CONCORD – The state's firefighters union won another round in its quest to open the books of the state municipal association when a superior court judge seconded the state Supreme Court's view that the organization is subject to the Right-to-Know Law.

The New Hampshire Local Government Center has resisted requests for financial information from the Professional Fire Fighters Association, arguing that it isn't a public, governmental agency and thus not covered by the law, which holds that but for certain exceptions, government records must be made public.

The LGC is an association of cities and towns around the state (currently, every town and city in the state is a member). Its staff provides training, legal support and other resources for salaried and elected municipal officials.

The LGC also lobbies state lawmakers and runs agencies that provide insurance coverage to members – although some larger cities, including Nashua and Manchester, buy their own insurance.

The firefighters want to look into the Government Center's revenues and how it spends them, union President David Lang said.

"We want to ultimately look at the money that's going into the LGC operations. . . . What's coming in and where it's going," Lang said, adding later, "The Constitution encourages us as citizens to question government. . . . There's a lot of money goes into that building, and we'd like to know where it goes."

The Government Center collects roughly $350,000 a year in dues from cities and towns through the state's municipal association, Lang said. The center has disclosed that in 2006, its 112 full-time employees had a total payroll of $6.1 million (an average salary of more than $54,000), however, the recent court ruling states.

Firefighters are particularly curious to follow the money they spend on health insurance, Lang said.

"We sit down at the negotiations table, and immediately we're confronted with the cost of health care," Lang said. "If in fact we're going to be asked to contribute more and be asked to take less of a benefit, we'd really like to know where the money is going.

"We want to know how much of that money is going to actual health-care dollars," Lang said, and how much, if any, into lobbying and other overhead.

For that reason, the firefighters first sued in 2002 to gain access to records of HealthTrust, a nonprofit corporation created by the LGC to provide insurance for cities and towns around New Hampshire. HealthTrust negotiates with insurance carriers and then sells health, disability and life insurance to the member cities and towns.

By merging into a bigger, single pool, municipalities can (in theory, at least) get better rates than they could negotiate on their own.

In 2004, the New Hampshire Supreme Court rejected HealthTrust's argument that it was a private agency and ruled that the organization and its records are subject to the state's Right-to-Know Law.

To allow cities and towns to keep essential government business private by banding together into a common association would pervert the intent of the law, the court ruled.

In the wake of that ruling, the LGC continued to cooperate with firefighters' requests for information, but balked when the firefighters sought 30 months' worth of meeting minutes and salary information for all LGC staff, court records show.

The firefighters sued again, and last week, Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Philip Mangones ruled in their favor. Because of the earlier Supreme Court ruling, Mangones found, the LGC should have known it would be required to comply with the Right-to-Know Law, so Mangones also ordered the LGC to pay the union's legal fees for the case.

The LGC has 30 days to decide whether to appeal Mangones' decision, but it has yet to do so, spokeswoman Lynn Sperl said.

"For a long time, the firefighters' union and the Local Government Center have disagreed over the application of RSA 91-A, the Right-to-Know Law, to the Local Government Center and its operations," Sperl said, reading a statement drafted by Executive Director John Andrews.

"This disagreement was addressed by a Merrimack County Superior Court decision on January 13, 2009, on a motion for summary judgment in which the court found that all of LGC risk management and other operations are subject to the Right-to-Know Law.

"The LGC is currently reviewing the decision with its attorneys and may appeal some or all of its findings."

Lang declined to comment on how much the union has spent in legal fees on the case.

"How much have we spent?" he replied.

"Too much, for information that belongs in the public domain."

Local Dues


Here is a list of local communities’ 2009 dues for the Local Government Center:

Source: Local Government Center