House to consider universal school voucher expansion, mandatory school budget caps during state budget vote on Thursday

April 8th, 2025

On Thursday, April 10, the New Hampshire House of Representatives will vote on two bills that make up the state’s budget that will go into effect on July 1, 2025: House Bill (HB) 1 and HB 2. The budget sets the state’s priorities and spending for the 2026 and 2027 fiscal years.

The budget includes significant changes to state policy, including:

Expanding school voucher eligibility to wealthy families. The proposed budget includes the language of HB 115, which eliminates the income eligibility requirement for the school voucher program, which will allow wealthy families to receive taxpayer dollars to use for private and religious school tuition and homeschooling. Under current law, a family of four with an income of $128,000 per year qualifies for the program -- meaning that low- and middle-income families already qualify for the program.

Mandating that every school district in New Hampshire adhere to a permanent school budget cap. It includes the language of HB 675, which would force every school district in the state to comply with a formula that calculates the local school budget, regardless of the needs of the community.

No meaningful increases to funding for public schools. Despite increasing taxpayer funding for school vouchers for private and homeschooling, the House budget proposal does not resolve the decades-long, chronic underfunding of New Hampshire’s public schools. The budget does include about a 2.5% increase in state funding (about $30 million in FY2027) for some high-need public schools but does not close the gap for the nearly half a billion dollar shortfall that is downshifted to local property taxpayers every year.

Banning public schools and contractors from anything having to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion. An amendment to the budget proposal includes a ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion -- which, as written, is so broad that it could ban accommodations and services for students with disabilities, for girls’ and boys’ sports teams, and for programs that help students feel welcomed and included in their schools. It also gives the Commissioner of Education the unilateral authority to withhold “all public funding” if he determines that a school “knowingly or unknowingly” violates the law, and does not include a provision for appeal or external review.

Includes the “Weyler Amendment,” which would require special education, school building aid, and other programs to be funded from the General Fund. The amendment was initially rejected in 2023 because of concerns that it would force those programs to compete for General Funds. As written, the amendment would also require any surplus in the Education Trust Fund to be funneled into the General Fund every year, thereby hindering public school funding decisions in the future.

Next Steps

The House will vote on the budget bills on Thursday, April 10, and then the bills will go to the Senate for the next phase of the budgeting process. The budget must be signed by the Governor before July 1, 2025, when it takes effect.

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