New Hampshire: The Real Facts

A message from the Deputy Republican Leader.....
Volume 2, Issue 17 May 2, 2008

In Memory
MICHAEL D. WHALLEY
1953-2008
Our leader,
our colleague, and
our friend.
—continued on page 2

The much anticipated education bills (SB 530 and
SB 539) will finally come to the floor of the House this
Wednesday and, should they survive the legislative process
and are signed into law by Governor Lynch, they
undoubtedly will be challenged in the courts.
Despite facing a budget deficit of more than $250M,
Democrats in the House Finance committee have
amended and passed SB 539, adding more than
$130M in additional spending to the cost of an adequate
education. This bill is expensive, ineffective and blatantly
unconstitutional! It violates every one of the Claremont
decisions, 2-13. This 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. This
bill provides for an arbitrary cap on state aid.
Transitioning to full adequacy aid is not the same as full
adequacy aid, and our Supreme Court has ruled on more
than one occasion that the state must pay, from day one,
the full cost of a constitutionally adequate education.
SB 539 also establishes nearly 40 new donor towns
while purportedly “holding them harmless” for two years.
Those districts that would receive less state aid in
FY 2010 and FY 2011 under the majority formula
would be guaranteed the amount they receivedin FY2009. Donor
towns purportedly would have their excess
statewide education property tax rebated, but after two years, the taxpayers
in everyone of these communities would be hit hard.
This is exactly what the Supreme Court ruled
unconstitutional in Governor Shaheen’s “ABC Education
Plan.” 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. The
majority have clearly chosen to put off the hard work until the next budget—after the fall elections—thus significantly increasing
the fiscal problems facing the state in the next biennium and leaving us open to broadbased taxesHouse Republican Office RepublicanOffice@leg.state.nh.us