Ricciardi: How Sen. Jeanne Dietsch Proposes Raising Your Taxes

In last week’s interview with the Keene Sentinel, (https://www.sentinelsource.com...) NH Senator Jeanne Dietsch (D-Peterborough) proposed a radical approach to solving New Hampshire’s school funding issue. Sen. Dietsch would like to raise property taxes on some communities in order to redistribute those funds to support education projects in other communities throughout the state.

Under current law, towns are able to set their own property tax rates and fund their local schools directly from the town budget. Under Sen. Dietsch’s proposed plan, “more of the that funding should be pooled at the state level and distributed equitably across the districts.” This means that local communities would lose much of their independence in setting property tax rates. Instead, those decision would be made at the state level by a department head in Concord.

Sen. Dietsch’s plan would have the greatest impact on higher income communities such as Bedford. Currently, Bedford has been successful at providing a good education for their students, while at the same time watching out for the taxpayers. According to her statements Sen. Dietsch wants to get rid of the idea “that this town only has a few students and a lot of money, and therefore they can have a great education.”

In order for her education funding scheme to work, state government officials would be forced to take control of much of the education funding process. This would force towns to raise their property tax rates in order for that money to be redistributed to other towns throughout the state.

Is this what you want for NH?