LEBANON — Upper Valley Democrats went on the attack against Gov. Chris Sununu’s proposed budget on Monday, saying it fails to prioritize education or reduce school property taxes.
Sununu, a Republican, ignored calls to boost aid to property-poor communities struggling to compensate teachers and keep schools open, according to lawmakers gathered outside Lebanon City Hall for an event organized by the New Hampshire Democratic Party.
“We have a school funding crisis. It’s past time that New Hampshire makes an honest calculation of what is the true cost of an adequate education — one that includes things like a school nurse, or realistic class sizes or transportation,” said state Rep. Linda Tanner, D-Georges Mills, who was flanked by legislators from Hanover and Lebanon.
Tanner, a retired teacher, went on to say Sununu’s budget “essentially flat-funded education” and continues a trend of downshifting school costs to property taxpayers.
“We need to address this now. But there is one person standing in the way — Gov. Sununu,” Tanner said. “He has the ability through his budget to make a difference right now. His proposed budget doesn’t do that.”
The Lebanon event, which was one of three organized by Democratic lawmakers across the state, drew a quick rebuke from the governor’s office, which issued a statement touting several education initiatives included in the budget.
Among them are a record $63.7 million earmarked for school building aid, $8.6 million devoted to tuition and transportation to vocational schools and a $4 million increase in special education funding.
That money is designed to limit property tax increases, which often are driven by building upgrades and special education expenses otherwise, according to Ben Vihstadt, the governor’s spokesman.
“Any assertion otherwise is nothing more than un-vetted partisan talking points,” he wrote.
Tanner and fellow Democrats called on Sununu to support several pieces of legislation aimed at increasing state aid to local school districts.
One bill, H.B. 177, would reverse cuts to state stabilization grants, which were designed to cushion schools from the effects of sudden demographic changes, and reverse them to 2016 levels.
The cuts have proven devastating to communities such as Claremont, which is expected to see its share of grant money drop by about $251,300 this year, according to the New Hampshire Department of Education.
Another piece of legislation, H.B. 709, would increase state payouts to school districts serving property-poor communities and low-income students.
Both bills saw bipartisan support when they came before the House in February and are sponsored by Rep. Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, the ranking member of the House Education Committee.
“Rural school districts have been hit by an education tsunami that impacts our students and the state’s future workforce needs,” Ladd wrote in an email on Monday. “Education funding is a priority needing immediate action.”
Members of both parties accept that something must be done to help struggling schools, Ladd said, but they’re divided on how to best pay for proposed fixes.
Republicans particularly have cautioned against new taxes on capital gains, a tactic Ladd says Democrats favor.
Those party-line divisions go back to 1997, when the state Supreme Court ruled that New Hampshire’s system of paying for K-12 education was unconstitutional. In several of the so-called Claremont school funding cases, the court called for students to have equal access to an adequate education.
“That was the charge by the court, but as you can imagine, the devil has always been in the details,” said political analyst Dean Spiliotes, a civic scholar at Southern New Hampshire University.
He said lawmakers have proposed legislation in recent years to tinker with the state’s current education formula, which utilizes the statewide property tax to provide schools with about $3,700 per student.
But a big question remains whether that’s enough to provide an “adequate” education, considering the average Granite State student costs nearly $16,000 to educate, Spiliotes said.
The Contoocook Valley Regional School District, which educates students from nine Monadnock-area towns, last week sued the state making a similar argument.
“We feel that taxpayers are getting overburdened… we felt it was necessary to be supportive of the taxpayers and to make sure children get an adequate education,” ConVal School Board Chairman Myron Steere told the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript.
Ultimately, it will be up to Statehouse Democrats, who control both chambers in Concord, and Sununu to determine whether New Hampshire will increase education spending through the ongoing biennial budget process.
Vihstadt, the governor’s spokesman, said Sununu would be open to adjusting the funding, “if the legislature is able to do so in a fiscally responsible way that does not raise taxes.”
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.