Cost of Adequacy

In September of 2006, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in the Londonderry school funding case. The Court ordered the New Hampshire Legislature to define an adequate education, determine its cost, fund it, and ensure its delivery through accountability. The Legislature met the June 30, 2007 deadline for the definition of adequacy. HB 927 (2008), the definition legislation, set up the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Costing an Adequate Education.

All along, NEA-NH has been concerned that the committee would mold its results to fit a sum legislators and the governor are willing to spend, rather than determining the actual cost of an adequate education.

On February 21, 2008, Senate Bill 539 was introduced. This is the bill that would turn the costing committee's recommendations into law. Prior to the bill's hearing on March 4, its sponsors released a spreadsheet showing that funding for most property-poor towns would decrease under the bill. We saw this as an effort to set the stage for a constitutional amendment on school funding.

On March 4, 2008, the Senate Education Committee held its hearing on SB 539. Committee Chair Senator Iris Estabrook, D-Durham, brought an amendment that "Provides fiscal capacity disparity aid, in addition to aid for the cost of the opportunity for an adequate education, to municipalities based on relative wealth and need." It would add funding for property-poor towns on top of the "adequacy funding."

The governor has still supports a constitutional amendment on school funding. The latest version, CACR 34, is the worst yet. It would allow the Legislature to do virtually anything it wants in terms of school funding, as long as it is "reasonable." It would also lower the court's standard of review in school funding cases to the point that a court challenge to any funding formula, no matter how insufficient, would be unlikely to prevail. The Senate has already passed this amendment.

NEA-NH has testified that SB 539 needs more funding to meet the true adequacy threshold. NEA-NH has also testified against CACR 34, the constitutional amendment on school funding.

Links:
NEA-NH News Release, January 17, 2008
NEA-NH on the definition of educational adequacy (2007)
Adequacy Estimate with Fiscal Capacity Disparity Aid, March 3, 2008

 

Created January 22, 2008