A look ahead to 2025: How will school funding issues play out in the new year?

Kearsarge Regional High School on Dec. 16, 2016 in North Sutton, N.H. Jennifer Hauck
Published: 12-26-2024 4:31 PM |
The first major school funding battle of 2025 will come just four days into the new year when residents of the Kearsarge Regional School District gather at their high school to vote on a proposed school budget cap.
The frustration that fomented that early-January vote could prove a harbinger of what is to come on the school funding front over the next year.
New Hampshire’s education system relies heavily on local property taxes, which pay for the majority of school spending. In Canterbury, for example, the school budget is expected to increase from $4 million to $5 million next year. The 25% jump means a homeowner with an assessed property value of $400,000 will experience an annual tax hike of $1,096.
Come March, typically tepid annual meetings could grow contentious if voters who can’t afford another large tax increase take a play out of Pembroke’s playbook and reject their school district’s proposed budget.
In the coming year, the future of school funding in New Hampshire will also play out at the Supreme Court and the State House.
Over the next six months, the high court is set to rule on a pair of school funding lawsuits. If both decisions made by lower courts are upheld, they would ultimately spell relief for most school districts in the area, particularly those with lower than average property values, by forcing the state to contribute more.
In the halls of the State House, lawmakers will consider at least a dozen proposed bills that pertain to the future of state adequacy funding, how to pay for rising special education costs, charter schools, or eligibility for education freedom accounts program.
Along with housing and a shrinking statewide budget, education funding could prove to be one of the biggest topics of the upcoming legislative session.
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However the Supreme Court cases and legislative efforts play out, they likely will not affect school budgets for next school year in any material way.
Voters in many school districts this spring will be asked to replenish trust funds than have been sapped of reserve dollars, driven in most cases by higher than anticipated special education costs this school year.
Those requests will appear as separate warrant articles at annual meetings.
The main drivers of most school budget increases are fixed personnel costs and special education services and transportation. Special education costs are increasing so significantly because there are more students who qualify and because the supply for services has not kept up with the rising demand.
Zack Sheehan, the executive director of the advocacy organization NH School Funding Fairness Project, predicted that students with special education needs will increasingly become the targets of residents’ frustration.
“We will see more blatant attacks on students with disabilities receiving special education services and the schools administering them,” he said.
School budgets continue to rise even as enrollment in public schools continues to drop.
The debates about the role of charter schools and education freedom accounts in declining public school enrollment will likely continue to play into that dynamic, too.
With expanding Republican control of the House and Senate, it is a very real possibility that lawmakers will open up the state’s four-year-old school voucher program to all students, eliminating the income eligibility threshold currently in place.
A universal voucher program would add another layer to the school funding landscape because public schools would lose out on adequacy payments from students who depart.
Regardless of what happens on that front, from court fights to town fights, the school funding battleground will be an active one in 2025.
Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.