House Education Funding Committee Surprises Members, Advances Open Enrollment

May 30th, 2025

Last Tuesday, the House Education Funding Committee met to review its final bill of the session, SB 99, relative to regional career and technical education agreements. Prior to that discussion, however, Chairman Rep. Rick Ladd (R - Haverhill), asked the committee to quickly take a vote of concurrence with the Senate’s amended version of HB 771 relative to funding for open enrollment schools. A vote of concurrence happens when one chamber, in this case the Senate, amends a bill that originated in the House.  The committee of origin must review the change and decide if they concur or nonconcur with the amending language.  HB 771 was not on the legislative calendar for the House Education Funding Committee and the discussion seemed to catch some committee members by surprise.

“I would request that maybe we hold off on coming to whatever position we want to come on this as a committee until after we have had some opportunity to get together as a caucus,” said Rep. Dave Luneau, (D - Hopkinton).

Rep. Luneau explained that the language in the bill that requires tuition will be based on not less than 80% of the sending district’s cost per pupil and does not account for major inequities that already exist in our system. Specifically, the major differences in the way costs are structured especially as a result of a community’s property value and local property taxes.

Open Enrollment is currently permitted under New Hampshire State law RSA 194-D . HB 771 appears to be an attempt to require broader adoption of the concept. Currently, one New Hampshire school district is operating an open enrollment school, Prospect Mountain High School (grades 9 – 12) in the Prospect Mountain Joint Maintenance. 

According to a fiscal analysis conducted by Reaching Higher NH, if even a small number of students  leave their school to attend an Open Enrollment school, entire communities could be impacted and inequities could be exacerbated for students, their families and their resident school.  

Rep. Sallie Fellows, (D - Holderness) shared, “This is from the perspective of someone who has composed a school budget, this (the bill) really doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Rep. Ladd stated he did not want to spend much time discussing the bill. He called for a vote and, by a show of hands along party lines, the Committee concurred with the Senate’s version of the bill. With this vote, the bill is now sent to the full House where a vote will be taken and, should the body agree with the committee, the bill will be sent to Governor Ayotte for signature. 

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