House lawmakers on the influential Finance Committee are looking for ways to increase state funding for education.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein has more.
Several members of the Finance Committee argue that, as the state reduces its share of education funding, the transition should be as painless to towns as possible.
The education funding plan that passed the Senate earlier this session guarantees communities would receive next year, approximately 75% of this year's funding.
But the House Finance Committee wants to wean communities off of state funding more slowly.
Over the next three years lawmakers propose reducing funding by 10% each year.
To do that, though, the state needs to come up with about 32 million dollars.
Republican Representative Fred King presented a plan to do just that.
Track 9
24:46...we need more money if we are going to make everybody happy. Nobody will ever be completely happy. At least happy enough to pass the bill, that's the goal.
Speaking to both House Finance and the House Ways and Means Committees, King suggested four different ways to raise revenue.
A new 7% tax on gambling.
A tax on telephone polls and wires.
An estate tax.
And King's preferred poison, a 16 cent increase on the tobacco tax.
2:11 ... Obviously, we can not raise our tobacco tax to the point where it jeopardizes our cross border sales. But I think if we went from a 52 cent to a 68 cents tax, I don't think that would happen.
King told the two committees the tobacco tax would generate about 20 million dollars in just one year.
The Finance Committee wants the Ways and Means Committee to weigh in on which tax they would most likely support.
Finance Chair Republican Neal Kurk says the decision to support any of the taxes or none of them, is in the hands of the Ways and Means Committee.
3:10 I think clearly, some of those taxes are going to be harder sells than others. B/c for example, the House just turned down the Estate tax change. The house has a cigarette tax on the table...the House has never really favored an expansion of gambling. The House has never really considered a tax on telephone poles and wires for 15 years, so I don't. I guess what I am saying is all of these proposals have their pros and cons...and it's the job of the Ways and Means Committee to put all that together and come up with a recommendation.
Ways and Means met all afternoon discussing the possibilities.
Officially, the Committee has yet to decide anything.
However, one member said it seems clear the majority of the members find increasing the tobacco tax the least obnoxious option.
Finance Chairman Neal Kurk isn't thrilled with the options either.
Usually an ardent opponent of taxes, Kurk confesses he's in a very strange position.
9:45 I expect the state to live within its means. However, this is a way for the state to help out the communities by keeping their property taxes lower...it's a question of balancing the interest. And that's why it's temporary. We need to get from here to there and the only way we can do it, that I can think of is to get some additional revenue. Otherwise there is going to be a great deal of pain in this state. And that's something I don't think the constituients I represent, and who most of the legislators represent will accept that. Everybody understands we are not growing government...it's not expanding the state in any way.
Kurk says he expects Ways and Means to come back with an answer in the next day or two.
But even if both Committees favor a new revenue stream, its fate is far from guaranteed.
A spokesperson for Governor Benson says the Governor continues to promise he will veto any new tax bill that lands on his desk.
For NHPR News, I'm DG.
