Forum on education funding set for Thursday at Laconia High School

LACONIA — The New Hampshire School Funding Fairness Project will host a community forum on the relationship between state education funding and property taxes at Laconia High School this Thursday.

The event is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 19, at the Laconia High School auditorium on Union Avenue. 

The forum will be moderated by former New Hampshire Attorney General Phil McLaughlin, who previously served as Belknap County attorney from 1979 to 1981, and later as chair of the school board for a decade. 

Residents of all towns are invited to attend the forum, where representatives of the organization, plus attorneys involved in prominent cases in the New Hampshire Supreme Court regarding state funding for education, will be available to discuss key issues and answer constituent questions. 

“New Hampshire School Funding Fairness Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate the public about school funding,” Marcia Hayward, a longtime educator, said on Friday morning.

The format will allow for residents and other interested parties to write questions on index cards throughout the event, which is expected to run for about 90 minutes. McLaughlin, as moderator, will read the questions aloud.  

“He is a well-respected individual in this community,” Hayward said of McLaughlin as the chosen moderator. 

Key issues to be discussed indepth include property taxes required to make up deficits in state funding for local school districts, special education funding, and recent and past state Supreme Court decisions. 

At the end of January, Rockingham Superior Court Justice David Ruoff issued an order denying the state’s motion to reconsider a decision in Rand v State, issued in August. 

His original ruling found the Granite State is not adequately funding its public schools. Local property taxpayers are bearing the burden of local public school budgets due to underfunding by the state, which he called unconstitutional.

“While it is the state’s obligation to meet the demands of Constitutional adequacy, the state has downshifted that obligation to the local school systems via statutes and regulations that require schools to satisfy this standard,” Ruoff wrote, in denying the motion. “As adequacy funding is insufficient (standing alone or coupled with other state education funding sources) for schools to meet Constitutional adequacy, the state’s underfunded mandate directly forces local communities to bridge the gap with local funds.” 

Attorneys familiar with the Rand case and another prominent case, a lawsuit filed by the ConVal School District in 2019, will be available for questions and discussion at the event at Laconia High School. 

“If it's successful, they’ll probably use this platform in the future,” Hayward said.

Hayward said the event is timely because, in her view, there’s a real crisis in public education in New Hampshire. 

“People’s property taxes make up the difference,” she said.

A key issue with New Hampshire’s funding for public education, according to critics, is that so-called “property poor” municipalities can’t raise the funds “property rich” municipalities can to fund public education.

SWEPT, the Statewide Education Property Tax, is a uniform rate assessed to property owners in New Hampshire. The portion of the education tax to be raised by each municipality is calculated by multiplying the uniform education property tax rate by the municipality’s tax base. SWEPT is then assessed and collected locally by municipalities.

It’s viewed as regressive, hitting poorer towns harder than wealthier ones.

Legislators are invited to attend the event on Thursday evening. Organizers are working to put together scorecards, rating the legislative records of politicians regarding their votes on school funding legislation.  

Individuals interested in attending the event can register online and submit their questions beforehand by navigating to fairfundingnh.org/events. 

“I hope that people will want to come to hear some possible solutions,” Hayward said.