The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 237

INSIDE In 1 pi A Pv1 NOTABLE Laura A Kieman writes about the town of Nelson, struggling to cover the costs of education, and some of the similarities it has with the state 's other communities. PageNH2. Letters 5 Russell Keith 9 Arts People 11 Calendar 12 Bulletin Board 14 Business 16 Sports 18 Classified 20 WEEKLY APRIL 5, 1992 JUSTICE GETS ANEW LOOK Some hospitals may be skirting rule on windfall from Medicaid losses once in their budget by in-creasing rates for their other patients. They don't get to offset them again with taxpayers' money," Gross HOSPITALS, Page NH 17 VY, I ij y7'7wg77 i Y7--'77g77f fir iSSIBS 1 Downside seen on a rosy report By Clare Kittredge SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE ONCORD New IHampshire was one of only three states fin the country that failed to improve its child death rate in the 1980s, according to a well-publicized national report comparing data on the way states treat their children. During the 1980s, the state's teen-age death rate by murder', accident or suicide rose 25 percent, higher than all five other New England states; and the ratio of children graduating on time from New Hampshire high schools fell by 8 percent over the decade.

This and other grim data should be sobering news to a state that the same report ranked second in the nation for its overall treatment of children in the 1980s, according to critics of the report and one of its authors. The Kids Count Data Book, a national report card CHILDREN, Page NH 17 VW1 nor Court building opened Computerization to key future By Shiriey Elder SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE ASHUA In the old days, courthouses were dusty and noisy, cigarette butts stomped out on the floor, a public ad dress system blaring out names for the next case, hurried lawyer-client conferences, whispered lawyer-lawyer deals cut in the midst of chronic turmoil and endless waits. No more. After years of delay and in a state woefully short of cash, a $7 million Superior Court building is open here, designed to point the way toward a smoothly efficient, computerized future for New Hampshire's overworked trial court system. This courthouse in Hillsborough County is quiet.

And clean. No smoking anywhere. Separate rooms for meetings and conferences. Jurors have a fair degree of comfort. The public has a place to sit.

Defendants can be whisked in and out with no one knowing. Judges have airy quarters and picture windows, privacy and a law library with a domed ceiling. There are doors everywhere, most of them locked. This is a security-conscious place. It is the kind of building in which desks are called "work stations" with tastefully muted colors and soft panels that feel like suede, and there are plugs in the wall waiting for judges to tap in and become as computer literate as their underlings.

One third-floor courtroom, COURT, Page NH 20 Phosphates battle on in Concord By Robert Brafle SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE State env ironmental officials, conser vationists and legislators fare taking aim at phos phates, the detergent addi By Ralph Jimenez GLOBE STAFF ONCORD When New IHampshire set out to balance its budget by taking 'advantage of a loophole in the federal program to provide health care for the poor, it needed the cooperation of its hospitals. In exchange for helping the state reap a $360 million federal windfall, the 30 hospitals in the state were promised a share of the booty. The hospitals' $47 million cut began arriving in August. Though that effectively doubled the amount the state pays hospitals, no effort has been made to monitor how the money is being spent, say New Hampshire Legal Assistance and state Rep. Douglas Hall (R-Chichester).

The Legislature attached only one string to the money. Hospitals must use it to serve Medicaid and low-income residents. Robert Gross, director of the state's legal aid program for the poor, believes most hospitals are doing that by using their windfall to endow trust funds whose earnings will support increased services to the poor. But some hospitals may not be complying with the law. Several, including the state's two for-profit institutions Portsmouth Regional Hospital and Parkland Hospital in Derry have said they plan to use at least some of the money to offset losses from Medicaid, which pays hospitals less than their cost of treating the poor, Gross said.

"If a for-profit hospital is using public Medicaid money to add to their profit, it would seem totally inappropriate," Gross said. Nor, though the law does not spell it out plainly, would nonprofit hospitals be complying with the law if they use the money to make up for the losses they already incur by treating the poor. "They've already offset Medicaid and charity care (2) 1 years Richard McCue, 28, i. 1 Prisoner for a new OCHFSTFR for a new 1 week at GLOBE STAFF PHOTO MARK WILSON new Superior Court Building in Nashua. bids new trial, life 7,7 By Gary Ghioto SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE Tmnrisrinpfl for the nast.

fnur Light filters through a skylight in i i i 'V a murder he says he did not commit, G. McCue hopes for a new trial and 7 life rest in a hearing being held this Strafford County Superior Court. -II of This kid did not do it The evidence against him was entirely RICHARD HOWE SR. Lowell, is serving a life sentence for the Oct. 18, 1987, strangulation and beating death of Alene Courchesne, 34, of Rochester, a convenience store clerk and mother of two daughters.

McCue does not grant interviews from New Hampshire State Prison where he JIT it. i i tive they say is turning New Hampshire's crystal blue lakes and ponds into the aquatic equivalent of pea green soup. The House Environment and Agriculture Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on a bill that would ban most detergents with phosphates, and limit phosphates in others. The similar to one introduced in Massachusetts, is intended to help restore the lakes and ponds that are seasonally plagued by algae blooms. But the bills in both states have already come under attack as unjustifiable from industry giants such as Monsanto, Procter Gamble, FMC Corp.

and others, through a national trade group funded by those and other companies. The Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire also opposes the bill for the reason. 6 PHOSPHATES, Page NH 20 GLOBE STAFF PHOTO MARK WILSON spends his days writing, reading and working in the kitchens. But in "Torment and Pain," a 28-line poem he recently wrote, the former bridge painter and truck driver attempted to express his frustration. The opening lines: NATUftFS LESSON Educator Lance Sleeper of Spaulding gathers sap to make syrup in North field.

Making syrup is 9 Youth Center watches as a student part of program's curriculum. Page 8. A.