When House Majority Leader Jason Osborne rises to join a floor debate at the State House, it’s usually worth paying attention. Last week was a case in point. The House was debating a plan to cap local school budgets, when Osborne took the mic to give the bill a final push.
“When 7.5% of my neighbors all decide to get together and take my house, that is not local control: That is the tyranny of fringe special interests,” Osborne said.
Osborne’s take on traditional town governance was designed to provoke. But his point — that low voter turnout at annual town meetings can give a fraction of a community final say on local spending — is true.
The bill under debate would mandate that local school districts limit annual budget increases to the rate of inflation, and it comes during local budget season, when school spending and property taxes are major topics of debate. But the approach favored by Osborne and other GOP leaders in Concord puts two ideas Republicans claim to hold dear in tension: fiscal discipline and local control.
That tension was on display two days after Osborne's floor speech, when 767 Hopkinton residents — 15 percent of the town’s eligible voters — gathered in the high school gym to decide next year’s school budget. Retired special ed teacher Laurie Lowd was among them.
“I would like to vote yes on all of this, but I can't afford to. I apologize for that, but I am in survival mode,” Lowd said.
Lowd wasn’t the only one arguing that rising property taxes amount to an existential threat. Rick MacMillan, who owns a small farm along the Contoocook River, described a similar bind.
“My property taxes are approaching $14,000,” he said. “I'm trying to live on Social Security. That might give me $30 extra a month by the time I’m done paying my property taxes.”
The anxiety about personal finances came through loud and clear in Hopkinton, but so too did another message: That financial decisions at the state and federal level often leave local taxpayers holding the bag.
Here’s resident Ian Hart making the case for the school budget, which Hopkinton voters did pass.
“We have very very little control over what happens at the State House, and what costs they put down to our town. What we do have control over is this budget,” said Hart.
And local budgets are hard to control — due in part to low state education aid. For decades, lawmakers have made local taxpayers shoulder most of the burden of paying for schools, resulting in wide spending disparities from town to town. It’s a situation that’s prompted multiple lawsuits and court decisions, including a series of rulings decades ago that required the state to provide all students with a so-called "adequate education." A continued showdown over what that directive means is at issue in two cases now pending before the state’s highest court.
Those rulings could come any day. In the meantime, lawmakers in Concord are busy crafting the state budget, which will set the state’s contribution to local schools for the next two years.
At a hearing last week, Rep. Ken Weyler — the House’s top budget writer — indicated he had limited interest in hearing complaints about what local districts may be facing.
“It seems like we’ve heard a lot about school funding, more than we really need to know. We know it is a problem; we don’t need to hear it 50 times,” Weyler said.
For now, the mandatory spending cap that House Republican leaders are backing seems the only lifeboat that GOP lawmakers are offering. So far, however, there's little to suggest many communities want to get on board. This town meeting season, multiple districts have rejected bids to cap local school spending.
Even so, this policy is gaining ground in Concord. On Tuesday, House budget writers — including Weyler — indicated the spending cap is likely to be added to the House’s state budget proposal.
