State Representative Dan McGuire felt like he was a target.
Miriam Cahill-Yeaton started a petition asking state lawmakers to protect taxpayers from the expanded Education Freedom Account program that gives families money to homeschool their children or send them to private school.
Cahill-Yeaton made clear she worries the state’s school choice program will divert money away from the school district and continue to downshift those costs onto taxpayers.
“We’re paying too much money for property taxes,” she said at Saturday’s town deliberative session. “It’s not your fault. It’s not my fault. I hate to point fingers, but I think if you vote yes for this, at least the governor and other people will know how we feel, why we feel that way, what they need to do to get rid of the property tax increases that are just going up and up and up.”
As a proponent of EFAs, McGuire said the article was “political and it’s clearly aimed at myself.” He is on his tenth term as a representative and said residents would not vote for him again and again if they didn’t agree with his work.
“Of course, we help people whenever we can on specific issues that they have,” he said. “But to change our basic political philosophy based on a vote of a few people, it doesn’t work that way.”
Last year, the EFA program was expanded when lawmakers eliminated its income restrictions, opening it up to any family in the state. Both Dan and Carol McGuire, who represent Epsom in the State House, voted in favor of the expansion.
Resident Robert Topik pushed back on McGuire, saying that the representative flips or “pulls 180s all the time” on what he stands for.
“There’s not much this day and age that’s not political, and so you can take it politically, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should take it personally,” Topik said.
On EFAs, Topik agreed with petitioner Cahill-Yeaton, saying that whatever money is being put in could be applied elsewhere. He suggested the state increaing its special education assistance to communities instead.
The petition warrant article holds no weight and directs the town to send the results of the election to the Legislature within 30 days of town meeting.
“This directs public funds to private education, increasing without reducing the expenses public schools are constitutionally required to cover, increasing pressure on local property taxes,” the warrant article reads.
After over three hours of going through questions and concerns over warrant articles and zoning amendments, the operating budget, raised eyebrows.
Selectman Chair Virginia Drew explained that the spending plan contained a few large increases to employee benefits, emergency dispatch funding and fire hydrant rentals. But, she said to residents, she personally went “line by line” to see where dollars can be saved to winnow the tax burden on the community.
“We’re running a risk of not having enough funds, but we did that because we understand the need to keep taxes down overall,” Drew said. “I am truly, truly hoping that people will vote for the town budget.”
Residents brought up their concerns with the higher budget and their higher revalued home assessments, but they did not alter any of the warrant articles.
One point of contention was the discussion of forming a committee to consider a special district to give tax incentives to businesses. Also called a TIF district, this method would allow new tax revenue be reinvested into a specific area for infrastructure upgrades.
Resident Julie Raymond said that her neighbors should vote to “keep the door locked” on TIFs. In Nashua, where she used to live, she said the city is pushing some $100,000 projects that are ultimately costing taxpayers. She also worries about transparency and biases, as did other participants.
“It’s a can of worms inside the Trojan horse,” Raymond said.
Other residents, like Tom Connolly, said that the article was not allowing for TIF districts to be established outright, but to allow the formation of a committee that would examine the risk factors and determine if it is right for the town. He compared it to a traffic light.
“Right now we have a red light, we can’t explore this opportunity without passing this amendment,” he said. “We pass this now, we get to a yellow light. Now it’s a caution. Now we start the process of looking at it and what that information might require … We’re looking for that yellow light from you guys.”
The school deliberative session will take place at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 3, at Epsom Central School.Voting day will be on Tuesday, March 10 from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Epsom Bible Church.