As Republicans weigh SAU consolidation, school officials push back

Christine Downing’s phone told a story.

Over the course of a multi-hour hearing Tuesday afternoon, the SAU 75 superintendent received a text from her business manager about a personnel issue, a school principal about a family in need, the district’s attorney about “an ongoing legal case,” and the Grantham police chief about a law enforcement issue relating to the school, she told lawmakers. And all of that on school vacation week. 

It’s a normal afternoon for public school superintendents in New Hampshire, who run the overarching “school administrative units,” manage all school districts and principals below them, and are typically the highest-paid employees in the system.

But amid increasing public school spending in the state, some Republicans argue SAUs — and the superintendents who run them — take up too big a share of the budget, and that eliminating and consolidating them is necessary to control costs.

On Tuesday, Downing and other public school employees testified in Concord against a bill to do that. 

House Bill 1804 would reduce the number of school administrative units in New Hampshire from more than 100 to 12 — one for each of the state’s 10 counties, plus one each for Manchester and Nashua.

The bill would eliminate the role of superintendent. Instead, the 12 SAUs would each be led by a “chief school administrator” who would be elected to a two-year term by voters in that county or city.

And the legislation would create a new balance of power between SAUs and school districts. If passed, HB 1804 would let districts — and their local school boards — control the hiring of school principals, curriculum development, and student discipline.

The 12 SAUs would handle administrative tasks for all districts in their purview, such as payroll, benefits, and legal compliance.

As currently written, HB 1804 would take full effect in June 2029, providing for a three-year ramp up and allowing the chief school administrators to be elected and installed in 2028.

The bill’s Republican supporters say the proposal is needed to curb an increase in school administrative spending in recent years that has come even as enrollment has steadily dropped. Consolidating much of that work could allow for an economy of scale that could reduce costs for local districts and allow more local property tax revenue to go toward teachers and classrooms, they argue. 

The approach could also help defray acute expenses, such as special education services across an entire county, supporters say. 

But opponents, who include Democrats, the New Hampshire School Administrators Association, and teachers, say the bill would create a one-size-fits-all approach that would unfairly remove direct oversight from school boards. 

They also argue it would be unpopular. The recent trend of residents voting to splinter their SAUs into smaller units rather than consolidate them suggests parents are interested in more local control, not less, opponents say.

To Rep. Dan McGuire, an Epsom Republican and the sponsor of the bill, reducing the number of SAUs would directly address a major long-term problem. Speaking to the House Education Policy and Administration Committee, he noted that New Hampshire has the lowest state taxes in the country, but some of the highest local property taxes. And he also said New Hampshire spends among the most per pupil in the country when combining state and local taxes revenues.

“Clearly we have a local spending problem,” McGuire said. “And since schools are the bulk of that problem, we have a school spending problem.”

Currently, McGuire argued, superintendents wield too much power, influencing everything from the curriculum to personnel issues to transportation and special education costs, and more. “They’re essentially responsible for everything,” he said. 

HB 1804 would give the county superintendents a more tailored workload that would not be directly tied to academics, McGuire said, allowing voters to elect people from other management or business backgrounds to manage their schools.

And he said organizing school administration around counties carries advantages. Counties already maintain sheriff’s departments, county jails, county nursing homes, and roads and bridges in unincorporated towns. That means county administrators are well-versed in managing complex human resources tasks, such as payroll. The experience provides built-in support to the county SAUs, McGuire said. 

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Even while chief school administrators would have their own staff and priorities, “there’s still some others looking over their shoulders and helping them,” he said.

Meanwhile, electing the chief school administrators every two years during the November general elections would correct for the low turnout of school board elections, which are mostly held in spring, McGuire said. 

But Downing and other public officials said the proposal would be unworkable and ineffective. 

Superintendents, who are currently hired by the school boards of the school districts that make up an SAU, fulfill a complex and necessary role, Downing said.

And merging together all school districts in a county could lead to a bloated administration that could increase costs, not reduce them, while also removing safeguards, opponents said. For some school districts, the best way to decrease costs is to decouple from existing SAUs so voters can push for budgets that better reflect their local needs, they argued.

Rep. Stephen Woodcock, a Conway Democrat and former school principal, said that for families with problems, superintendents can provide helpful representation.

“They have a local contact,” he said. “They know they can talk to the superintendent and get this taken care of. I don’t understand, honestly, why I would want to give that up?” 

Downing, the legislation committee chairwoman of the New Hampshire School Administrators Association, read a letter on behalf of that committee opposing the bill.

“In general, county-level SAU consolidation should move forward only if it will improve outcomes for students, especially our most vulnerable students, and produces real, sustainable efficiencies,” Downing read.

Christopher Coates, the 11-year Cheshire County administrator, said the bill would “upend” county governments, which he said are not equipped to begin managing public schools. The bill provides no clear staffing model, no capacity planning, and no transitional funding, forcing a massive system on all counties everywhere, he argued. 

“County government is evolving and expanding, whether we like it or not, but the additional responsibilities we’ve taken on have been done in a thoughtful manner with clear guidelines and financing structure,” Coates said. 

Some prominent Republicans voiced their own concerns. Rep. Rick Ladd, the Haverhill Republican who chairs the House Education Funding Committee, said he is in favor of consolidation as an approach to deal with New Hampshire’s decades-long decrease in public school enrollment, and called the bill a starting point. 

But Ladd disagreed with the direct election of the chief administrators, arguing it would just lead to partisanship. 

And he said forcing a top-down consolidation into 12 districts would create more problems than it would solve. New Hampshire’s 10 counties contain school districts with vastly different characteristics, both economically and geographically, he said. 

“You’re looking for one size fits all,” Ladd said. “You can’t paint this thing with one brush. We’ve got to look at the uniqueness of this state.”

Ladd used Grafton County as an illustration. “When we’re looking at the area of Lebanon and Hanover and comparing that to Littleton and Woodsville, it’s like day and night,” he said.

But the proposal attracted the support of fiscally conservative Republicans, like Rep. Ken Weyler, of Kingston, the chairman of the House Finance Committee. On Tuesday, Weyler, who unsuccessfully pushed for a similar proposal in 2025, urged fellow Republicans to play the long game, even if the bill does not pass this year. 

“Change is difficult. I’ve watched it happen in this legislature for 36 years,” he said. “At first (lawmakers say) ‘Ah, you’re crazy!’ Finally, after about five attempts, ‘yeah I voted for that before,’ and it passes.”

Weyler argued 2026 is the perfect opportunity to attempt a major overhaul.

“The property taxes are out of control,” he said. “The school spending is out of control. And that’s the cause.”