Recently in Education Category

Despite facing a budget deficit of more than $250M, Democrats in the House Finance committee today ignored the impending financial crisis and added more than $130M in additional spending to the cost of an adequate education, passing SB 539 in a partisan vote. 

According to House Deputy Republican Leader David Hess of Hooksett, the bill violates every one of the Claremont decisions, from 2-13. “This bill is expensive, ineffective and blatantly unconstitutional,” said Hess. “It provides for an arbitrary cap on state aid, preventing any town from receiving more than 115% of their current state aid over the next biennium. As such, the bill costs an adequate education but then blatantly fails to fully fund it,” he added. 

“It marks the fifth time that the original bill, presented by Democrats on the Adequate Education Costing Committee, has been amended and each ‘fix’ has been worse than the previous one,” said Hess.  In referring to the legislation as the “son of ABC,” the first education funding bill passed under Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and quickly declared unconstitutional by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, Hess warned that it would establish nearly 40 new donor towns. The legislation purports to hold the donor town harmless, which is exactly what the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in Gov. Shaheen’s original bill, and it contains absolutely no mechanism to send money back to the towns from the state.   “The Democrats have added more than $130M in spending with absolutely no idea of where the money is coming from,” concluded Hess.

Calling the bill “Alice in Wonderland” legislation last week on the floor of the House, Rep. Hess concluded that the bill, in its present form, is “even more strange.” 

Unless amended on the floor, the bill will now go to a Committee of Conference.

“The report of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Costing an Adequate Education, released today, clearly goes well beyond adequacy,” said committee member Rep. David Hess (R-Hooksett), following a 6-3 committee vote at the State House in Concord.

The committee, created by the passage of HB 927, was charged with defining an adequate education as the specific criteria and substantive education program—defined and identified as the school approval standards in nine specific areas.  In doing so, the law adopted, in their entirety, more than 30 pages of the Standards of Public School Approval in existence on the effective date of the bill.

According to Hess, “The Express reference to those standards, in the context of the charge to the committee, evidenced clear legislative intent.  In the end, the Majority ignored this directive and, in many critical areas, substituted its own opinion for the standards, universally resulting in increasing and inflating the costs of education.”  Republicans on the committee believe that the continuity in public policy and past definitions are very important in this effort to cost an adequate education.

Republicans on the committee also disagreed with the Majority of  Democrats over the appropriate funding levels for other elements of the costing formula, e.g., the per pupil allocations for educational materials, technology and transportation, targeted aid for free & reduced lunch recipients and special education students.  The disagreements between the two sides appear to create a difference of more than $200M between the statewide cost of adequacy based on the Majority’s assumptions as opposed to the standards espoused by the Republicans on the committee.  The most significant in this regard concerns the qualifications used to determine the salaries for the professional positions used in the formula.

“In the end, this report represents a significant difference in how targeted aid is calculated and how the dollars are distributed,” said Ken Weyler (R-Kingston), a member of the committee.

Contact Rep. Hess    485-9027
            Rep.  Weyler 642-3518