Governor John Lynch testified before lawmakers today in support of his education funding proposal.
The plan eliminates the statewide property tax and targets aid to needy communities.
He says the plan is not perfect -- but helps communities that need it the most.
But some lawmakers and educators say the plan is a step in the wrong direction.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Amy Quinton reports.
Governor Lynch’s education funding plan was touted as an equitable and fair bipartisan solution to the ongoing education funding debate.
Eight lawmakers sponsored H-B100, which eliminates both the statewide property tax and donor towns.
Lynch says donor towns in fiscal year 2005 created less than one-percent of the cost of public education in New Hampshire.
"So for that less than one percent we have had ongoing angst, and anger, divisiveness, confrontation and litigation. For less than one percent, it’s not worth it."
The bill creates a so-called education equity index, which looks at a number of factors to gauge a town’s ability to provide an education.
The index considers a community’s median household income, number of poor students, and performance factors like graduation rates and how well children do on tests.
But some educators say the plan would penalize communities whose students are performing well.
Londonderry School Superintendent Nathan Greenburg finds that illogical.
"The accountability component is counter intuitive in that if you are doing well, the odds are you are going to lose money, if you are doing poorly and you begin to do better you’re going to lose money"
But regardless of how Londonderry’s students perform, under the Governor’s plan, Londonderry stands to lose 3.4 million dollars in state aid next year.
Republican and House Education Committee Vice Chair David Hess also raised another more fundamental question about the Lynch plan, it’s constitutionality.
Hess says the bill runs afoul of the central precept of the Claremont decision, that an adequate education must be paid for exclusively by the state and the tax rate must be the same in every town.
"All of the additional funding for education is made up by the local property tax and every town has a different rate and raises different amounts of money and that’s exactly what Claremont One through Claremont Nine has ruled as unconstitutional"
Critics of Lynch’s education plan aren’t exclusively Republican lawmakers. Scott Johnson, a lead plaintiff attorney in the Claremont lawsuit, is pushing for more aid to poor communities.
He says Lynch’s plan doesn’t give enough to make a difference.
"There’s either a small increase or a decrease in most of these communities so that puts the burden on the communities to raise the difference locally, and the total amounts they’re going to receive don’t even fund the bare necessities"
The House Education Committee will vote on the plan by March 24th, and the full house will take up the issue no later than March 30th.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.
