Are you in need of a beach read now that school is out and summer is here? We’ve got you covered.
Over the summer, we’ll be sharing some reading materials with a school funding focus. Come along with us as we dive into some New Hampshire school funding history and learn more about the issues of school funding and property taxes in our state.
With the State and the “Coalition Communities 2.0” filing their initial briefs in their appeal of this decision to the NH Supreme Court this week, we thought it would be worthwhile to go back and reread the Superior Court’s decision on SWEPT.
The Rand lawsuit was filed by a group of taxpayers from communities with below average property values that are being negatively impacted by our current school funding system. One specific claim from their suit, which was split off from the rest of the case, is that the Statewide Education Property Tax is unconstitutional as it is currently administered.
The taxpayer plaintiffs argue, and the Superior Court agreed, that municipalities retaining excess SWEPT revenues or setting negative local education tax rates to offset SWEPT both result in property owners in those places paying lower effective rates. That violates the NH Constitution and the Claremont decisions, which required that the State use taxes that are “uniform in rate” to raise the funds needed to fulfill its constitutional obligation to fund education.
Superior Court SWEPT Decision, Rand v. State of New Hampshire
The last reading we shared was a proposal for the future of school funding in our state. This week, we wanted to take a look at the legislative study that most closely resembles current law.
Following the 2006 Londonderry decision that reaffirmed the State’s responsibility to define and pay for an adequate education, a new law was passed defining “the opportunity for an adequate education”, and a Joint Legislative Oversight Committee was formed to work on determining the cost of providing that adequate education.
The Committee completed its final report in 2008, where they outlined an adequacy number much like the one we still use today. But what is perhaps most interesting about this report is the explanations for why certain school services, like school nurses, were not included in the cost of an adequate education. Those passages echo loudly today as the State repeats those arguments in court while it defends itself in the ConVal and Rand suits.
So far, this reading list has focused on the legal efforts to try and fix our upside-down school funding system. This week, we turn our attention to the legislature and its most recent study of the issues with our funding system, and some proposals on how to address them.
The Commission to Study School Funding was created by legislation that appropriated $500,000 to support the Commission’s work. The Commission worked closely with UNH and other researchers to compile data, hold listening sessions, and meet extensively to discuss school funding.
The Final Report they produced in 2020 is the culmination of that work and very clearly lays out the issues that are created by our school funding system. But since the report’s release, and despite the price tag attached to the Commission’s work, the legislature has flatly ignored the proposals put forward in the report.
Following up after reading the Claremont rulings, these next two readings bring us back to the present day with one of the ongoing school funding lawsuits. ConVal sued the State in 2019, arguing that what the State provides in base adequacy is insufficient to educate a student and therefore unconstitutional.
The initial decision in the superior court held that the amount of adequate education was unconstitutional as applied to ConVal, but not on its face, and made no judgement on what the appropriate number might be.
That decision was appealed to the NH Supreme Court, which resulted in the 2021 order sending the case back to the superior court for a trial to determine the cost and components of an adequate education. That trial took place over three weeks in spring 2023, and resulted in the November 2023 Superior Court decision where the Superior Court once again found base adequacy to be unconstitutionally low, and set a minimum floor of $7,356.01 per pupil, leaving the actual number up to the legislature and writing “the true cost is likely much higher than that.”
NH Supreme Court Ruling (2021) Superior Court Decision (2023)
The first entry on our summer reading list appropriately sets the stage for everything else we’ll read this summer. These two decisions establish the basic tenets for constitutional school funding in New Hampshire.
Before digging into these decisions, it is important to know the historical context that birthed the Claremont lawsuit. During the 1980s and ’90s, school districts were even more reliant on local property taxes to fund their schools than they are now, which meant communities with low property values needed to levy very high tax rates to fund education, but still weren’t bringing in enough revenue. In Claremont in particular, Stevens High School lost its accreditation because the district couldn’t afford to pay for necessary updates and renovations.
Claremont, along with the Pittsfield, Lisbon, Franklin, and Allenstown school districts, eight parents and taxpayers, and five students, filed a lawsuit arguing that the State had a responsibility, per the NH Constitution, to fund public education. These decisions are the result of that suit. Click on the buttons below to read the NH Supreme Court’s decisions.