Portsmouth Herald: Solve the state's education funding puzzle

"Support public engagement and legislation to maintain the constitutional right of all students to an adequate education" is the Foundation Priority of the 2004 Children's Agenda.

Portsmouth Herald -- Tuesday, May 4, 2004

Editorial

N.H. public education needs funding solution now

For over a decade every gubernatorial candidate and every individual opting to run for a seat in the New Hampshire House or Senate has indicated that the major problem that needs to be addressed is education funding. Yet here we are, 11 years after Claremont I, and funding an adequate education for all the children in the state remains an unmet challenge.

Last week it was reported that "a mistake in state law" meant that instead of having $429 million to distribute to New Hampshire cities and towns to fund education, there would only be $194 million available. Lawmakers knew when they passed the so-called Gatsas bill - named for its author, Sen. Ted Gatsas, R-Manchester - the details of how it would all work were sketchy. Those details were to be worked out last the summer and viable legislation was to be put before the entire Legislature last fall.

Now we find out the money originally designated to school districts - and around which they have already set their 2005-2006 budgets - may not be forthcoming due to a "mistake" in the method used to calculate how much would be available to those districts. Legislative leaders have said they will fix the mistake in order to come up with the money promised. But the fact that New Hampshire is already experiencing a revenue shortfall that could throw the state into a deficit at the end of the next biennium may make that promise impossible to fulfill.

If past experience is any indication, even if lawmakers do decide to fully fund their commitment to education at the levels previously promised, some other vital services will be devastated as a result. There simply isn’t enough money coming in to the state to pay for all the services needed by its residents, and the ability to shift those expenses onto county and local governments has just about reached its peak.

Yet the governmental mantra of "no new taxes" continues. Even the relatively innocuous idea of raising the tax on cigarettes - long supported by health activists and political moderates - has met with stiff resistance from both the legislative leadership and the governor.

It seems New Hampshire’s political elite would prefer to see public education go down the tubes than chance the possibility of taking some heat for doing what most sane people in this state know deep down in their hearts needs to be done - finding a new and secure revenue source.

New Hampshire has been in financial crisis for some time now. In fact, when House Speaker Gene Chandler, R-Bartlett, was asked about the possibility of a $50 million state budget deficit several months ago, his response was to chuckle and point out the state had been in worse financial shape and $50 million was nothing to worry about.

Well, perhaps the prospect of a collapse of the public education and social service systems in this state can elicit a chuckle from the Speaker of the House, but few others are laughing, certainly not those who will again bear most of the impact - the poor, the children and the elderly of this state.

It is time to stop fooling around with the education funding issue and do what we know must be done. We have to get more money with which to operate state government.

If that involves a minimal increase in the tax on cigarettes or gasoline, that’s fine. If it means enacting a broad-based income tax, so be it.

But whatever has to be done must be done soon or we won’t be facing the collapse of public education and social services, we will be dealing with much more difficult and expensive task of rebuilding them.

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