New Hampshire is one of the many states where the courts have said that the school funding system needs to be fixed, and they have one of the many legislatures that has drug its feet in complying with the court. Garry Rayno looks at how they’re managing.
The courts have spoken many times over the last three decades about the state’s public education system and its funding.
In the ensuring 30 years since the Claremont I and Claremont II decisions were released by the state Supreme Court, little has changed in a meaningful way.
The Claremont I decision simply said the state has a constitutional obligation to provide every child in New Hampshire with an adequate (or worthwhile) education and to fund it.
Claremont II was a tax decision that says the current funding system is unconstitutional because it relies on a tax that is not assessed on every property owner in the same way with the same rate. Under the New Hampshire Constitution state taxes have to be proportional and reasonable.
The Legislature has yet to address either of the two basic decisions — there have been others — in the most fundamental way.
In New Hampshire, property owners in a school district’s community or communities primarily pay for public education.
Property taxes of one kind or another pay about 70 percent of the cost of education, other state funding accounts for a little over 22 percent and federal money about 8.5 percent
The local property taxes pay for about 61 percent and the statewide education property tax for about 8 percent.
That does not all add up to 100 percent because there is other money raised through tuition, food and other local contributions and insurance settlements, etc..
The national average for state contributions to public education is about 47 percent or more than double what the state pays even with the statewide property tax.
What makes the state system unconstitutional and inequitable for both students and taxpayers is the over reliance on property taxes to pay for the bulk of the cost.
Local property taxes have varying rates across the state ranging from a little over $5 per $1,000 of valuation in New Castle and Moultonborough, to nearly $35 per $1,000 in Colebrook and Orford.
The statewide property tax is supposed to have the same rate for everyone in the state, but doesn’t because property wealthy communities retain the excess money they raise to pay for their students’ adequate education, and unincorporated places have negative local education property rates to offset what they would pay in statewide education property taxes.
That ought to be enough to acknowledge the system is broken, but it isn’t for lawmakers who frankly lack the political will to fix the system so that it is more equitable — I didn’t say fair — for both students and taxpayers.