This week, Senate President Donna Soucy and House Speaker Steve Shurtleff wrote an op-ed that was printed in several newspapers. In the op-ed they wrote, “To help stop the coronavirus and protect the health and well-being of our members, staff and the public, we made the unprecedented decision to suspend all legislative activities through May 4, in conjunction with Gov. Chris Sununu’s emergency stay-at-home order.” Later in the op-ed they said, “Fortunately, the technology of the 21st century presents opportunities for remote legislating that we are actively exploring.”
As we mentioned last week, the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee will be holding its first-ever remote meeting today for the purpose of accepting federal funds under the CARES act. We will keep you posted on whether legislative leadership decides to expand this technology to other committees.
This week the Governor established GOFERR (Governor’s Office for Emergency Relief and Recovery) which will be the office overseeing all outbreak related federal funds. Yesterday he named Former State Senator and current Banking Commissioner Jerry Little to be the Director of that Office. The Governor also established a bipartisan Legislative Advisory Board within the office to ensure transparency and provide input into the process.
Lastly, the NH Education Commissioner has indicated that the Governor will decide no later than April 17 if schools will re-open. This may give us some indication on the timeframe for how long the stay-at –home order will continue.
We will continue to keep you updated, but if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.