NH Paid $2.4M for a Rights Panel That Let Cases Expire
Summary
A New Hampshire legislative audit found the state's Commission for Human Rights averaged 2.3 years to close a discrimination complaint in 2023, missing its own two-year statutory deadline on 62% of cases and letting 27% run past the three-year window New Hampshire law gives complainants to sue at all. New Hampshire's General Fund paid $2.37 million to keep the commission running from 2020 through 2023 -- more than three times what the commission earned in federal funds over the same years. Fifteen months later, the commission says cases now close in about 20 months, but it is running on seven investigators against the 14 its own chairman calls a reasonable staffing level, with three more positions still unfunded.
A two-year deadline missed six times in ten
RSA 354-A:21, IV⧉ -- the statute governing New Hampshire's ban on discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and K-12 education -- requires the Commission to 'close each case or commence adjudicative proceedings ... within 24 months after the filing date of the complaint'⧉, a 730-day clock. In SFY2023, it took an average of 557 days -- 1.5 years -- just to assign a filed case to an investigator⧉; the investigation itself then averaged roughly another year. Of the 228 case files the audit reviewed, 142 -- 62.3% -- closed after that two-year target had already passed⧉.
View data as table
| Statutory target (RSA 354-A:21, IV) | 730 | Two years to close a case or start a formal hearing -- the law's own deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Average time to assign an investigator | 557 | 1.5 years just to start work on a filed case |
| Average time to close a case | 840 | 2.3 years -- 110 days past the statutory target |
For a quarter of cases, the delay itself was the verdict
New Hampshire also gives discrimination complainants a separate right under RSA 354-A:21-a⧉: if the Commission doesn't resolve a case, a complainant can bring their own civil action in Superior Court -- but 'not later than 3 years after the alleged unlawful practice occurred'⧉. The audit found 62 of 228 closed SFY2023 cases (27.2%) took the Commission longer than three years to resolve⧉, meaning those complainants' own case dragging on inside the Commission was what closed the courthouse door on them. The audit noted the Commission itself argued the opposite position in 2024, telling the New Hampshire Supreme Court in an amicus brief that its two-year deadline was a 'target' rather than a firm requirement⧉ -- the Court dismissed that case as 'improvidently accepted' without ruling on the question.
View data as table
| Cases reviewed, SFY2023 closures | 228 | The audit's full file-review sample |
|---|---|---|
| Missed the 2-year statutory deadline | 142 | 62.3% -- closed after RSA 354-A:21's own 730-day target |
| Missed the 3-year court deadline entirely | 62 | 27.2% -- these complainants lost the right to sue in Superior Court |
$2.37 million to run an office that was 57% staffed
New Hampshire's General Fund covered a $2,373,654 shortfall⧉ between what the Commission spent and what it brought in from SFY2020 through SFY2023 -- more than three times the $704,134 the Commission earned in federal funds over those same four years. Yet as of February 2025, 12 of the Commission's 21 authorized positions sat vacant⧉.
Its own written response to the audit traced the staffing gap back over a decade: the Legislature cut a third of the Commission's staff in fiscal year 2012 -- while it was already carrying a backlog -- and didn't restore that staffing until fiscal year 2020⧉. The understaffing had a federal price tag too: the Commission fell 13 cases short of the 215 closures its federal EEOC contract required in FFY2023, leaving $10,790 in federal contract revenue uncollected⧉.
View data as table
| SFY2020 | 528,618 | |
|---|---|---|
| SFY2021 | 514,128 | |
| SFY2022 | 660,310 | |
| SFY2023 | 670,598 | Four-year total: $2,373,654 -- more than three times the $704,134 the Commission earned in federal funds over the same period |
One year later: better, but still short
Two lawmakers on the record captured how the audit landed: Rep. Marjorie Smith called the delays 'unconscionable', and Rep. Kenneth Weyler, who had chaired the oversight committee for more than a decade, called it 'the worst audit (result) I've ever seen'. The state's 2026 budget act, House Bill 2, created a Temporary Human Rights Commission Advisory Committee to track the fix -- reporting from its May 1, 2026 meeting found 22 of the audit's 25 recommendations had been addressed and that cases now take about 20 months to close, back under the statute's own two-year target.
But the Commission's chairman, Raymond Pinard, said its seven funded investigator positions -- though now fully filled -- are only half of what he calls a reasonable staffing level of 14, and that three more positions remain unfunded, with this year's budget cuts cited as the obstacle to adding more. Acting assistant director Kristina Taylor put it more bluntly: 'If I had my way we'd have 40 investigators.'
- New Hampshire's Commission for Human Rights averaged 840 days (2.3 years) to close a discrimination case in SFY2023 -- missing its own two-year (730-day) statutory deadline on 142 of 228 reviewed cases (62.3%).
- 62 of those 228 cases (27.2%) took longer than New Hampshire's three-year statute of limitations to sue in Superior Court -- meaning the Commission's own delay is what cost those complainants their day in court.
- New Hampshire's General Fund paid $2,373,654 to cover the Commission's budget shortfall from SFY2020-SFY2023 -- over 3x the $704,134 it earned in federal funds -- while 12 of 21 authorized staff positions sat vacant as of February 2025.
- By May 2026, 22 of 25 audit recommendations had been addressed and case closures had fallen to about 20 months, but the Commission's chairman says its 7 filled investigator positions are still half of what a 'reasonable' staffing level (14) would be, with 3 more positions unfunded.
All figures on case timing, staffing, and Commission finances come from the New Hampshire Office of Legislative Budget Assistant's Commission for Human Rights Performance Audit Report (February 2025), including Observation No. 1 (case timing and the SFY2020-SFY2023 General Fund shortfall in Table 1, p.14), Observation No. 14 (the 62.3% two-year-deadline miss rate), Observation No. 15 (the EEOC contract shortfall), and Observation No. 18 (investigator staffing history). This piece independently recomputed the $2,373,654 four-year General Fund total from Table 1's own annual figures, the 3.4x ratio of General Fund cost to federal funds earned over the same period, and the $10,790 EEOC shortfall from the contract's per-case rate -- all reproducible from figures stated directly in the report. Current staffing and progress figures (22-of-25 recommendations, ~20-month case closures, 7 investigators, 3 unfunded positions, and all named-official quotes) come from InDepthNH.org's report on the May 1, 2026 Temporary Human Rights Commission Advisory Committee meeting.
Sources(4) ▾
- Office of Legislative Budget Assistant, Audit Division, State of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights -- Performance Audit Report (2025-02-01) — The primary document -- the New Hampshire Legislature's own performance-audit arm's statutory audit of the Commission for Human Rights, requested by the Fiscal Committee's Joint Legislative Performance Audit and Oversight Committee in January 2023 and covering SFY2020-SFY2023. Source for every case-timing, staffing, and dollar figure in this piece, plus the Commission's own written response. gc.nh.gov · original document
- Office of Legislative Services, New Hampshire General Court, RSA 354-A:21 Procedure on Complaints (New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated) (2006-07-01) — The controlling statute itself -- independent confirmation, straight from New Hampshire's official codified law, of the 24-month/730-day deadline the audit measured the Commission against in subsection IV. gc.nh.gov · original document
- Office of Legislative Services, New Hampshire General Court, RSA 354-A:21-a Choice of Forum (New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated) (2006-07-01) — The controlling statute itself -- independent confirmation, straight from New Hampshire's official codified law, of the three-year deadline for a complainant to reach Superior Court that the audit's 27.2% figure measures against. gc.nh.gov · original document
- InDepthNH.org (New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism), Advisory Panel Hears Progress Improving the NH Human Rights Commission (2026-05-01) — Contemporaneous reporting on the Temporary Human Rights Commission Advisory Committee's May 1, 2026 public meeting -- the statutorily created (House Bill 2) body overseeing the Commission's response to the February 2025 audit. Source for the current staffing count, the 22-of-25-recommendations-addressed status, the ~20-month case-closure figure, and on-the-record quotes from the Commission's chairman, acting assistant director, and legislative overseers. indepthnh.org · original document
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New Hampshire's Office of Legislative Budget Assistant⧉ -- the Legislature's own audit arm, commissioned by lawmakers on the Joint Legislative Performance Audit and Oversight Committee to check whether the state's Commission for Human Rights was 'efficiently and effectively enforcing laws against discrimination' -- found it averaged 840 days, or 2.3 years, to close a discrimination complaint filed in fiscal year 2023⧉. State law gives the Commission two years, not two-and-a-third, to close a case or start a formal hearing. The audit found 62 of the 228 cases it reviewed -- 27.2% -- took so long that complainants lost their legal window to sue in Superior Court at all⧉.