AFT-NH Legislative Bulletin (April 4, 2025) ACTION ALERT

NH House to Vote on State Budget 

with Deep Cuts to Needed Services for Many Granite Staters 

After Years of Tax Cuts for the Most Wealthy

The biggest thing the legislature will tackle next week is the state budget for the next two years. The budget being put forward is deeply flawed. After years of tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and multinational corporations, New Hampshire is facing a significant revenue shortfall. Because of this, in the House budget to be voted on this week, you see an income tax on working-class Granite Staters to pay for Medicaid, severe cuts to community mental health centers, and the closure of the Office of the Child Advocate, to say nothing of the crippling cut to the University System of New Hampshire.

In K-12 education, this budget does nothing to better fund our public schools and help to provide an adequate education to all students regardless of zip code. Besides the continued state underfunding of our neighborhood public schools, this budget is dangerous for our schools in another way. This budget adopted the language of HB675, which would impose a statewide spending cap on our locally set school budgets.

Local voters are entirely capable of making decisions about how to manage their local school district budgets. They know the students’ needs best, and they also are the ones who have to pay the higher property taxes. In many places, voters had the chance to adopt a local budget cap this year and turned it down. The extremist majority in Concord has made it clear they have a disdain for local voters, especially those who vote at town meetings and want to override the Legislature’s wishes by supporting their public schools.

Local school districts have been shouldering most of the burden of paying for the robust public education that is every Granite State student’s constitutional right. The state has not come close to meeting its obligations under the constitution to provide the required funding so that the public education provided to students is just as robust in Berlin as it is in Bedford. Imposing a state spending cap on all local school districts would make it impossible for local districts to continue to meet the educational needs of students in their public schools.

There will be an amendment to the budget to take the language of HB675 out. Contact your Representatives to protect our schools and local control and pass the amendment to remove HB675!

ACTION NEEDED

Contact your state Representatives today and tell them to vote to take HB 675 out of the budget.

Take Action to Get HB675 Out of the Budget

The budget isn’t the only thing that is happening next week. There are hearings on book bans, parents’ bills of rights, and part-time teachers. All of these bills impose a dangerous conservative, anti-education agenda that is out of touch with what Granite Staters want to see. Please sign in opposition to SB96, relative to mandatory disclosure by school district employees to parents; HB90, relative to uncertified part-time teachers; and HB324, a bill to make it easier to ban books from school and classroom libraries.

Submitting Your Position and Testimony

Here is easy access to submit your position on bills before House and Senate Committees.

Remember, if a bill is already scheduled for an Executive Session, you will not be able to submit your position.

To submit your position, click SUBMIT YOUR POSITION TO A HOUSE COMMITTEE HERE.

To submit your position, click SUBMIT YOUR POSITION TO A SENATE COMMITTEE HERE.

• Fill in your Personal Information
• Select the relevant date and committee for the hearing by clicking on it in the Meeting Schedule Calendar (make sure you are on the right week). [Select Bill # and select the date].
• In the dropbox below "Select the Committee," select committee.
• In the dropbox below "Choose the Bill," select the appropriate time and bill number.
• Select the appropriate option for the "I am" dropbox (likely "Member of the Public").
• Fill in the content box under "I'm Representing" with the business, organization, or group you are representing. If you are representing yourself only, write "myself."
• Under the “Indicate Your Position on this Bill,” check the circle stating your position on the bill. “I Oppose this Bill” or “I Support this Bill”
• After filling in all of the appropriate dropboxes, click “Submit.”
• After clicking submit, you will be brought to the next page, where you will fill in the content boxes with your first and last name, as well as your town, state, and email address.
• Press “Continue.”
• If you wish to speak during the hearing to present your testimony, you will need to attend in person at the State House, but you upload your testimony if you cannot attend.
• If you wish to submit testimony on the bill, email the relevant committee and upload the testimony file from your computer (if you need assistance in this, we are happy to help).

For breaking news and other legislative information, please be sure to like us on Facebook at AFT New Hampshire or follow us on Bluesky at aftnh.bsky.social.  Please share this with friends so they can sign up for this bulletin at http://nh.aft.org/.

Upcoming Legislative Hearings

Week of April 7, 2025