I write to ask for your support of HB 1799, “an act relative to required state funding for providing an opportunity for an adequate education.” You may review the entire text of HB 1799 by clicking this link. A brief outline of the bill is at the bottom of this note.
HB 1799 seeks to conform the state’s public school funding system to two new court rulings handed down in 2025 in the ConVal and Rand cases. When properly funded through appropriate state budget processes in the next budget cycle, or before that if possible, the HB 1799 formula will enable school districts to meet, at an admittedly minimum level, our state-level constitutional school funding obligations, thereby ensuring funding, with other currently available funding streams, sufficient to provide every child with the opportunity for a constitutionally adequate education while also enabling significant, constitutionally mandated local property tax relief across the state.
HB 1799 will be heard by the House Education Funding Committee hearing on Tues., Jan. 20th, at 1:30 PM. You may record your position on the bill, and provide written testimony if you wish, by clicking this Online Testimony Submission (Sign-In) link and then proceeding through a multi-step process to the point where you will be able to state your position on the bill.
The hearing will be at Granite Place in Concord, Room 232. In person testimony is welcome. You may also watch the hearing on YouTube by going to this link and clicking on the House Education Funding streaming video for Jan. 20th.
Thank you for considering this.
Brief Outline of HB 1799, “an act relative to required state funding for providing an opportunity for an adequate education.”
1. At the core of HB 1799, in section 2, is its “policy, findings and purposes” declaration affirming the state’s commitment to provide and fund, in cooperation with local school districts but without excessive reliance on local property taxes, a constitutionally compliant, high quality, public education system for all of NH’s children.
2. HB 1799 sets, in section 5, new annual per pupil cost factors for determining each municipality’s state grant. On average, these new cost factors will increase the state’s annual adequacy grants to municipalities for their respective school districts across the state by about 1.7 times the current level of adequacy funding.
3. HB 1799 includes, in section 4, a new provision for “Statewide Oversight to Identify and Address Persistent Disparities in Achievement.”
4. HB 1799 establishes, in section 7, an “Adequate Education Funding Commission” to “study and identify transition and revenue options other than local property taxes for the full funding of state grants to public schools for consideration and action by state officials involved in the development of the state budget for fiscal years 2028-2029.
5. HB 1799 changes the Statewide Property Tax (SWEPT) to require the collecting municipalities to pay all revenue received to the department of revenue administration for deposit in the education trust fund. (Note that HB 1799 does not seek to change the amount to be collected by the SWEPT.)
Thank you for considering this.
Dick Ames
NH State Representative, Cheshire County District 13,
Dublin and Jaffrey
House Education Funding Committee