Week in Review
HB 533 – Power Grab from DOE on HRC Complaints Heard
On Thursday of this week NEA-NH gave testimony opposing HB 533 before the House Judiciary Committee. This bill would allow the Department of Education itself to file a complaint “on behalf of any person aggrieved by a discriminatory practice by a school or school district.” This means that this would allow the Commissioner to directly take “banned concept” type complaints received by the Department and file official complaints to the Human Rights Commission. With Commissioner Edelblut’s history of standing with organizations and individuals that have put bounties out on teachers over this law, and his statements about how he interprets this vague statute, this proposed new authority would be extremely troubling to give to the Department.
FOLLOW UP ACTION REQUESTED:
Please contact members of the House Judiciary Committee. Please let them know that this bill makes no sense to pass because a federal judge has deemed the law this seeks to expand the enforcement mechanism for, impermissibly vague and the lawsuit over the banned concepts law continues. Adding yet another entities’ interpretation to this mix, along with additional enforcement and intimidation capabilities exacerbates the consequences of vague nature of the existing law.
Senate Passes Pro-Educator Pension Bill – Referred to Finance
On a voice vote, the Senate passed SB 57, a bill that would delay the 10% reduction you see in your pension when you turn sixty-five until your full social security age. This would mean thousands of additional dollars over that period of time when you will need to begin covering other costs in your retirement like medical premiums and prescription drug costs. Because of fiscal costs to this bill, HB 57 was referred to Senate Finance as a second committee.
FOLLOW UP ACTION REQUESTED:
Please contact the members of the Senate Finance Committee and urge them to pass this common sense change that was endorsed by the Decennial Retirement Commission Report.
Next Week: House Education Voucher Vote and Hearings on Recruiting More Educators
School Voucher Expansion
This week the House Education will vote on the first of 2 bills they have heard proposing to greatly expand the school voucher program. NEA-NH opposes both bills. You can see our written testimony against both bills by going to our legislative tracker and searching for HB 464 or 367.
HB 367 will be voted on in the House Education Committee this coming week and would simply expand the income eligibility of the program to 500% of the Federal Poverty Level, which for a family of 4 in 2023 is $150,000.
HB 464 will be voted on in committee on February 6th and would expand the school voucher eligibility by adding various new categories of students regardless of their family income.
Both pieces of legislation greatly expand a program that has siphoned money away from public education and the current proposals propose no new funding stream other than a blank check from the education trust fund whose purpose is to fund public education in New Hampshire.
REQUESTED ACTION: We expect this to be a party line vote in committee so, please visit our Legislative Action Page here so that you can begin to contact your State Representatives now about rejecting these voucher expansion proposals. In a closely divided House, each vote will count immensely to defeating these bills.
Strengthening The Educator Pipeline by Supporting Future Educators
Senate Majority Leader Sharon Carson has sponsored SB 140, working with NEA-NH to help support rising educators who are in preparation programs. SB 140 would provide stipends or grants to students to reduce the financial barriers to entering the educator workforce during their residency programs. The goal of proposals like this is to help strengthen the pipeline of new educators into the profession so we can address the educator workforce shortage in New Hampshire.
REQUESTED ACTION: Please write, sign-in, or testify in SUPPORT of SB 140, being heard before the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday, January 31 at 9am in Room 101 of the Legislative Office building. You can register your support online by visiting the Senate online sign in form here.
Looking for More Legislation
You can see all the bills we are following this week and going forward and which ones we are asking for action from members on by going to our Legislative Dashboard here. You can now also sign up to receive weekly or even daily updates on the status of these bills as well by going to the Bill Tracker on our Dashboard.
Questions?
If you have questions on any of these bills or ones not mentioned here, please feel free to contact Brian Hawkins, NEA-NH Director of Government Relations at bhawkins@nhnea.org.