This week: State Budget Hearing in House, School Voucher Expansion, State-Mandated School Budget Spending Caps, and more…

March 10th, 2025

This week, the House and Senate will vote on two issues that would undermine public schools: universal school voucher expansion and forcing local school districts to implement budget caps. Both the House and Senate will vote on their own versions of voucher expansion (HB 115 and SB 295), and the House will vote on budget caps (HB 675). The House Finance Committee will hold a public hearing on the state budget on Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know:

LAWMAKERS TO VOTE ON UNIVERSAL VOUCHER EXPANSION

On Thursday, the House and Senate will vote on their own pitches for universal school voucher expansion. Both proposals would remove the income eligibility requirements, meaning that any private school or homeschool parent could receive taxpayer dollars, regardless of their income.

The House’s version, House Bill (HB) 115, would remove the income eligibility cap starting July 1, 2026. The Senate’s version, Senate Bill (SB) 295, would remove the cap immediately but would put a “cap” on the number of students who could receive a voucher -- 10,000 in the first year, which automatically increases by 25% if more than 9,000 students request a voucher. That means that there would effectively be no cap by 2027 because the cap would have automatically been lifted to cover all current private and homeschooled students (approximately 19,000 students this year). Other organizations estimate that SB 295 could cost the state about $73 million next school year if the cap were met.

According to our estimates, universal expansion could cost the state over $100 million each year if all eligible students enrolled. When Arizona expanded to universal school vouchers in 2022, the price tag skyrocketed from an official estimate of $65 million to about $332 million per year and grew even more to $429 million this year.

LAWMAKERS TO PUSH FOR STATE-MANDATED SCHOOL BUDGET SPENDING CAPS

HB 675, which would create mandatory local school budget caps for each school district in the state, voted on by the House this Thursday, March 13, 2025. The House Education Funding Committee voted along party lines to recommend that lawmakers pass the bill, but opponents on the committee raised significant concerns that it would override local voters’ control over their own budgets.

The bill would mandate that all school districts in New Hampshire adhere to state-mandated budget caps that are calculated by multiplying the per-student cost, adjusted for inflation (2.5% in the most recent data), by the number of students enrolled. There’s already a law that allows districts to vote to adopt the budget cap, but so far, local voters have rejected them at the ballot box.

Notably, one of the sponsors, Representative Dan McGuire (R-Epsom), proposed one in his own district, which residents rejected at their deliberative session last month. After the Kearsarge Regional School District also rejected a budget cap in January, House Majority Leader Jason Osborne (R-Auburn) said, “Perhaps, if [local voters] are unwilling to cap themselves, the state will step in and cap local taxes for them.” Read more in NHPR: Republicans want more control over local school spending in NH

STATE BUDGET HEARING SCHEDULED THIS WEEK

House budget writers are asking for input on the state budget, which was first introduced by Governor Kelly Ayotte in February. We expect the House to propose significant changes from Ayotte’s proposal, meaning that public input will be critical at this stage.

Historically, the House and Senate have added things to the budget, including the creation (and expansion) of the statewide school voucher program, changes to the school funding formula, passing the “divisive concepts” law that was later struck down by a Federal court, and more.

The public hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, March 12 at 2 p.m. in Representatives Hall of the State House in Concord.

Learn more by watching our webinar on Governor Kelly Ayotte's budget proposal: what it contains, what it doesn't, and what it all means: Unpacking the Governor's Proposed Budget

LAWMAKERS CO-OPT MINIMUM STANDARDS TRANSPARENCY BILL

As originally introduced, HB 431, would have created a commission of educators, experts, and the public to assist in the creation of public school approval standards, also known as the ED 306s. The bill was proposed in response to the lack of input and transparency in the NHED’s most recent overhaul of the school approval standards, and would inject more accountability into the process.

Before the bill even had a public hearing, Representative Glenn Cordelli (R-Tuftonboro), who chairs the House Education Administration & Policy Committee in which the bill sits, proposed a non-germane (unrelated) amendment that would completely replace the bill with a committee to study special education costs. The non-germane amendment has a hearing on Wednesday at 2:45 p.m.

ACLU AND NEA SUE THE US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Last week, the ACLU and NEA NH filed a lawsuit against the U.S Department of Education, challenging the Trump Administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter that threatened cuts to federal funding to educational institutions that engage in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). “Like New Hampshire’s classroom censorship law that we successfully challenged in court, this unconstitutionally vague letter is an attack on educators who are simply doing their job,” said Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire. “Teachers are already reporting being afraid to teach for fear of having their teaching deemed unlawful, and that deprives Granite State students of the complete education that they deserve.”

WHAT WE’RE READING --

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