Natalie Wells shows a disturbing misunderstanding of the school voucher bill she voted for last year.
Rep. Wells states that Senate Bill 193 was not a voucher program, even though the N.H. government would have paid a minimum of $3,636 per child for private education. The money would go into an educational savings account and be administered through a third party taking taxpayer money out of our public schools to finance students’ expenses in a parallel educational system with no oversight or accountability.
Rep. Wells also minimizes the hit that local taxpayers would take if SB 193 had passed. She has called the $3,636-plus public schools would lose for each child who took a voucher under SB 193 a “small amount.” The average taxpayer would probably not agree that this is an insignificant amount of money to take out of our public school system.
The House Education Committee and the House Finance Committee found it necessary to reduce the financial impact of this bill, the legislative budget assistant estimated that $100 million would be taken from local school districts over the first 11 years of the amended SB 193 to educate 2,000 children outside the public school system. One hundred million dollars is not chump change.
We need a representative for Andover, Salisbury, Danbury, Warner and Webster who has a clearer grasp of the important policy issues we face. Vote for David Karrick, Merrimack District 25, on Nov. 6. He understands how issues such as this will affect local taxpayers.
FAITH MINTON
Warner