Opinion: It’s time to properly fund education

Rockingham County Superior Court Judge David Ruoff is presiding over the lawsuit brought by ConVal and 10 other New Hampshire school districts.

Rockingham County Superior Court Judge David Ruoff is presiding over the lawsuit brought by ConVal and 10 other New Hampshire school districts. File photo

By SUSAN MCKEVITT

Published: 04-22-2024 3:38 PM

Susan McKevitt lives in Bradford.

On April 11, the New York Times ran an article entitled: “It’s Time to End the Quiet Cruelty of Property Taxes.” Like many towns, Bradford recently had its town meeting, and we experienced this cruelty.

Over 200 people showed up to engage in the sacred act of participatory democracy. We struggled with finding the resources to maintain our town services without forcing us to sell our homes. Our tax bill jumped; the largest cause was the 40% increase in funding for public education. The draconian leadership of Gov. Sununu and his private education henchman Commissioner of Education Edelblut, along with a compliant and negligent legislature, has forced towns like ours to struggle to meet anything but essential services all due to the antiquated, cruel, and regressive state reliance on property taxes to fund education.

Here are some facts published in the Wall Street Journal (2023): One out of four households in New Hampshire earn $50,000 or less. One out of six households earn $35,00 or less. Over one-half of all households earn $100,000 or less. In addition, New Hampshire is 50th in the nation in state contributions to education; that’s lower than Mississippi! (New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute).

We are also the 5th highest per capita income state in the nation (US News, Nov. 2023). We have more than 45,000 millionaires in this state and one billionaire making us the 8th highest per capita state with millionaires (Business News). We are the tax refuge for the rich to “Live Free” without contributing their fair share to the overall well-being of the state. Unlike Mississippi, we are not a poor state. We are a cheap state!

The state has been sued again for ignoring the constitutional mandate to adequately fund public education. In the ConVal lawsuit, the judge recently said, in his November decision, that the current state expenditure of $4,100 per student is inadequate and put the floor at $7,356.ConVal says it’s really $9,929.

The judge found in the second lawsuit (Rand, March 2024) that the ability of wealthy towns to keep excess funds from the SWEPT (State Wide Education Property Tax) is unconstitutional and that the excess must be distributed to less affluent towns. Both cases will be appealed by the state as it whines that to comply with the lower court’s determined amount will cause a 50% increase in state contribution to public education. It’s time.

Funding for public education and charter schools comes from the Education Trust Fund. The charter school voucher program (now called “scholarships” or “grants”) has gone up 275% since starting in 2021 and will divert $24 million from public schools. The organized Republican national effort to kill public education, implemented by Edelblut, the governor and the legislature, is to use vouchers to suck the financial lifeblood from public education forcing towns to raise their property taxes to keep our schools functioning. (ReachingHigherNH, Nov. 2023)

Or as Jonathan Kozol says, charter schools and vouchers are “financial leeches on the public school system.” (NYT, 3/15).

If the state loses its appeals and finally has to do what’s right, which it has avoided for 30 years since losing the two Claremont suits (‘93 and ‘97), the legislature will have two choices. Continue to cut or eliminate state agency budgets or institute another tax. Doing the first will not generate sufficient funds to comply with even the lower estimate offered by the court.

The second choice will likely be the detrimental, regressive, and punitive institution of a generalized sales tax under the guise of egalitarianism. Millionaires will pay the same as a household making less than $35,000 a year. It’s a sham and a gross distortion of the concept of egalitarianism in typical republican Orwellian doublespeak.

For 30 years, the New Hampshire government has avoided its constitutional mandate by bickering over defining “adequacy.” It seems there is a different definition of what’s adequate for kids in property-poor towns versus kids in property-rich towns since a majority of school funding comes from property taxes. What could be more undemocratic than that disparity?

Towns are struggling to meet the fundamental needs of its citizens. The state legislators have turned their back on the very people they are elected to represent. It’s up to us in 2024 to vote for people who believe in and will fight for public education, finally fully fund it, and lower our property taxes. People who understand the stranglehold towns are experiencing because of using an antiquated cruel property tax system to inadequately fund public education.

Let’s put an ax to the third rail of politics created in 1973 by a nasty little man, Meldrim Thompson, and a complicit legislature who have created and perpetuate this mess. It’s time.