Follow the money in New Hampshire election
Every New Hampshire community has children who need special education. Services provided to children in need aren’t optional. State and federal laws require them. Yet much of their cost ultimately falls on school districts and local property taxpayers and these costs continue to increase year after year.
Imagine what it would mean for your local property tax bills if the state assumed substantially more of these mandated costs. Then follow the money.
Over the past decade, New Hampshire repeatedly reduced Business Profits and Business Enterprise Tax rates. The New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute estimates those reductions resulted in $795 million to $1.17 billion in forgone state revenue.
Additionally, New Hampshire eliminated the Interest and Dividends Tax, which had generated nearly $180 million in state revenue in a recent year. This money was paid primarily by higher-income households with significant investment income, not from your 401(k) or IRA.
These policy decisions were choices made by our state legislators that reduced revenue available to fund education, substantially increasing our property taxes or forcing the elimination of important school programs and staff.
Greater state revenue could be used to increase base adequacy following the ConVal decision, substantially increasing state support for special education, and lowering the amount communities must raise from local property taxpayers.
Now follow the votes:
• HB1799, responding to the education adequacy problem, was killed by State legislators.
• HB1557, addressing special education aid, was also killed. HB491, proposing a study of alternative education funding methods and ways to reduce reliance on local property taxes, was also killed.
So, when we’re told the state doesn’t have enough money for education, ask a different question: Who made these decisions that have dramatically reduced state aid and increased our property taxes? What did our representatives choose to fund? Whose taxes did they choose to reduce? And did those choices lower your local property tax bill?
I have researched Jim Creighton, Margaret Drye, Skip Rollins and Walter Spillsbury’s records and we taxpayers we can thank them. We can no longer afford them!
We need people who will advocate for us, and that’s why I am voting for Dave Trumble for New Hampshire Senate and Dr. Larry Schissel, Jeff Kessler, Lisa Dahill DeBartolomoa and Tim Fitzpatrick for the New Hampshire House.