AG requests $4.3 million in additional state funding for litigation, including YDC abuse cases

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office asked executive councilors and lawmakers on the state’s Fiscal Committee for an additional roughly $4.3 million to pay for litigation costs related to abuse allegations in the state’s juvenile justice system and other lawsuits. (Photo by William Skipworth/New Hampshire Bulletin)

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office asked executive councilors and lawmakers on the state’s Fiscal Committee for an additional roughly $4.3 million to pay for litigation costs related to a number of lawsuits the state faced, including abuse allegations in the state’s juvenile justice system.

The funding is in addition to what the state Legislature budgeted for the Attorney General’s Office. However, it is typical for the office to request funding outside of the two-year budgeting process. State law specifically instructs the attorney general, unlike other state agencies, to spend more money than is budgeted for this purpose, with the approval of the Fiscal Committee and Executive Council.

“For the last decade-plus, that’s how our litigation fund has been run,” Attorney General John Formella told councilors during Wednesday’s Executive Council meeting. “The Legislature budgets an amount that I think everyone understands is not going to be enough, and the plan is for us to have to do the work, try to figure out what we’re going to need for a particular fiscal year, come to the Fiscal Committee and the Governor and Council to ask them for it.”

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This funding is meant to cover the costs the state incurs in litigating the cases, not any settlements it is ordered to pay out as a result of these cases.

Approximately $1.5 million of the $4.3 million is being used to litigate cases related to abuse at the former Youth Development Center, a juvenile justice facility in Manchester that has been the center of one of the largest child abuse scandals in U.S. history, Formella said.

Formella told councilors the $4.3 million is actually a cost-savings.

“I will note that we really worked hard to cut down on our request this fiscal year knowing the budget challenges the state is facing,” he said. “This is 40% less than we requested last fiscal year, and while that is in part due to just the cases, we’ve also been able to achieve some pretty significant savings by just spreading work around the office, taking some work from one area of the office and applying it to another area of the office.”

Both the Executive Council and the Fiscal Committee approved the funding.