A constitutional amendment backed by Governor Lynch has cleared a senate committee on a party line vote.
The amendment would give the state greater flexibility in targeting education aid.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein has more.
Governor John Lynch has made it clear that an education funding constitutional amendment is his top legislative priority this year.
He told the Senate Judiciary Committee that previous court rulings have forced New Hampshire into a corner.
Currently, the state is ordered to provide the same basic aid to all students- and that, he told lawmakers is the nut of the problem.
1:16 it is not good educational policy to send the same base amount of aid to every school district before we help the schools that really need it. yet that is what the Supreme Court has said we must do. And that is why I passionately believe that we need a constitutional amendment.
Lynch went on to say that right now children in wealthier communities have better opportunities than those in less affluent towns and cities.
He argues the only way to change that is by doing away with a universal grant, and targeting a greater portion of state dollars to the communities that need it most.
2:31 while the amendments may sound noble and reasonable, they actually contain code words with double meanings, that cause disastrous affects on local property taxes.
That’s Republican Representative Roger Wells.
Wells warning is echoed by most critics.
If the state changes the constitution, he says poorer communities might see extra funding, but only because slightly better off towns would lose state aid.
And that just puts pressure on the local level to either cut services or increase local property taxes.
But Portsmouth Mayor Tom Ferenni told lawmakers an amendment is the best solution out there.
Ferenni, spoke on behalf of the 34 so-called donor towns.
Ferenni says he’s run numbers based on the recent funding formula devised by the costing commission.
TAPE: the initial spreadsheet shows the five Claremont lawsuit towns losing a total of over $14 million, while towns with extraordinarily high median household income, like Amherst, Bedford and Hollis will receive more than $8.3 million in the state wide distribution plan.
Lately, supporters have rallied around the slogan- ‘Let the People Decide.’
Any amendment must receive a 60% majority in the Legislature as well as the backing from 66% of the voters.
But opponents, like Londonderry Superintendent Nate Greenberg argued that providing voters with the amendment, but not a funding formula amounts to asking the public to write future lawmakers a blank check.
TAPE: I don’t know how much money we are talking about, how that money is going to be distributed, how that is going to impact my property taxes, or my neighbors property taxes, and what impact that would have on my school district. So voting on this without a backup information or funding plan or distribution makes an open-ended scenario.
After the hearing, the Judiciary Committee passed the plan.
The measure is expected to be voted on and pass the full Senate next week.
Democratic leadership in the House has taken a wait-and-see approach.
On one hand, a popular Democratic governor is pushing it, but last year a similar proposal failed in that body.
For NHPR News, I’m DG.
