Action Alert: Legislation Targets LCHIP’s Dedicated Fund

The Ways and Means Committee in the New Hampshire House of Representatives will hold a hearing on February 17 at 2:00 on House Bill 621. If passed into law, this legislation will allow the registers of deeds to retain a portion of the dedicated Land and Community Heritage Investment Program fee.  

The Forest Society opposes this bill, as stated in our testimony. While we understand the archival restoration of the official land record for the counties is a significant and important responsibility of the county registers, the bill unfortunately places a financial burden on LCHIP. 

We encourage readers to contact the House Ways and Means Committee to express opposition to HB 621. 

To register your position, simply click this link: http://gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/remotetestimony/default.aspx and select Wednesday 2/17 as the hearing date. Then select the “House Ways and Means Committee” and “HB 621” from the dropdown menus. 

You can also email the House Ways and Means Committee members using this link: http://gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/committeedetails.aspx?id=19

These are the key points to make with the Committee members:

1. The bill will divert between $364,000 to $468,000 away from LCHIP each year.
2. Although the goal of the bill- to archive and restore county records- is important, it is not the responsibility of LCHIP to fund that work. 
3. In fact, RSA 478:1 states that the maintenance and care of the county records is the duty of each county.
4. Passage of the bill will simply reduce LCHIP’s ability to carry out its mission by reducing the resources available to the program.