The bill, passed Thursday, would limit how much any district can increase spending, based on the current budget. Critics say it would lock in inequities
By Kelly Burch, Granite State News Collaborative
The N.H. House of Representatives voted Thursday (March 13) to pass a bill that would impose statewide school spending caps, though voters in at least eight districts across the state have rejected spending caps at the local level.
“At its heart, this is a state mandate that would take away the ability of a local community to control how they wanted to make their own spending decision on their school districts,” said Zack Sheehan, executive director of the N.H. School Funding Fairness Project, a grassroots organization focused on equity in school funding and taxes.
The bill, HB 675, which passed with a 190-185 vote, would limit a school district’s ability to increase its budget. While the calculations are complex, they essentially amount to about a maximum increase of about 2.5 percent annually, Sheehan said. To override that limitation, districts would need two-thirds approval from voters.
The bill now moves on to the House Finance Committee.
The legislation is “probably one of the biggest and most consequential bills I’ve seen in a long time,” said Christina Pretorius, policy director at Reaching Higher NH, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on education in the Granite State. In part, that’s because it seems to go against the will of voters, she said.
A new state law that took effect in October allows local residents to propose a budget cap for their school districts. Residents in at least nine districts — ConVal, Epping, Epsom, Hollis Brookline, Kearsarge, Salem, Weare and Haverhill — have done that. Eight districts have voted on the caps, and all rejected them, N.H. Public Radio reports. (Haverhill will vote March 15.)
After Kearsarge voters rejected a budget cap, House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Rockingham, told the New Hampshire Journal, “Perhaps, if [local voters] are unwilling to cap themselves, the state will step in and cap local taxes for them.” Osborne is one of two sponsors of HB 675.
That sentiment is concerning to Pretorius. “They can’t pass these arbitrary caps at the local level, so they’re mandating it at the state level,” she said.
The concern about property tax increases is widespread and tied to school funding, since local taxes cover about 70 percent of the school budgets in New Hampshire districts. Yet voters have repeatedly rejected spending caps, while calling on the state government to better fund education, Pretorius said.
“They’ve been saying, we don’t want your budget caps; what we want is the state to support public education, and that’s what’s going to lower our property taxes,” she said.
The spending limit in HB 675 "freezes in time all the current inequities” between school districts, Sheehan said. While some districts may currently have enough funding, districts that have a smaller budget would be unable to substantially increase those budgets, he said.
“What if Newport, a struggling school district, got a chunk of money from a foundation or business that wanted to invest?” Sheehan said. “They literally would not be able to accept that if it went over this cap.”
If a district had a sudden increase in special education expenses, he added, it might need to cut programs such as sports, arts, and Advanced Placement classes to stay within the spending cap.
Megan Tuttle, president of NEA-New Hampshire, the state’s largest teachers union, said that the statewide cap would be “an offense to the will of voters and completely disregards the majority of Granite Staters who support their local public schools and believe every student deserves access to a quality education, regardless of their ZIP code.”
Educators share concerns about rising property taxes, Tuttle said, but they’re calling on the state to fully fund education, rather than putting the burden on local communities or setting spending limits.
“Make no mistake about it: Instead of fixing our state’s broken public education funding system, HB 675 will lock in the existing disparities around our state and make it very difficult for districts that are already underfunded to make up ground,” she said.
Also on Thursday, both the House and Senate passed bills that would make Educational Freedom Accounts, commonly known as school vouchers, available to all eligible Granite Staters, regardless of income. The vouchers provide an average of $4,600 per student for families to use toward private school tuition or homeschool expenses. Universal eligibility would cost the state about $102 million during the 2025-26 school year, according to Reaching Higher NH.
“Instead of addressing the root issue of rising property taxes — an inequitable public school funding system — the [House and Senate] voted to expand the school voucher program to the wealthiest families in the state,” Pretorius said.
These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.