AFT-NH Legislative Bulletin (March 7, 2025)

Tough Week for Public Education

Vouchers and Spending Caps Up Next Week

It has been a tough week for those who care about public education this week. Two harmful bills passed the House Education Finance Committee on a party line vote. First, they passed HB 675 a bill that overrides local control and has the state force a restrictive school spending cap on every single local community. Make no mistake, anti-education politicians passed optional school spending caps for Granite State communities last year, which local voters in each community where they were proposed needed to agree to adopt, and now like toddlers, they are throwing a tantrum and trying to override local control just because New Hampshire citizens time and time again showed that they wanted to SUPPORT our local neighborhood public schools.

Let’s be clear about the consequences of HB 675. School districts across the state would have to slash their budgets. This could put in jeopardy required funding for special education services and teacher salaries. Say goodbye to your kid’s football team, the marching band, foreign language, visual arts, their music program or anything beyond the basic core curriculum of English and language arts, basic mathematics, science, and limited history the school now offers.  It would look just like they wanted to push with HB 283, before your voices stopped them in their tracks. HB 675 doesn’t do anything to help out property poor districts, and in fact, traps them with underfunded schools that aren’t meeting student needs with no way of closing any parts of the gaps as the state continues to be neglectful in its funding of public education. 

Please use the NH School Fair Funding Project advocacy tool to let your legislator know that HB 675 strips away local control and harms our public schools.

Two universal school voucher bills both passed their committees. HB 115 passed the House Education Funding Committee and SB 295 passed the Senate Education Finance Committee, both on strict party line votes. There are dedicated legislators in both the House and Senate standing up for our students and our schools every day, but they are not the majority. These two bills are different, but the outcomes are the same. Both bills create a universal voucher program. Universal vouchers are giveaways to the ultra-wealthy while raising property taxes on middle class families. The budget that Governor Ayotte presented to the House contains a 5% income tax on working class families. A single mother with two children who makes $67,000 a year would be responsible for paying $238 a month to continue being able to access Medicaid to provide healthcare for her children. That means children whose parents cannot afford to keep their health insurance will lose it all while the state spends money to subsidize the education of folks who make $1millon dollars or more to send their kids to Phillips Exeter Academy.

Please contact your legislators now to say NO to vouchers.

Of course, the biggest problem with universal school vouchers is that they create a separate taxpayer funded education system with no accountability for how the money is spent or whether students are getting much education for the money being spent. Public documents show school vouchers have been used to pay for ski passes and elite travel sports teams, hardly a complete, well-rounded education. With state tax revenue at a low point, expanding school vouchers at a potential cost of 100 million a year will mean no relief for the systematic underfunding of our local neighborhood public schools, causing your property taxes to rise and our students’ educational outcomes to worsen.

We did have one very important victory this week. HB 735 which would have required the re-certification of public unions died on the consent calendar this week. We asked you to reach out to legislators. You did, and it was noticed! Thank you for your work.

There are many hearings on the docket for next week as you can see from our bill hearing summary. You can submit your position on a bill by using the remote tools below.

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).

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Upcoming Legislative Hearings

Week of March 10, 2025