Where is the money for HB-162 going to come from?

[Woodsy]

The House of Representatives has passed on HB-162 as an unfunded mandate to the Senate. Although it was mentioned several times during the debate, nobody from the House wanted to send this bill to the finance committee. I wonder why?

I think funding HB-162 is going to be the issue, and I have said that from the begininng.

The legislature will have to purchase 45/25 signs for every public boat launch in the state (excepting those lakes with motorized limits). That will cost an estimated $100,000 or so, with a recurring cost of $2500 or so to replace signs due to vandalism etc. While they are at it, they ought to make Boater Education Required signs as well.... but thats just me. Maybe they could incorporate both on 1 sign? No doubt they will stick to the federal speed limit sign design.

Lets assume the MP buys 6 guns at $1200 each... thats about $7200. Not all that big of an expense, and the recurring costs of replacement and calibration will run about $300 or so per gun per year, again, not a huge expense. I used 6, as on the assumption that they will need 2 for Seacoast, 2 For Lake Winnipesaukee, and 2 to roam the other lakes of the state. They may purchase more, but its more of manpower issue.

Now here is the big expense.... TRAINING! In order for a court to recognize a speeding ticket resulting from using radar in NH, a NH State Trooper has to complete a 2 week radar training course at the State Police Academy. Because HB-162 ties speeding tickets issued on the water to your drivers license, the MP will have to conform to the same standard. The kicker is the MP only have 15 full time officers. They hire approximately 100 part-timers for the summer. Now if they send just those 15 to the two week radar training course, you are looking at 30 weeks of salary (2 weeks per officer), plus the whatever the cost of the course is per officer. I am conservatively estimating that cost to be about $80,000 to $100,000 for the 15 officers. I doubt the MP would spend the money to radar train the PT officers.

Lets assume they split up the 15 officers equally. 5 for the Seacoast, 5 roaming, and 5 for Lake Winnipesaukee. Given that the MP in the summer is pretty much a 24-7 job, its a pretty safe assumption that on the busiest of summer weekends, no more than 2 radar qualified officers (and more than likely only 1) will be operating on Lake Winnipesaukee at any given time.

Now for the real costs.... Court time! Whomever is issued a speeding ticket, will no doubt fight it. The costs of paying the MP officer overtime, the costs of the court (judges, clerks etc) will easily exceed another $100,000 or so per year, recurring.

Every lawyer in the state that wants to make some easy money representing boat speeding cases will have a copy of the letter obtained by NHRBA from Kustom Signals on file that specifically states thier radar isn't accurate at distances greater than 1/4 mile etc etc. No doubt securing a dismissal of the speeding ticket.

The MP will have to issue a similar number of tickets to family boats as it does to Hi-performance boats. Otherwise thats profiling, and we all know how well that goes over with the courts.

So the breakdown is as such...

$100,000 for signage (initial cost)
$2500/yr (recurring signage cost)
$7200 for radar guns (initial cost)
$1800/yr (recurring radar costs)
$90000 (initial radar training for 15 FT MP officers)
$100,000 (recurring court costs)

Total startup costs... $297,200
Recurring costs per year... $104,300

I am sure I didn't factor in all of the costs. But the numbers are pretty high. I wonder where the money is going to come from?

Woodsy