A group of New Hampshire businesses reports that many municipalities are supplanting local education dollars with state aid.
And as New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein reports, the group that commissioned the study is not happy.
The Committee for Sensible School Funding is a collection of businesses including BAE Systems, Monadnock Paper Mills, Pierce Atwood Consulting, Unitil and Waste Management.
The reason they commissioned the report the report is that much of the state's education trust fund comes from business taxes.
And Committee member Tom Tillotson says his group just wants to make sure their money isn't being wasted.
10:36 as business people we wanted to know simply is our money being used efficiently. Is it going to what we are paying to have done, which is educate our kids. Our gut said no.
In response to that gut feeling, Tillotson says the Committee for Sensible School Funding scrutinized how local communities have funded their schools before and after the Claremont decision.
The study found that local governments reduced the amount of local dollars dedicated to education, and replaced it with the state aid.
That so-called left over money then was sent to other spending projects or local tax relief.
Study author Brian Gottlob.
1:12 I don't think we are criticizing municipalities. They are given basically a block grant, and then they will make their preferences about where that money goes. And I don't think any of us intend to criticize that. What we do say is a program set up that way is going to be terribly inefficient...given the constraints out there today, would we allow that 350 million dollar inefficiency to continue...
The report assumes state aid should be used to augment local funds.
Gottlob concludes since that's not happening, legislators may want to adjust the education system.
While the report offers no formal recommendations the group did suggest the state could change the law and tie state aid to local education spending.
Recently, the Committee has briefed many involved with education funding.
And Gottlob says lawmakers have found the study illuminating.
But around the statehouse, a few officials privately said the report was anything but.
When legislators first enacted the statewide property tax policy analyst Dough Hall says the assumption was that municipalities would reduce local taxes, or shift money to other budget concerns.
Hall, who heads up the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies, says he's puzzled by the reports language.
The study states that less than 40% of state education aid was used to educated New Hampshire students.
Hall says that's a serious charge.
1:20 that's an important item b/c the law requires that money be used for the schools. If somebody took that money deposited in some other account, than they violated the law, and ought to be prosecuted. If there is any evidence of that, it ought to be brought forward.
A Committee spokesperson says the report did not intend to insinuate any community actually broke state law and used state education money for other purposes.
For NHPR News, I'm DG.
