This Week: NH House Passes Their Budget but Rejects Mandatory School Budget Caps
The Good Stuff
The House state budget proposal passed this week on largely a party line vote, but not before some major changes occurred on the House floor. Thanks in large part to educator-led advocacy, the House cast a strong, bipartisan vote (206 – 165) to remove the devastating language of HB 675 from the budget bill. That language would have imposed a draconian, mandatory budget cap on all school districts that would have essentially frozen school budgets without a 2/3 supermajority override vote. This would have made it nearly impossible for schools to keep up with the rising costs of health care, fuel, and special education, not to mention the negative impact it would have had on meaningful contract negotiations for our members.
Please take the time to thank those House members – including the 38 House Republicans – who crossed the aisle to vote to remove this provision from the budget. Click here to see the roll call list of “Yea” votes to see if your state representative(s) voted on the prevailing side and find their contact information to mail/email/call them with your appreciation! (Not sure who your state reps are? No worries. You can find them here!)
The House also voted to remove a provision from the budget proposal that would have begun to shift the state out of a defined benefit pension for public employees in the state by requiring all new state employees to enter into a 401(k)-style program rather than the current pension system. This would have been a slippery slope for other public employers to exit the current pension system, which is a key part of retirement security for educators.
The Bad Stuff
The not so good news is that the budget adopted by the House still contains funding decisions and policies that would negatively impact public education in our state. Here is a rundown of what will impact our students and educators the most:
- Universal Vouchers: The House passed universal vouchers as a stand-alone bill AND as part of the state budget. HB 115 narrowly passed, 188 – 181, with 16 Republicans joining all Democrats to oppose the bill. The language of HB 115 is also included in HB 2 the trailer bill to the budget. Both HB 115 and the budget bill next got to the Senate for further consideration and work.
- Mandatory Open Enrollment: The House also put the language of HB 741 in the budget bill, which would require all school districts in the state to accept any eligible public school student. This mandate would exacerbate New Hampshire’s already inequitable school funding system by creating a situation where wealthier districts would attempt to poach students from less wealthy communities.
- Targeting Welcoming Schools: A last-minute Committee amendment to the budget creates a prohibition on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in public institutions; the language is extraordinarily broad and there truly is no telling what programs or groups this could apply to. This is a copy-cat of Trump’s Executive Order and states “No public school shall implement, promote, or otherwise engage in any DEI-related initiatives, programs, training, or policies.” This late amendment never had a public hearing and has no business in the state budget.
There is a lot more to be concerned about in the budget, including cost shifting onto working families to maintain their children’s Medicaid benefits and cuts to the disability community. The budget bills, HB 1 and HB 2 now head to the Senate where the process will begin again. Stay tuned for more actions to take on the budget as we begin this next phase of the process.
Next Week: Educator Code of Conduct; Electioneering; and MORE Voucher Expansion Bills
HB 235 – Expanding Code of Conduct to Add Responsibility to Parents
HB 235 passed the House and has crossed over to the Senate for further consideration. The bill would give the NH Department of Education the ability to expand the Educator Code of Conduct (ECC) to include an unknown set of responsibilities to parents (not just students as it does today). Educator responsibilities to students are laid out in the ECC with standards that make sense, such as maintaining a professional relationship with students and protecting students’ health and safety. This bill would add parents to the law and let the Commissioner and the State Board enumerate what those responsibilities to parents are through the rulemaking process. This could enact a limitless and unworkable set of standards for educators to meet, and would compete with their number one responsibility, which is the well-being of their students. Given the highly charged political culture war agenda currently pursued by the Department under the guise of parental rights, this is a bill educators should be concerned about.
HB 340 – Electioneering by Public Employees
This bill passed the House and is so broadly written we are concerned that it interferes with your First Amendment rights to engage in the local political process, including the historically included efforts to support the funding of your local’s negotiated collective bargaining agreements or school budgets that you support or oppose. We already have an electioneering statute that works on the books; we don’t need to broaden it to silence the rights of educators, fire fighters, and police officers.
SB 295 – Senate Universal Voucher Bill
As amended by the Senate Education Finance Committee, SB 295 would still lift the income cap on the voucher program entirely but would institute a soft cap of 10,000 participants this next fiscal year. However, the Committee also built in an automatic increase of 25% in the cap if enrollment in the program (the number of participants in any year) approaches the cap. At a minimum, this more than doubles the size of New Hampshire’s already over-budget and unaccountable voucher program. Instead of sending taxpayer money to private schools, we should focus on our public schools, which are attended by nearly 90% of students and 95% of students with a disability.
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.
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