Leadership?

Opportunities lost.

Last week there was another opportunity for NH’s top political leaders to show some leadership in the NH House. The opportunity came on a floor vote to kill a bill that I consider “tax-ish” or tax-adjacent.

HB 1636, proposed by Rep. Tom Oppel (D-Canaan), would have required NH’s tax and revenue agency to provide the legislature and the public with a plain language menu of five tax plans that if fully implemented would raise $500,000,000 per year, which is the amount of additional revenue needed to comply with the recent Supreme Court school funding decision in the ConVal case. Options could have included modifications to existing taxes as well as new taxes or other revenue sources.

In short, HB 1636 asked for the information necessary for the state of NH to consider how it may comply with its own constitution and properly fund the basic cost of k-12 public education; in other words, to do its damned job.

Under current law, the state provides about $4100 per student to comply with the Claremont school funding principles when the average actual cost tops $21,000 per student. The Supreme Court ruled the $4100 figure should increase to at least $7356. Given that NH has about 155,000 students, the cost of the increase is half a billion dollars in state money. The extra state revenue shifts costs from local property taxes to the state. It doesn’t increase overall spending for public education.

HB 1636 failed in the Republican controlled committee vote. Not unexpected. After bills are voted on in committee they receive a floor vote in the House.

The top NH Democratic Leadership instructed rank and file Democratic reps to agree with Republican leadership and deny the state even the basic information necessary to comply with the NH Supreme Court’s ruling.

Rep. Tom Oppel argued against leadership on the floor of the House.

Rep. Jaci Grote (D-Rye) carried the Democratic leadership’s position.

I’ll skip the specific arguments made on the floor for and against the bill. It is sufficient to simply share the education economics of the two reps’ hometowns to understand why some pursue equity and others do not.

Education Economics on the House Floor

Canaan is a small rural community in Grafton County, located towards NH’s border with Vermont. It is part of the Mascoma School District which struggles. The property value against which school taxes are levied amounts to $1.8 million per pupil. That’s three quarters of the state average. As a result, Canaan has very high school taxes ($13.11/1000).

Property value times property tax rate equals revenue raised.

Rye, on NH’s seacoast, has property values of $9 million per child, more than four times the state average and, as a result, Rye’s school taxes are well below the state average ($3.65/1000).

Canaan v. Rye; $13.11 v. $3.65; two communities 100 miles distant but worlds apart.

I remember presenting an even harsher comparison to Rye during our trial in the Claremont case. Rye’s middle school had a bank of up-to-date, networked computers in its modern computer lab. Our client, the working class Allenstown School District, strapped a 12 year old Apple IIe computer on a cart that was wheeled from classroom to classroom so the middle schoolers could see a personal computer. Allenstown was also the school district that taught students who qualified for special ed in a barely converted bathroom.

The Claremont trial was 30 years ago. The state’s mindset when it comes to fairly funding education hasn’t changed much since then.

I’ve included at the end of this post a roll call of the 76 reps who defied Democratic leadership to reject the “Inexpedient to Legislate” designation for HB 1636.

Thank them when you see them.

A Real Property Tax Cut (Teaser)

Property taxes are too damned high.

School taxes are a big proportion of your property taxes. This would lead most normal, thinking folks to the conclusion that we should actually do something about school taxes in NH. Hint, it’s not enough to post maps showing how uneven school taxes are in NH.

Look for a small group of intrepid, independently minded souls to announce a property tax savings plan next week. I am a part of this group and I will include plenty of details in next week’s Substack post.

Stay tuned.

A Personal Note

The NH Bar Association recognized me for my school funding, death penalty and ACLU work by awarding me the 2026 Distinguished Service to the Public Award. The award is presented annually to the “person who best exhibits service to the public on behalf of the administration of justice.” It was quite gratifying to receive a sustained standing ovation from my colleagues at the Bar’s mid-winter meeting last Friday.

The Book Tour (unexpectedly) Continues

As a favor to my publisher, Deidre Randall, I have agreed to present another book talk. The talk will be on March 26^th beginning at 5:30 at the Book Nook in Portsmouth.

The Mighty 76 who bucked leadership on HB 1636

Representative County

Ames, Dick. Cheshire

Baldwin, Heather. Grafton

Beauchemin, Paige. Hillsborough

Bixby, Peter. Strafford

Bolton, Bill. Grafton

Bricchi, Tracy. Merrimack

Burton, Wayne. Strafford

Cahill, Michael. Rockingham

Caplan, Tony. Merrimack

Chourasia, Manoj. Hillsborough

Chretien, Suzanne. Hillsborough

Cloutier, John. Sullivan

Colby, Eleana. Merrimack

Cormen, Thomas. Grafton

Damon, Hope. Sullivan

de Vries, Erica. Rockingham

Edgar, Michael. Rockingham

Elberger, Susan. Hillsborough

Faulkner, Barry. Cheshire

Foss, Lily. Hillsborough

Fox, Dru. Cheshire

Fracht, David. Grafton

Gallager, Eric. Merrimack

Germana, Nicholas. Cheshire

Gilmore, Gary. Strafford

Gregg, Alicia. Hillsborough

Gruber, James. Cheshire

Hartnett, Tim. Hillsborough

Haskins, Linda. Rockingham

Hegner, Karen. Hillsborough

Horrigan, Timothy. Strafford

Howard, Heath. Strafford

Kerwin, Erin. Hillsborough

Knab, Allison. Rockingham

LaMontagne, Jessica. Strafford

Leapley, Nicole. Hillsborough

Leishman, Peter. Hillsborough

Lloyd, Christal Hillsborough

Lucas, Janet. Grafton

Luneau, David. Merrimack

Manohar, Sanjeev. Hillsborough

McGhee, Kat. Hillsborough

Muns, Chris. Rockingham

Murray, Alissandra. Hillsborough

Newman, Ray. Hillsborough

Newman, Sue. Hillsborough

Newsom, James. Merrimack

O’Rorke, Terri. Cheshire

Oppel, Thomas. Grafton

Parshall, Lucius. Cheshire

Pearson, Wayne. Strafford

Petrigno, Peter. Hillsborough

Preece, David. Hillsborough

Raymond, Heather. Hillsborough

Raynolds, Ned. Rockingham

Rockmore, Ellen. Grafton

Salvi, Santosh. Hillsborough

Sargent, Gregory. Merrimack

Schamberg, Thomas. Merrimack

Seibert, Christine. Hillsborough

Selig, Loren. Strafford

Smith, Geoffrey. Strafford

Spahr, Terry. Grafton

Staub, Kathy. Hillsborough

Stringham, Jerry. Grafton

Swanson, Dale. Hillsborough

Sykes, George. Grafton

Tellez, Trinidad. Hillsborough

Thomas, Wendy. Hillsborough

Vail, Suzanne. Hillsborough

Wade, Alice. Strafford

Ward, Gerald. Rockingham

Weber, Lucy. Cheshire

Weinstein, Toni. Rockingham

Wheeler, Jonah. Hillsborough

Woodcock, Stephen. Carroll