Rep. Timothy Lang: NH parents want different educational experience for their children

To The Daily Sun,

Legislative update: status of state revenue, also known as taxes and fees.

Short version: The state is in great shape as it relates to meeting its budgetary obligations.

Longer version: The good news is, with five months — July-November — under our belt, the state general fund is about $98 million ahead of projections (we took in more than we planned on spending), and the education trust fund is approximately $10.8 million ahead of projection.

The state highway fund is around $6.5 million above plan as well with about $108.9 million collected.

Lottery commission revenues are up, with sports betting coming in around $2.1 million over the same time period last year (this is included in the education monies reported above).

Meals and rental tax is up approximately $35.5 million over plan (remember we cut this tax from 9% to 8.5% this year) with about $154.3 million collected.

Bad news: Some revenues are down, including Fish & Game which with just about $6.3 million in revenues is behind plan by about $100,000. Also, the transfer from the liquor commission in November was $11.1 million or $3.2 million (22.4%) below plan and below prior year by $2.1 million (15.9%).

Additional news: So the talk of the town has been the new Education Freedom Account applications. A lot more New Hampshire parents applied for EFAs than was anticipated, we are at more than 1,600 applications for NH Kindergarten through 12 students. With this unanticipated increased application count, the cost of the program is close to $8.5 million more than budgeted. However, you can see that we got this covered. One has to ask oneself, why do so many parents want to pull their kids from traditional public schools? Anyway, moving on.

Political comment: It is obvious that sound Republican state fiscal policy management results in increased revenues to handle unexpected revenue requests, like helping New Hampshire citizens' children get the best educational experience that results in the best educational outcome for their unique child.

Rep. Timothy Lang

Sanbornton