NHSFFP issued the following statement on the Rand taxpayer plaintiffs’ objection to the State’s motion for summary judgement. You can find all of the documents filed by the plaintiffs at the bottom of this page, and can read their arguments in their Memorandum of Law here.

On Monday, the taxpayer plaintiffs in the Rand lawsuit filed an objection to the State’s summary judgement motion on the school funding questions of the case, pushing back against the State’s mischaracterization of their arguments and reasserting that the State is providing insufficient funding for education. 

“Clearly, the State has no positive defense for its failure to adequately fund education,” said Zack Sheehan, NHSFFP Executive Director. “Kids are back in school this week utilizing all kinds of services like school buses and school nurses that are clearly necessary for them to receive an adequate education. But the State thinks those are extras that they don’t need to pay for, and so their costs have been downshifted onto local property tax payers.” 

At the center of the State’s motion was an argument that the narrow definition of the course materials that compromise an adequate education are all that the State needs to pay for. They list services like school buses, school nurses, and even school buildings as things that fall outside the definition of adequacy. This is despite the fact that State rules and other laws require these exact services be provided by districts.  

The amount of adequacy funding has no real basis in the actual cost of educating students, with average adequacy totaling around $4,700 per student while the actual average cost of educating a New Hampshire student exceeds $20,000 a year. 

“With school back in session we can see really clearly just how much is necessary to provide students with the opportunity for an adequate education,” Sheehan said. “Kids need the bus to get to school, and some kids need a nurse in the building to be able to attend school. There needs to be a change to the costing of adequacy that accounts for those things, and then the responsibility of paying those costs needs to be shifted back to the State where it belongs.” 

Plaintiffs’ Objection Memorandum of Law Plaintiffs’ Statement of Facts