The New Hampshire House of Representatives will reconvene for its 2026 legislative session on Wednesday, January 7th. 

These are the big bills to watch: HB155, HB366, HB491, HB651, HB675 

Next week the 2026 NH Legislative Session kicks off. Since this is the second year of the two-year biennium, the first session days in January are mostly about dealing with any bills “left over” from the 2025 session. These are bills that were retained in committee. In theory, when a committee retains a bill they are holding it to do more work on it over the summer and fall to come back with a more nuanced recommendation about if it should pass, be killed, or be amended. In reality, many bills are retained just to limit the workload during a busy session and then little to no work is put in over the summer and fall. But, just like every bill in NH, these retained bills still are entitled to a full vote and debate on the House Floor, which we will see next week. 

These votes matter because they will help determine whether lawmakers focus on building strong communities and easing pressure on local property taxes, or continue policies that push costs down to towns and families. 

There are a handful of bills that we are particularly interested in, and how these votes go will give a snapshot of where the legislature is going this year. Will they take school funding more seriously now that there is a Supreme Court ruling in the ConVal case demanding that they increase funding from the state by about $500 million to reduce pressure on property taxes? How will they react to the extreme financial challenges we are seeing play out as dozens of districts have been hit with unexpected health insurance increases? On the heels of December property tax bills, will they work to reduce the strain locally by contributing more from the state or even acknowledge that this is a critical issue? 

HB 155: Reducing the rate of the business enterprise tax.

• Ought to Pass with Amendment [RC 189-165 01/08/2026]: bill
• HB 155 would continue the trend of the past decade by further reducing taxes paid by large corporations to the State, by an estimated $30 million per year. According to NHFPI, the State has lost between $795 million and $1.17 billion in revenue since 2015 due to tax rate reductions, revenue that could have been used for a whole range of services our communities and local economies rely on, such as access to high-quality child care, affordable housing, strong public schools, or directly reducing local property taxes. 

• During the most recent budget debates last spring, the NH Senate removed a roughly $30 million increase to special education funding from the budget, claiming they did not have the available revenue. 

• This is a clear example of the tradeoffs lawmakers are making, cutting revenue from profitable corporations while claiming there isn’t enough funding to meet core responsibilities like special education. 

HB 366: Relative to school building aid for eligible projects.

• HB 366 would change the current $50 million cap on school building aid to a $60 million floor. Building a new school or taking on major renovations can be a huge expense for a school district and community. Expanding those funds to take into account dramatic increases in building costs over the past few years could help more communities keep their facilities updated. Currently, too many districts that do not have significant local wealth have been forced to take band-aid approaches to facilities. This has resulted in some communities having significant, and sometimes unsafe and unhealthy, conditions for students and staff, issues that can force more extreme and costly solutions paid for entirely by local property taxes. 

• Remember that the State has spent the past six years literally arguing in the ConVal court case that school buildings and heat are not required for an adequate education. That argument was rejected in the July Supreme Court ruling, which recognized that safe, well-maintained school buildings and facilities are part of what students need to learn. 

HB 491: Establishing a committee to study alternative funding methods for public education and how to reduce its reliance on local real estate property taxes.

• HB 491 would, in the future, establish a committee simply to begin discussing how to raise more revenue at the state level in order to reduce reliance on local property taxes. It’s telling that this bill, which again would not actually change any policy, but would set up a group to even talk about property tax relief, was shelved last year. 

• It’s even more telling that the recommendation out of the Education Funding Committee, after working on the bill over the summer and fall, is to kill it entirely.

HB 651: Modifying the base cost and differential aid costs of an adequate education.

• HB 651 was killed in the House on 1.07.26
• HB 651 would increase the amount of funding for public schools coming from the state, providing much needed support for schools and relief for property taxpayers. This increased state support would help stabilize school budgets, reduce pressure on local property taxes, and give districts more predictability when planning for staffing and student services. 

• It would increase the amounts in each of the four categories that currently make up what the state considers an adequate education by a little over 70%:
  • Base Adequacy Aid: Increase from $4,265.64 to $7,356.01 per pupil
  • Free or Reduced-Price Meal Eligible Students: Increase from $2,392.92 to $4,126.20 per eligible pupil
  • English Language Learners: Increase from $832.32 to $1,435.20 per eligible pupil
  • Special Education Students: Increase from $2,184.84 to $3,767.40 per eligible pupil 

• HB 651 would both bring state funding levels up to the floor set in the Supreme Court ruling in the ConVal case—$7,356 in base adequacy—and also increase aid for other services that were the focus of the Rand Superior Court ruling.

HB 675: Limiting the authority of school districts to make certain appropriations.

• HB 675 would impose a mandatory budget cap on every school district in the state, tied to rigid formulas that ignore the real needs of students and the actual costs districts face when running schools. 

• Proponents are going so far as to call this the “Property Tax Relief Act,” despite the fact that it takes decision-making power away from local voters and communities. 

• We already have a provision in law that allows local communities to decide and vote on a school budget cap if they want to. In fact, last year Brookline, ConVal, Epping, Epsom, Haverhill, Hollis-Brookline, Kearsarge, Salem, Thornton, and Weare all saw proposed caps—and every single one was rejected by voters, many by overwhelming margins. 

• These mandated caps could lead to cuts to arts, music, sports, AP classes, clubs, field trips, and career and technical education if other, state-mandated costs increase, because local communities would have little to no flexibility. 

• Granite Staters have already said no to budget caps locally, and lawmakers rejected a backdoor attempt to sneak them into the state budget. HB 675 is just another attempt to force through a cap communities do not want. 

• In recent months, we saw yet another example of how unworkable a statewide cap would be. More than 60 districts were hit with unexpected SchoolCare health insurance assessments, some in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. These aren’t costs communities chose, and they aren’t costs anyone could have predicted. Under HB 675, districts would have no flexibility to respond to sudden spikes like these without cutting programs students rely on. That’s not property tax relief, it’s a recipe for chaos and cuts in classrooms.