School Budget Cap Blown Off By NH House

By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH

CONCORD, NH — A Republican priority for the legislative session was upended Thursday as the long-sought statewide cap on school district budgets went down to defeat.

Republicans touted the measure as a vehicle to constrain spending on schools, which they call the main driver of constantly increasing property taxes, while Democrats say the cap violates local control, hurts 90 percent of the state’s students and is a diversion tactic to hide the real problem which is the legislature’s failure to adequately fund public education.

Parliamentary maneuvering on the measure ended with Republicans and Democrats opposed to House Bill 675 by a 346-9 vote.

Along the journey were some heated exchanges and the addition of what one Republican called a poison pill and another accused Democrats of backing it only to kill the bill, which they did.

Republicans lost about 10 votes on the first vote on the committee amendment, but by the end only nine Republicans voted for the bill.

An amendment that would have capped school district administrative costs at six percent, but not any other part of district budgets was approved 183-173, with supporters saying the intent was to protect learning while constraining spending on administration, and preserving local control.

But Deputy Majority Leader Joseph Sweeney, R-Salem, said the bill would do the opposite of constraining spending.

“This is not real reform, it is a loophole,” he said. “You cannot spend and tax your way to oblivion and spend and tax people out of their homes at a time when higher costs are burning everyones’ wallets.”

He said he suspects some representatives will support the amendment because they do not want the bill to pass and will vote against it.

“I question their motive and I question their intent,” Sweeney said. “You are deceiving the voters.”
Sensing they were losing the bill, House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Auburn, was more blunt.

“We are here to protect the taxpayers,” Osborne said. “This is a tanker truck full of gasoline on the already raging inferno of property taxes consuming the state. Vote no on this poison pill amendment.”
But Rep. Eileen Kelly, D-Bradford, said current law allows school districts to adopt budget caps at the local level.

“This is not about protecting taxpayers,” she said. “It is another way of shifting responsibility away from the state and another way of failing to meet our court required education (obligation).”

This is a statewide mandate on all school districts regardless of the discrepancies among them and takes away local control for voters, Kelly said.

Rep. Mary Hakken-Phillips, D-Hanover, argued a statewide cap is impractical and arbitrary, contrary to local control, extremely unpopular with voters and will fail to deliver the promised property tax relief.

School boards need all the tools available to them and noted that the hammer of a cap will fall on the overcrowded classrooms of public schools which hold 90 percent of the state’s children.
Hakken-Phillips said the budget cap would lock in disparities among school districts, and local budget caps were rejected in every election last year.

She noted two court decisions last year said the state has failed to fulfill its obligation to pay for an adequate education and set the real cost about double what the state currently provides.

“It is one thing to do nothing to advance those rulings, but it is another to do the exact opposite of what the court demands,” she said.

You can’t comply with both the cap and the court rulings Hakken-Phillips said, noting that will lead to more litigation when the state has already spent $4 million on the issue.

Rep. Keith Erf, R-Weare, argued a two-thirds majority is not a major stumbling block to passing a budget, noting many districts pass budgets with 80 or 90 percent of voter approval.

“This will give voters a modicum of control over their property tax increases driven by school spending,” he said.

The statewide budget cap for school district budgets tied to enrollment and inflation, was first proposed by Osborne after Kearsarge Regional School District voters resoundingly defeated an attempt to cap the district’s budget last year.

The proposal was one section of HB 675 that would have addressed the superior court decision in the ConVal lawsuit, successfully claiming the state has continually failed to pay for a constitutionally adequate education for the state’s students and instead relied on local property taxes to pick up the slack.

The only section of the bill that survived and came to the House floor last year was the statewide budget cap, which barely passed the House initially and was retained in the House Finance Committee.

The section tying the cap to inflation, as well as enrollment, was added and brought back this session. The bill would require a two-thirds majority to pass a budget over a district’s cap.

After the vote, Megan Tuttle, President of NEA-New Hampshire, said for nearly a year Granite Staters have overwhelmingly spoken and voted against efforts to arbitrarily cap their local school budgets and today, state lawmakers listened.

“A state-mandated arbitrary school budget cap does not address the funding crisis created by the state’s failure to fully fund an adequate education,” she said. “It simply kicks the can down the road even further and passes the buck once again to local communities.”

While New Hampshire ranks in the top 10 for public education funding overall, nationwide the state is 50th in state funding, Tuttle said, which means property taxpayers are forced to cover the balance because the state will not pay its fair share.

“We hope elected officials continue listening to the people of New Hampshire, who overwhelmingly support their community public schools,” she said, “and work across the aisle to fix our state’s broken education funding system to ensure every child has access to a quality education, regardless of their zip code.”

An amendment proposed by Rep. Kimberly Rice, R-Hudson, proposed a six percent budget cap on the central office or school administration within the overall cap determined by enrollment and inflation, while protecting the education dollars where they matter most for student learning, she said.

“This helps constrain spending on administrative costs, which are the bulk of our budgets,” Rice said. “This helps get these budgets under control because now they are unsustainable.”

But Rep. Kate Murray, D-New Castle, said Rice’s amendment was still a direct attack on local control and would have dire consequences and harm local schools, noting her email mailbox is full of letters in opposition to the cap.

The amendment passed by one vote, with House Speaker Sherman Packard casting the deciding vote.

Another amendment from Rep. Lorie Ball, R-Salem, imposed a six percent budget cap that was only on the district’s administration, which drew opposition from the Republican leadership.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.