“Dartmouth-Hitchcock is seeking early retirements from about 725 employees, or 8.3 percent of its staff, at its main employees campus, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, in Lebanon, and at community sites in Concord, Manchester, Nashua and Keene.
The state’s largest health care institution, with 8,700 employees, Dartmouth-Hitchcock said the realignment, which targets non-clinical staff, was in response to recent cuts by the state of New Hampshire in health care reimbursements.”
Recently, Dartmouth-Hitchcock joined nine other New Hampshire hospitals in a lawsuit against the state. The providers claim the state is violating the law by enacting $250 million in cuts to Medicaid payments. The lawsuit also accuses the state of levying an illegal 5.5 percent tax on large hospitals. NHPR Health Reporter Elaine Grant recently delved into the implications of the lawsuit, and how it ties into the hospital funding landscape nationwide. You can check out report here.
After a brief rally, AP Business Writer Stan Choe reports in The Boston Globe that the markets are once again sliding back downhill:
Mario Tama / Getty Images
It's been another up-and-down day on Wall Street as investors try to make out the long-term economic picture.
“The Dow Jones industrial average fell 413 points, or 3.7 percent, to 10,827in morning trading Wednesday. That erased nearly all of its 429 point gain from Tuesday, when the Federal Reserve pledged to keep its key interest rate at nearly zero into 2013.
Gold rose $30 per ounce to $1,773 as money poured into investments considered safe. The 10-year Treasury note, which has also served as a safe haven, also rose. Its yield fell to 2.14 percent from 2.26 percent late Tuesday. It had reached a record low of 2.03 percent on Tuesday. A bond’s yield falls when its price rises.
‘Investors are still trying to discern whether it’s going to be a double-dip recession or just a slowdown,’ said Oliver Pursche, president of Gary Goldberg Financial Services.”
With the markets in such a state of flux, it’s hard to pin down what the outcome will be for the broader economy in general, and the New England and New Hampshire economies in particular. But as Choe reports, something has changed, at least as far as the Fed’s concerned.
“As recently as June, the Fed said that the slowing recovery was due to temporary factors, such as high gasoline prices and the disruption to manufacturers following Japan’s March earthquake. But on Tuesday, the central bank acknowledged those factors were only part of the reason that the economy grew at its slowest pace in the first half of this year since the recession ended in June 2009.
The statement ‘was essentially a full admission that the Fed had not fully gotten their arms around the permanence to the weak trends in the economy,’ William O’Donnell, head of U.S. Treasury strategy at RBS Securities, wrote in a report.”
A spokeswoman for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston declined State Impact’s request for an interview, citing a customary “blackout” following Fed meetings.
“Easter Seals of Keene is closing its program for young children with disabilities due to lack of funding, but its clients won’t be left out in the cold.
Monadnock Developmental Services, which contracts with Easter Seals to provide services for developmentally disabled children from birth to age 3, is facing a 10 percent reduction in state funding this year. That means a 10 percent cut in the funding from the agency to Easter Seals, which led Easter Seals officials to close its Keene office.
Last year, Easter Seals received about $285,000 from Monadnock Developmental Services for its early supports and services program. This year’s figure will fall short of that by about $25,000, said Alan Greene, executive director for Keene-based Monadnock Developmental Services.
The agency is required by state law to provide the services, and will take over for Easter Seals immediately.
The Easter Seals program serves about 100 children with disabilities and their families, and will be terminated on Sept. 2, after 12 years, Easter Seals officials announced Monday.”
Jarvis reports that as Monadnock Developmental Services takes over young children’s programs, the agency hopes to be able to keep on some Easter Seals employees. MDS is also short on space, and wants to work something out with Easter Seals to use its soon-to-be-shuttered office. Whether these moves will represent a cost cut, a cost rise, or a break-even point for MDS–and by extension, the state–remains to be seen.
According to the Tax Foundation, 6.9 percent of New Hampshire’s direct spending went toward interest payments on debt in FY 2009. The only state that devoted a higher portion of its funds to interest was…Massachusetts, at 9.58 percent. (You can find more surprising comparisons between New Hampshire and Massachusetts here.)
Overall, New England eats up a goodly portion of the Top Ten, with Rhode Island at No. 3 and Connecticut at No. 4. Vermont, meanwhile, just misses the top ten at No. 11.
Maine makes the most respectable showing in New England at No. 20, with 3.67 percent of state spending going toward interest.
Tax Foundation
Most of the bottom 10 states for direct spending on interest payments are in the Northeast, while the top 10 are scattered throughout the Southeast, Southwest, Midwest, and Intermountain West.
Controversy over state funding for social and health services has already generated a high-profile lawsuit filed by 10 New Hampshire hospitals. Whether more lawsuits in response to the current budget are coming down the pike remains to be seen. But new one case, covered by Elizabeth Dinan at SeacoastOnline.com, has been percolating for years:
erjkprunczyk / Flickr
The state is accused of skipping out on its funding commitments to a series of children's homes in favor of beefing-up the general fund.
“Portsmouth’s Chase Home for Children and six affiliated homes for abused, neglected and delinquent youths have been underfunded by the state by millions of dollars, forcing one of them to turn to a food pantry to feed children, according to a Superior Court lawsuit.
At the same time the youth homes were underfunded by the state Department of Health and Human Services, DHHS returned unspent money to the state’s general fund, according to the lawsuit, filed by attorney Lisa Snow Wade of the Concord law firm, Orr and Reno.
The children placed in the seven homes “were some of New Hampshire’s most disturbed children; many had a variety of problems from mental illness to severe abuse, conduct disorders and all kinds of diagnosable mental conditions,” Wade wrote to the court. They were placed in the homes by the state, which failed to increase annual rates as required by law, beginning in 2004, according to the suit.”
“After years of not receiving property taxes, the town may have to take ownership of more than 80 properties later this fall.
Both business and residential property owners owe the town for nonpayment of taxes as far back as 2005. Although it’s a significant number, members of the Board of Selectmen, who make the final decision on taking deeds for nonpayment, hope the number of liens dwindle by Oct. 31.”
In today’s Nashua Telegraph, Michael Brindley summarizes the findings of the yearly New Hampshire Kids Count Data Survey from the Children’s Alliance of NH. Unsuprisingly, the study finds the recession has been tough for an increasing number of kids,
“…an average of 16.8 percent of children aged 0 to 17, or one out of every six minors, participated in the food stamp program in 2008 and 2009. During that period, overall participation increased by 19 percent, according to the study.
This was attributed to factors such as rising unemployment during the recession and the rising cost of food…
…the highest participation rate was in Coos County, at 31.7 percent.”
It's been a crazy week on Wall Street, but how it will affect an already complicated picture of consumer confidence--if at all--remains to be seen.
“The Dow plunged nearly 513 points Thursday, its biggest point decline since Oct. 22, 2008. Only three of the 500 stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index had gains. Oil fell by 6 percent. The yield on the two-year Treasury note hit a record low as investors sought out relatively stable investments.” Continue Reading →
Although New Hampshire is the clear winner in the cross-border business recruitment game, some Granite State businesses are finding our southern neighbor to be a welcoming place.
Are New Hampshire’s low tax policies helping it attract economic development? The jumping-off point for this post, and a related post from last week, is data on the movement of businesses and jobs between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The image perpetuated by area media more or less fits the mold of a piece in The Boston Globe that characterizes New Hampshire as the beneficiary of jobs and companies leaving Massachusetts. As the writer notes, New Hampshire is a business-friendly, no-frills place, and its super-lenient tax code is a constant temptation for Massachusetts establishments weighed-down by a bloated, spendthrift state.
But various studies and data point to a more complex relationship between New Hampshire, Massachusetts, businesses and taxes. And from that information, we’ve found five points on economic development that are often lost in the broader story.
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