side was 193-174, while the vote on the tax increases to pay for that spending was only 182 - 165. It will be very interesting to see what the Senate does with all these new taxes, while revenues are declining and unemployment is increasing.

New taxes
Who will pay - people who drive, gamble, smoke or chew tobacco, eat out, stay in hotels, sell stock or a house at a profit or die.

The biggest difference in the Governor’s budget and the House budget, beside the capital gains and estate taxes, is $140 million in current state revenues. The House budget projects a $140 million decline in revenues in 2010 and 2011.

Highlights of House Budget
$200 million increase in taxes:

• 8% estate tax on estates over $2 million.
• 5% capital gains tax on all gains (stocks, real estate, etc.) that total over $5,000 per person.

• 48.9% tax (up from 19%) on all tobacco products except premium cigars. $.35 increase per pack on cigarettes.
• 10% tax on gambling winnings including bingo, the lottery, etc.
• 3/4% increase in rooms and meals tax (8% - 8.75%).
• Increasing the gas tax over 3 years by $.05 per year.
• No free state-provided health insurance for retired state employees under 65. They will pay 11.5% of their pension for health insurance.
• Laconia prison will close.
• Some liquor stores will close.
• Educational adequacy grants fully funded at a $123 million increase for the biennium.
• At least 200 state employee layoffs.
• No school building aid.
• $60 million per year in rooms and meals tax will go back to municipalities (Lynch suspended).
• Revenue sharing with municipalities suspended - $50 million per y ear.
• $16 million new money will fund the development disabilities waitlist for 2010 only.
• Closing of four district courts.
• Privatization of state welcome centers and rest areas.

SUCCESS

SB 5, the bill that prohibits New Hampshire retailers from becoming tax agents for
Massachusetts, passed the Senate unanimously. We are hoping this piece of legislation will
move swiftly through the House and be one of the first on the Governor’s desk for him to sign into law.

Among the most onerous to be KILLED were:

SB152
SB 152, the study committee and 90-day suspension of the PSNH Merrimack Station scrubber technology project, was killed 21-1 in the Senate. The Chamber lobbied this one hard as it set a horrible precedent for business looking to come to New Hampshire. The legislature orders you to put in new technology, you begin to comply, then the legislature changes its mind – millions of dollars later. The defeat of this bill is also good news for the rail project, since without the continued use of the rail line to ship the coal, our commuter rail project was in jeopardy.

HB104
would have repealed the law authorizing the Supreme Court to establish a business and
commercial dispute docket in the superior court.

HB 163
provides that firefighters, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), police officers, and
other public safety officers shall not have their right to compensation for wrongfully or
negligently caused injuries denied or limited by the “fireman’s rule,” or any other similar rights-depriving rule.

HB 197
would have established that fault and damages may be apportioned by the trial judge in
jury instructions and by the jury only against parties to an action who are before the court at the time of such instructions or apportionment.

HB 625
HB 628, sought to establish tangible personal property inventory and use taxes. Ten percent of revenues collected from the taxes are to be deposited in a special mass transit fund to be used to establish, improve, or expand public transportation services. The bill also repeals a prohibition on taxation of motor vehicles.

HB 203
would have eliminated the requirement that the trial judge present unanimous findings
of the screening panel to the jury in medical injury actions.

The onerous bills that we will need to work on over the summer, which were RETAINED, are:

HB 108
establishes procedures for a private right of action to recover workers’ compensation
coverage payments.

HB 133
requires companies that have reduced their employment in New Hampshire by 50 or more employees to supply certain information to the department of labor including the number of jobs that were lost to outsourcing to foreign countries.

HB 478
requires consumer products or identification documents with remotely readable devices
to include a consumer notice to that effect. Prohibits the implantation of a remotely readable
device in a human without the individual’s informed, written consent. Prohibits electronic
tracking of another individual with certain limited exceptions. Amends the definition of payment card and reencoding for purposes of the crime of using a scanning device or reencoder for fraudulent purposes.

Acknowledgements

This weekly update is made possible by the generous support of Devine Millimet & Branch, one of the state’s top law firms and our Chamber’s contracted representative in Concord. If your business has a legislative or local issue that needs strategic consulting and attention, they are a valuable resource that can help navigate you through both local and state processes.

This weekly update is designed and maintained by our friends at ActiveEdge, and we thank them for their help in delivering this piece to your inbox every Friday!

If you have questions about this update, or comments to share with us about other issues in Concord, please email Chris Williams at cwilliams@nashuachamber.com. We want to be sure we're representing you to the best of our ability, so do not hesitate to reach out to us!

J. Christopher Williams
President & CEO
Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce
151 Main St.
Nashua, NH 03060
Phone: 603.881.8333
Fax: 603.881.7323