House Republicans voted Thursday to allocate proceeds from the anticipated sale of the state’s youth detention center to its general fund rather than to the fund created to resolve over 1,000 cases of abuse that allegedly occurred there.
The Claims Administration and Settlement fund, established by the legislature in 2022, is set to run out of money by the next fiscal year. Lawmakers had previously contemplated relying on the proceeds of the sale of the Sununu Youth Services Center to replenish it.
But the House budget trailer bill passed last year created a conflict: One portion of the legislation appeared to direct the revenue generated from the sale to the state’s general fund, while another allocated it to the settlement fund.
The building sale could net as much as $80 million, according to state projections. After previously committing to allocate up to $75 million per year to the settlement fund, lawmakers only allocated $20 million this year.
Republican Rep. Brian Seaworth of Pembroke referred to the general fund allocation as merely “housekeeping” to clean up duplicative language. He also said it would make more sense to allocate the money to the general fund due to uncertainty about when the sale will occur.
“Given all the possible options, it makes sense to keep the future decision about what we might do with the money a year from now, two years from now, ten years from now open,” Seaworth said.
House Democrats argued that lawmakers were betraying the more than 2,000 survivors who say they were abused as children in state facilities.
“When the state sells the very property tied to the abuse, where should it go?” Democrat David Preece of Manchester asked. “Should it go toward helping to meet our moral and legal obligations to the victims, or should it disappear into the general fund to be spent on unrelated government operations?”
“This is not about accounting; it’s about accountability,” Preece added.
The bill passed, 186-157, largely along party lines, with all but four Republicans supporting it and all Democrats opposing it.
The House amended a Senate bill, SB 481, which would have conditioned the destination of the fund on when the sale occurred. The version of the bill approved by the Senate would have directed the proceeds to the general fund if the sale was finalized before June 30, 2027, and to the settlement fund otherwise.
The version approved by the House will now return to the Senate.
