State Budget Approved
After more than a week of veto threats and infighting between Governor Ayotte and the Republican led House and Senate, a budget was finally passed this week. Even with the so-called Group II retirement fix and a fix in the funding for Manchester public schools, this budget leaves a lot to be desired.
It does nothing to fix the inadequate and unconstitutional state funding our local neighborhood public schools that leaves the robustness of a student’s public education dependent on the ability of the local property taxpayers to fill in gigantic gaps left by the state. In order to balance the budget, it relies on taxing hardworking low-income Granite Staters so they can receive Medicaid, a move destined to raise health insurance costs for all of us, yet it cements the rapid and full expansion of the school voucher program to even the richest Granite Staters. The school voucher program has already seen over 2,000 sign-ups since the expansion was signed into law a couple of weeks ago, at an estimated additional cost of $10 to $12 million next school year alone! While this budget imposes new costs on working families, voucher expansion is a giveaway to the ultra-wealthy. New Hampshire deserves better.
One important piece for educators to be aware of in the budget is the “bell to bell” cell phone ban. This was placed into the budget last week and with its passage it means that starting next year a student cannot have a cell phone during any part of the school day unless there is a medical reason, language support reason, or it is part of their IEP or 504 plan. School districts will need to adopt policies to implement this new law in time for back to school.
This has been a long and hard session for supporters of public education. We should expect more big fights next year but for now the legislature will be on break and we can all take a breather. Thank you for your continued advocacy and support. This session would have been a lot tougher without all of your work and making your voices heard. Thank you!
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/.