New Hampshire’s right-to-know ombudsman position has been vacant for a year

In 2023, New Hampshire established a right-to-know ombudsman, a state mediator tasked with helping citizens and government officials navigate the often tricky disputes that arise during open records requests. However, one year after the first person to hold the position resigned, Gov. Kelly Ayotte has yet to fill the position.

New Hampshire’s right-to-know law — RSA 91-A — allows residents to request government records from state and local agencies. It’s designed to ensure transparency, accountability, and proper use of taxpayer funds and state resources.

Some records, like state employee personnel records, public school exam questions, and grand jury records, are exempt from the law. But government officials and people requesting records often disagree about what is considered exempt under the law.

Requesters can take these disputes to superior court to be resolved, but that process is lengthy and expensive. The right-to-know ombudsman was established to create a quicker, cheaper, and easier way to settle these disputes (though it hasn’t always been successful in settling them).

However, after the Legislature shrunk the position’s salary and spending budget from $105,000 to $30,000, Thomas Kehr, a local attorney whom former Gov. Chris Sununu appointed to be the first ombudsman in late 2022, resigned from the role in July 2025. In the year since, Ayotte — who has been governor since January 2025 — hasn’t nominated anyone to replace Kehr. This has left New Hampshire residents without the ombudsman option.

The governor’s office did not respond to the Bulletin’s emails asking why Ayotte hasn’t nominated anyone, if she intends to nominate someone soon, and if the reduced salary and hours are making hiring difficult.

Some in the right-to-know world aren’t fans of the ombudsman position to begin with. William Chapman is a Concord-based attorney who specializes in media law. He’s represented journalists, newspapers, and other media organizations in New Hampshire for decades, including on several high-profile right-to-know challenges. He believes the ombudsman adds “an unnecessary step” and “doesn’t hasten the production of the records.”

The right-to-know ombudsman’s rulings aren’t binding. Therefore, Chapman explained, when the ombudsman rules in favor of the requester, the agency seeking to deny access to records can simply take it to superior court.

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He doesn’t buy the argument that the ombudsman actually offers a quicker, cheaper, and easier way to solve disputes.

“That’s just theory,” he said, “but the reality is if the municipality doesn’t like the result it can go to superior court. So now, whatever time you’ve taken to get the issue before the ombudsman and get a decision from the ombudsman, however many weeks you’ve taken to do that, at the end of the day, you get nothing. You’ve got to go to superior court.”

Chapman said lawmakers who wish to increase government transparency should consider speeding up deadlines for when agencies have to respond to requests and set a deadline for when superior court has to set an initial hearing date after a requester files suit.

“The pressure ought to be on the front end of the process,” he said. “Shorten the time for a response and accelerate a date for a court hearing.”

In the past year, civic organizations in New Hampshire have used the right-to-know law to hold the government accountable, expose wrongdoing, and educate citizens on what the government is doing on their behalf using their tax dollars.

When New Hampshire Public Radio got a tip that an employee in the state’s judicial branch and the chief justice of the Supreme Court completed an unusual hiring maneuver that allowed the employee to collect an additional $50,000 in taxpayer money, it used the right-to-know law to collect evidence confirming the allegations for an October story.

In February, the ACLU of New Hampshire obtained documents through a right-to-know request that confirmed the federal government’s plans to convert a Merrimack warehouse into an immigrant detention center — plans that were only rumors beforehand and that have since been scrapped following intense local pushback and protests.

The Bulletin used the law extensively to investigate rampant abuse and neglect of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities living in New Hampshire’s taxpayer-funded and state-regulated care system for a series published in November. While seeking documents for the series, the Bulletin appeared in front of Kehr for an official ombudsman hearing.