Urgent-Action Necessary
April 29, 2018 - Bow, NH
It is time to act on SB 193! Please contact your state representative(s) by clicking this link Contact Your Representatives.
So, the moment has arrived. This past Wednesday, the Finance Committee took its fateful vote on SB 193, the so-called voucher bill to use education savings accounts to funnel public monies to private schools, religious schools, and home-schoolers. The previous week, the Finance sub-committee charged with SB 193 voted 7-1 in favor of “interim study,” and on this past Wednesday, the Finance Committee as a whole followed suit. By a 14-12 margin, with three Republicans (including long-time Finance Chair Neal Kurk) joining Democrats, the committee voted to recommend “interim study” on SB193 as its recommendation to the entire House. Simply put, the Committee was not able to resolve the financing issues in this bill, with costs conservatively estimated at $100 million to local districts over the next ten years. This would be downshifting on a massive scale, not unheard of in New Hampshire, but a tactic disavowed by Republicans in general and certainly by Finance Chair, Neal Kurk. Further, the repeated attempts to amend the policy of SB 193 made clear that even its advocates could not quite solve the policy & financing link. Further complicating matters is passage by the House and Senate of HB 1496 requiring public schools to meet both input-based and performance-based accountability standards to be considered as providing an adequate education (currently schools need only meet one of these standards). The result would be more schools suddenly deemed “inadequate,” thereby swelling the number of students eligible under SB 193 for public funds to attend private, religious, and home-schools.
