House Budget Funding for the NH Department of Health and Human Services

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is the largest State agency, with responsibility for major program areas including child protection at the Division of Children, Youth, and Families; Medicaid, which helps about 178,000 people access health care, including children and those with disabilities; the Food Stamp Program, which provides food assistance to about 76,000 Granite Staters; substance use disorder treatment and services; and mental health services.

Both Governor Sununu and the New Hampshire House of Representatives have produced recommended budgets for the next State Budget biennium, which is the two years beginning July 1, 2019. Funding for the DHHS is an important part of both budget proposals. (To learn more about each budget proposal in detail, see NHFPI’s Issue Briefs The Governor’s Budget Proposal, State Fiscal Years 2020-2021 and The House State Budget for State Fiscal Years 2020 and 2021.)

The Data Viz below shows the changes in funding levels for DHHS Activity Units, which are more granular measures of State agency operations than department-level measures, between actual State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2019 adjusted authorized funding levels and those proposed in the Governor’s and the House SFY 2020 proposals. Comparing without the context of the DHHS’s budget requests does not permit understanding of planned department reorganizations or policy changes, so some increases or reductions may not reflect weighed policy choices as much as the evolution of agency structures or accounting units.

Explore the interactive Data Viz below to understand the proposed appropriations from the Governor and the House relative to the current year’s funding levels. For more context relative to these requests, see other recent NHFPI Data Viz posts:

Examining the Governor’s and House Budgets by State Agency – April 30, 2019
Examining the Governor’s Budget Proposal by Activity Unit – March 29, 2019
Exploring the State Agency Budget Requests – February 8, 2019
State Agency Budget Requests with Historical Context – February 8, 2019
Trends Among State Budget Categories – February 8, 2019
NH Department of Health and Human Services Budget Request – February 8, 2019

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