Distant Dome: Some Bills Deserve To Die Thursday

By GARRY RAYNO, Distant Dome, InDepthNH

During the Committee of Conference phase of this year’s legislative session, 14 bills were killed ranging from the “Charlie Act” seeking to restrict school curriculum on such things as socialism, LGBTQ topics, or anything that appears to some as Un-American to ending the state’s refugee resettlement program.

Other bills’ demise will hurt children and families who are on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and students on the free and reduced lunch program.

Another bill that died would have increased mental health services to those under 18 years old.

And then there are the bills that should have died but did not.

One in particular stands out, which is House Bill 751, which is very similar to Senate Bill 101, which the House killed last month with bipartisan support.

Both bills sought to expand public school open enrollment beyond the dozen or so districts that took advantage of the option.

The voluntary open enrollment law was approved in the 2009 legislative session, but no public school took advantage of the program until a couple of years ago, when a student in the Pittsfield school system enrolled in Prospect Mountain High School in Alton.

The resulting tuition issue — who should pay for the student — ended up in the courts and went all the way to the Supreme Court.

Pittsfield is one of the five original communities along with lead plaintiff Claremont that successfully sued the state three decades ago over its education funding system and inequitable educational opportunities from district to district.

Pittsfield claimed they did not have to pay the student’s tuition because they never voted to join the program, or appropriated any money for it, but the Prospect Mountain district claimed the school district had to pay under the law.

The Supreme Court agreed with Prospect Mountain and Pittsfield had to pay the tuition bills, which have averaged about $17,000 per pupil.

The court ruled Pittsfield had to pay at least 80 percent of its average per pupil cost to Prospect Mountain for tuition. The state education aid averaging about $5,500 followed the child to Prospect Mountain as well.

The legislature passed a law last year making it clear schools would be liable for the about $17,000 tuition whether the sending school had voted to join the open enrollment program or not.

This past spring at annual meetings, school districts could vote to set their vacancies open to out-of-district students and the number of students in their district that could participate in open enrollment.

Over 100 districts voted on open enrollment, with 97 districts approving policies. Many school districts were willing to take some students as transfers, but not willing to allow any of their own students to participate. Of the 97 districts passing policies, 93 set their outgoing capacity at zero.

To try to get in front of the school district votes this spring, the Senate on its first session day this year in January passed House Bill 751, an open enrollment bill it had held from the 2025 session that would have required school districts to allow their students to leave if they or their parents wished.

The plan was for the House to quickly concur, sending it to Gov. Kelly Ayotte for her signature.

However, the bill contained the 80 percent average per pupil tuition costs to go to the receiving school, as well as confusion over which district would pay for the services for disabled and special education students and regulated how schools could determine which students to accept, most of that vehemently opposed by school administrators, school boards, educators and property taxpayers who would be seeing their property tax dollars sent to a school with a lower tax rate and a school with more educational and extracurricular opportunities than they could provide their children.

With the eruption growing, House leadership held the bill to see if the Senate’s open enrollment bill, Senate Bill 101, would pass, which it did not.

The House leadership resurrected HB 751 and asked the Senate for a committee of conference.

In order to address the concern about funding, the funding mechanism for the program was changed so the receiving district would not only receive the state adequacy and differential aid the student qualifies for, but also a $5,200 bonus to bring the total to an average of about $10,000 to $11,000 in state money. Local property taxes would not be going to another school district under the plan.

The new funding system was borrowed from the charter school funding system, and would draw yet more money from the Education Trust Fund, which currently has about an $80 million surplus this fiscal year which ends June 30.

And to entice opponents of the open enrollment bill, Republicans proposed a 500 student cap just as they did last year when they passed universal vouchers with a cap of 10,000 enrollees.

The cap did not draw any Democratic support for the EFA vouchers and it was not likely to draw any for the open enrollment bill.

The HB 751 conference committee had one meeting the week of May 18th, and then fits and starts last until the Thursday deadline for filing negotiated agreements on the House and Senate versions of the same bill.

At Thursday’s meeting it was clear the Republicans were going to push through their amended version of open enrollment and the two Democrats would be replaced with Republicans to sign off on the plan.

House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, replaced the one Democrat on the House negotiating committee, Rep. Peggy Balboni, D-Rye, with House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Auburn, but Senate President Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry, held off replacing the one Democrat on the Senate side, Sen. Rebecca Perkins Kwoka, D-Portsmouth, and then put out a press release saying it is disappointing they could not come to an agreement after the Senate had passed open enrollment twice this year.

That gave Ayotte the opening to release a one-sentence statement “That bill is not ready for prime time,” signaling she will veto it.

Republican leaders decided to do an about face and came up with another plan that would scrap the amendment and simply change the current open enrollment law to instead of letting districts decide zero students would be able to transfer, the floor would be 10 percent.

How that would affect the 93 districts this spring that set their outgoing enrollment at zero is unclear. If the change, which goes into effect July 1 this year, overrides the votes in the 93 districts, that is more than a slap in the face to the notion of local control. Concord knows best.

At Thursday’s conference committee meeting, Republicans on the conference committee defended their proposal with the state paying tuition and the cap, several GOP members noted how the current law has many problems and issues that the new plan would fix.

Rep. Kristin Noble, R-Bedford, noted the state has open enrollment today with about a dozen school districts participating.

“This is much better policy than the one on the books,” she said. “(This bill) addresses concerns about local (school) budgets and gives consideration to the state budget.”

Sen. Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead, said with the warrant articles passed last year there are students currently in the open enrollment program who will have to change schools again next year unless they adopt the program with this bill. “That is totally unfair to the students,” she said.

Rep. Katy Peternel, R-Wolfeboro, said the current open enrollment program is discriminatory and the funding mechanism is too unstable for school districts.

Under the current law there are far more issues to address, she said, while the bill today addresses many of the issues in a fair and open manner.

That all went for naught when the deadline approached. They all signed off on the new 10 percent participation with the old law.

A proposal that had not had a public hearing, had never been presented to the public. According to the committee of conference rules a meeting had to be noticed, and one had to be held for all to agree to the change, but it was not.

Rules forbid non-germane amendments, which you could argue is not the case, but it still is an amendment that had no public discussion.

The change will make a bad situation worse if more students decide to switch schools and their school districts have to pay other school districts tuition, while some students will have to change schools again next year.

It adds more confusion to an already chaotic program with many, many areas that beg for solutions.

But Republicans will be able to say they are doing their best to provide the finest education for the state’s children, when in reality they are doing their best to destroy the public education system.

This open enrollment pipedream is a Pandora's box of complications and confusion, and an opportunity for a few well-off parents to transport their children to better schools, while the state won’t appropriate enough money to even attempt to level the playing field for children and property taxpayers in property poor school districts.

Open enrollment is once again the New Hampshire advantage for the wealthy.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores a broader perspective on the State House and state happenings for InDepthNH.org. Over his three-decade career, Rayno covered the NH State House for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage spanned the news spectrum, from local planning, school and select boards, to national issues such as electric industry deregulation and Presidential primaries. Rayno lives with his wife Carolyn and their two rescue dogs.

This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.