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State House News

State House 08-2024

State Budget Up in The Air

Governor Threatens Veto

When is a budget not a budget? When it is vetoed by the Governor!  After a week of painstaking negotiations between the House and Senate budget writers over revenue estimates and which programs would be cut and which ones spared, Governor Ayotte says she will be vetoing the Republican passed budget.

The Governor isn’t vetoing the budget because it creates a Medicaid income tax for the most vulnerable Granite Staters, that was in her budget too. She isn’t vetoing it, because it rapidly expands the unaccountable voucher program to even the richest

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State House 08-2024

Public Education Takes a Hit in NH

Big Decisions Remain

Lots of public education news this week, though not a lot of good news.

Four things happened on Tuesday that will shape public education in New Hampshire for years to come. Tuesday morning the governor signed universal school vouchers and so-called parental bill of rights. We have talked about these bills a lot this year and previous years. We know what this means. It means scarce public money will be diverted to private schools, without solving the issue of school funding for our local neighborhood public schools. So-called parental bill of

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State House 08-2024

Critical Legislative Decisions Ahead on State Budget

The extremist majorities in the NH House and Senate showed their total disregard for public school students, educators and local property taxpayers as they wrapped up work on bills week. The Senate passed a budget that prioritizes expanding the state’s school voucher program instead of improving funding for students with special education needs in our public schools. The House passed two different bills that focused entirely on parental rights and ignored the best interests of the student and student safety.

The House has now dealt with all

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State House 08-2024

Final State Budget Approval Approaching

Contact the Senate Finance Committee

Work on all bills is approaching the final round in Concord. All committee hearings and executive sessions (except for Senate Finance which we will get to in a minute)  are now complete. There will be votes on the remaining bills by the full House and Senate next week and then they will set Committee of Conferences to meet starting on the 16th to see if they can work out their differences on bills that either chamber has amended. While we are close to the end, we still have a lot of unanswered questions, mostly due to the budget still being worked on.

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State House 08-2024

Universal School Voucher Bills in House and Senate Finance Committees

Take Action on Book Ban

We are in our last month of the legislative session in Concord. While there are still a lot of key votes to be taken and then the Governor will have to act on all of the bills the legislature passes, the legislature still has some key votes we are monitoring closely.

Next Week the House and Senate Finance Committees will have to take action on their irresponsible, unreasonable and unproven school voucher program. House Finance needs to approve the Senate version of universal school vouchers. Senate

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State House 08-2024

Book Ban Passes in Senate and Heads to Governor Ayotte

Please Take Action Now

The extremist majority in Concord was at it again this week, undermining students’ ability to get the robust public education they have a right to in our public schools.  This week the Senate passed HB 324, a bill that would make it easier to remove books and classroom materials from public schools by categorizing them as obscene, age-inappropriate or harmful to minors. The terms in the bill are vague and entirely subjective. Similar bills in other states have led to the removal of dictionaries from school libraries

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AFT-NH Logo 2024

This totally unnecessary bill creates the false and frankly insulting impression that we have rampant problems with extremely serious educator misconduct in so many of our public schools that it can only be solved by granting unprecedented investigatory power to the head of the Department of Education, through his hearing officers! Let me be clear, nobody wants the kind of person who would hurt students to stay in a position where they can ever do it again, whether that is as an educator, a volunteer, a sports coach, a clergy person or any other adult a child might encounter.

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State House 08-2024

Universal Vouchers Advance

 

Universal Vouchers Advance

Universal Vouchers  Anti-public education politicians continue their march towards a universal school voucher program this week. The House passed an amended version of SB 295 which starts a universal voucher program next year. As we have talked about many times expanding school vouchers to the wealthy Granite State families is not only fiscally irresponsible in a time where revenues are tight and programs that provide health care for working families and needed supports for Granite Staters with disabilities are being cut, but it also

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AFT-NH Logo 2024

I am here today to express our staunch opposition to the non-germane amendment to SB 54 which would require providing all public school students firearms safety training at all grade levels as part of their public education. We have many concerns about this proposed legislation as educators, parents, grandparents, and Granite State citizens.

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AFT-NH Logo 2024

On behalf of our members and the people we serve, I am here to express my opposition to portions of the House passed budget HB1 and HB 2. It is said that budgets are a statement of priorities. That is especially true in times when revenues are scarce. For that reason alone, priorities must remain laser focused on meeting the state’s constitutional duties and providing assistance to those who most need it. 

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