Recently in Expenditures Category
House Democrats Pass $130M in Additional Education Spending
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.
MAJORITY PROPOSAL GOES WELL BEYOND ADEQUACY
“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
Citizen
Article Date: Monday, January 28, 2008
Governor Lynch managed to paint a rosy picture about the future of New Hampshire in his State of the State address before the legislature last week. And while we agree that New Hampshire is, "a strong state, with a solid foundation upon which to build," there is still much work to be done to prevent the financial crisis that Republicans have been warning about since last spring.
The governor needs to realize that Republicans are more than willing to reach across the aisle and work together with him to erase the growing state deficit, but first the he must be willing to admit that the problem we are facing is much larger than the one he talked about in his address.
By admitting to a $50 million deficit last week, Gov. Lynch took an important first step, but he did not nearly go far enough. The problem is more like a $150 million problem. In fact, even his own department heads, appearing before the House Ways and Means committee, predicted revenue shortfalls of anywhere between $140 million and $195 million for the biennium. As far back as last spring Rep. Norm Major, a veteran of the House Ways and Means Committee and former chairman, was warning of a "Perfect Storm" should the Democrat-controlled House accept the inflated revenue projections in support of the state's first $10 billion budget-projections that he believed then were overly optimistic and unsustainable.
To compound the problem, in June revenue estimates were artificially raised by close to $40 million, to give the appearance of a balanced budget. Rep. Major's warning fell on deaf ears, the inflated revenue figures were accepted, the General Fund expenditures were increased by 17.5 percent, and now the state is facing a real crisis.
The governor would have you believe that economic forecasters were not predicting the severity of the situation that the nation is currently facing at the time the state budget was being crafted. However, there were clearly a number of economic indicators that were identified last spring by Rep. Norm Major that supported the prediction that revenue streams would continue to falter, setting the state up for a financial crisis.
The governor would also have you believe that revenues for the first six months of the fiscal year are coming in close to their projected levels. What he failed to tell you was that his figures ignore $18 million in one-time money, $5 million in funds not dispersed, and $5.7 million due to the timing of January securities receipts. Projecting the current deficit out to the end of the biennium could result in a deficit as high as $165 million. Despite these facts, he still holds to the belief that the budget shortfall is $50 million.
By recognizing that there is a deficit and by pledging to withhold support for any future spending bills, the governor has taken an important first step. We are ready to work with Governor Lynch to take the next step and make the necessary moves to eliminate the potential deficit of at least $150 million and put the budget back into balance. It is time to face reality and deal with the larger deficit before the taxpayer of this state has to suffer further.
State Rep. Mike Whalley is House Republican Leader. He lives in Alton.
Article Date: Monday, January 28, 2008
Governor Lynch managed to paint a rosy picture about the future of New Hampshire in his State of the State address before the legislature last week. And while we agree that New Hampshire is, "a strong state, with a solid foundation upon which to build," there is still much work to be done to prevent the financial crisis that Republicans have been warning about since last spring.
The governor needs to realize that Republicans are more than willing to reach across the aisle and work together with him to erase the growing state deficit, but first the he must be willing to admit that the problem we are facing is much larger than the one he talked about in his address.
By admitting to a $50 million deficit last week, Gov. Lynch took an important first step, but he did not nearly go far enough. The problem is more like a $150 million problem. In fact, even his own department heads, appearing before the House Ways and Means committee, predicted revenue shortfalls of anywhere between $140 million and $195 million for the biennium. As far back as last spring Rep. Norm Major, a veteran of the House Ways and Means Committee and former chairman, was warning of a "Perfect Storm" should the Democrat-controlled House accept the inflated revenue projections in support of the state's first $10 billion budget-projections that he believed then were overly optimistic and unsustainable.
To compound the problem, in June revenue estimates were artificially raised by close to $40 million, to give the appearance of a balanced budget. Rep. Major's warning fell on deaf ears, the inflated revenue figures were accepted, the General Fund expenditures were increased by 17.5 percent, and now the state is facing a real crisis.
The governor would have you believe that economic forecasters were not predicting the severity of the situation that the nation is currently facing at the time the state budget was being crafted. However, there were clearly a number of economic indicators that were identified last spring by Rep. Norm Major that supported the prediction that revenue streams would continue to falter, setting the state up for a financial crisis.
The governor would also have you believe that revenues for the first six months of the fiscal year are coming in close to their projected levels. What he failed to tell you was that his figures ignore $18 million in one-time money, $5 million in funds not dispersed, and $5.7 million due to the timing of January securities receipts. Projecting the current deficit out to the end of the biennium could result in a deficit as high as $165 million. Despite these facts, he still holds to the belief that the budget shortfall is $50 million.
By recognizing that there is a deficit and by pledging to withhold support for any future spending bills, the governor has taken an important first step. We are ready to work with Governor Lynch to take the next step and make the necessary moves to eliminate the potential deficit of at least $150 million and put the budget back into balance. It is time to face reality and deal with the larger deficit before the taxpayer of this state has to suffer further.
State Rep. Mike Whalley is House Republican Leader. He lives in Alton.
A loyal reader passed this along concerning the fiscal mess that the Dems have wrought here in NH:
Governor John Lynch was handed a Democrat majority in all branches of government in New Hampshire in November of 2006. This was the first time that Democrats had control of all branches in over one hundred years.
It took the Democrats exactly one year to bankrupt the state as we face a $50 million budget shortfall. Governor Lynch was warned as he based his budget on inflated revenue projections that New Hampshire could not sustain an increase in spending of 17.5%. He did not listen to those evil, children hating Republicans.
And yes, this is filed under Taxes, because you should know that a bill has already been put into the hopper for...yup....wait for it....an income tax. Classic - run up expenditures with overblown revenue projections, blame the problem on a Republican President, and go for the throats of our wallets.
Once again, the Left screws up and we will pay and pay and pay for it. Question to ask yourself - do you REALLY think that they'll apologize for it?
Naw, didn't think so.
The better question to ask is - will there be a consequence for these Dem dim-wits?
(cross-posted at GraniteGrok)
