Critical Alert (Action Needed)
Defeat HB 1300 (school tax caps) and HB 751 (open enrollment)
Two harmful bills are moving ahead for their final votes in the House and Senate this Thursday, June 4th after Committees of Conference met this week. The Conference Committees managed to hammer out last minute agreements on Open Enrollment (HB 751) and Mandatory School Tax Caps on the November ballot (HB 1300). Both of these bills would harm students, school districts, and all school district employees. These bills will do nothing to advance educational outcomes and will not lower anyone’s property taxes.
HB 751 (Open Enrollment) The last-minute amendment on open enrollment replaced the bill lawmakers have spent the past two months developing. That version of the bill allowed a small number of students to transfer from their local public school to a public school in another district. The per pupil State aid would follow them, and the receiving school would get additional State aid to help them cover their costs. The new amendment scraps all of that and instead mandates that every school district allow at least 10 percent of their students transfer out to another district every year through Open Enrollment. Students who leave would bring 80% of the local property tax funding to their new school district. Yes, local property tax dollars would leave the school district. It would not take many students leaving to push underfunded public schools into serious budget trouble and force deep cuts.
Reaching Higher New Hampshire has a great recap on HB 751 here Open Enrollment Explainer. It’s bad policy. Even the governor has already said it is bad and not ready to be signed into law. Despite what the Governor is saying now we still need to keep contacting all of our elected officials to tell them to vote NO on HB 751.
Please take action here to stop HB 751.
Protect Our Schools - Stop HB 751
HB 1300 (School Tax Cap and November Elections) puts mandatory school tax caps on the ballot in every New Hampshire city and town in the State election in November. Cities and towns already have laws allowing them to adopt school property tax caps or spending caps using warrant articles at their annual meeting or by following their city charter. Granite Staters don’t need lawmakers in Concord forcing everyone to vote on tax caps on the same day, whether they want them or not. Tax caps are blunt tools that don’t allow districts to respond to the learning needs of all their students. This bill is badly written, contains contradictory language, will be nearly impossible to implement, and will hurt student outcomes. New Hampshire has a proud tradition of town meetings and local control, and this undermines it. There is one choice to provide property tax relief and that’s for the state to fund our schools.
Please take this action to reach out to elected officials to say no to HB 1300.
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