State Education Funding Meeting Info & Link

Meeting Link

Remote access to Commission meetings is available at  https://carsey.unh.edu/school-funding/calendar

1. Dial the call in number: 1-312-626-6799
2. Enter the conference code (see code for each meeting), followed by the pound sign.

About

The primary purpose of the Commission to Study School Funding is to “review the education funding formula and make recommendations to ensure a uniform and equitable design for financing the cost of an adequate education for all public school students” (RSA 193-E:2-e). The Commission is charged with developing school funding policies that comply with court decisions calling for uniform revenue sources and fulfillment of the Constitutional requirement for a state-funded adequate education for all preK-12 students. The Commission consists of 16 members appointed by the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, the Governor, and the Commission chair. Six of these are public members (not currently serving legislators).The Commission is chaired by Representative David Luneau of Hopkinton (Merrimack—District 10).

History

As part of the final budget resolution enacted by the New Hampshire General Court at the end of the 2019 legislative session, RSA 193-E was amended to create a commission to study school funding. The General Court recognized that the long-time challenge of funding New Hampshire’s public schools, resulting in both legislative and judicial efforts to assure proportional and equitable financing, demands intensive study in order to create legal and sustainable solutions. The Commission will build on the work od prior study and oversight committees inorder to developepolicy recommendatons for consideration during the legislative session beginning in January, 2021. A final report is due from the committee at the beginning of December, 2020.

Potential Impact on Waterville Valley

With the passage of the first State Education Tax Rate in 1999, the Town of Waterville Valley saw an increase in the Town tax rate from $12.10 to $18.42 – a 52.2% increase.  The increase in the rate raised nearly $1.1M in property taxes for State Education funding with only $138,300 coming back to the Town for use by the Waterville Valley School Department.  Due to court challenges, state law was eventually changed to allow towns to use all of the State Education portion of the rate for local school funding.  This helped lower the overall rate here in Town and we continue to use this formula for education funding today.

Currently, the Town is able to use the $658,300 raised through the State Education portion of the tax rate on local education costs.  Any return of a funding formula which requires the Town to send all or some of the State Education portion of the tax rate for use outside the community would mean an increase of nearly $2.00 on the overall rate – a 14% increase.

Each budget season, the Selectmen and School Board work hard to control budget increases and most years the increases are between 2%-5%.  Combined with annual increases in overall valuation through new property development and improvements, budgetary controls have led to a stable tax rate.  In fact, the 2020 total tax rate of $14.25/$1,000 of value is exactly the same as the rate in 2017 and represented an increase of less than 8% from 2014.  Given these historic trends in the Town and School budgets, a 14% tax increase in a single year would be significant.  And this would be the increase before taking into account any needs other than education funding. 

In Closing

The Town and School District are continuing to monitor the commission discussions and we will provide updates to the community as more information becomes available.  We encourage all tax payers to listen to the commission deliberations if you have time.  Also, if you would like to share your thoughts on this issue with either the Selectmen or School Board, please feel free to send an email to townofwv@watervillevalley.org