Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed New Hampshire’s two budget bills — House Bill 1 and House Bill 2 — into law Friday, approving a $15.9 billion two-year package to fund the state government until July 2027.
The governor also signed a third compromise bill, House Bill 282, meant to address her concerns over education funding and changes to the retirement system, and to head off her threats of a veto.
The signatures mark a political victory for the governor, when the outcome was hardly certain. Just one week after House and Senate negotiators made reductions to health care spending, education aid to Manchester school districts, and a proposed fix to police and firefighter retirement benefits championed by Ayotte, the governor had vowed to veto the budget without changes.
That pledge kicked off days of negotiations that culminated in a last-minute deal Wednesday evening that Ayotte endorsed.
But a faction of fiscally conservative House Republicans who objected to spending increases nearly derailed the process, joining with Democrats to briefly defeat HB 1 on Thursday before the vote was reconsidered and the bill was passed.
In the end, after months of sharp disagreements among the Republican governor, the House, and the Senate over how much the state could afford, Ayotte emerged with a budget that kept much of the funding she proposed in February.
The final package signed Friday restored many of the cuts made to Ayotte’s budget by the House, which took a more conservative approach.