Aid Cut Looms ... Is Winchester Next ?

Marlow Could See Higher Taxes After Change

MARLOW — It took about an hour, but when Marlow residents thawed out Tuesday night, a meeting with state legislators really heated up.
The Marlow School District is due to see a cut of 46 percent in its state aid next year, a cut that could raise the school portion property tax rate by 33.7 percent, or an additional $4.27 per $1,000 of property value, if the budget stayed flat.
A committee of residents has been meeting since the March 2010 district meeting, when school officials painted a grim picture for the future.
The committee invited Marlow’s state legislators, Rep. Anne Cartwright, R-Alstead, Rep. Tara Sad, D-Walpole, and Rep. Lucy M. Weber, D-Walpole, and Sen. Robert P. Odell, R-Lempster, who represents Alstead, Charlestown and Marlow, among other towns, to answer residents’ questions about the looming cut.
Large portions of the district’s $1.5 million budget go to Keene as tuition for Marlow 7th- through 12th-graders who attend Keene Middle School and Keene High School, or to special education services mandated by law.
Residents said they fear the $270,000 cut will have to come out of the roughly $850,000 allocated to run Perkins School for students in kindergarten through grade 6.
Odell told the 60-odd residents at the meeting their school officials had two years’ warning, from when the state built a new school funding system.
Resident and former Marlow School Board member Art Andreason took issue with Odell’s implication.
“Your expectation ... is that we should have cut somewhere. Where? I don’t see it ... if (our) control over the budget is so small. This isn’t about cutting to hold the line, or cutting to maintain,” Andreason said.
The state government’s formula for distributing school aid is based on the number of pupils, with certain per-student boosts for schools with high numbers of poor students, those with special education needs, or who speak English as a second language.
Weber proposed a bill adding money for each student at a small, rural school, because these schools don’t have the ability to absorb costs the way bigger schools do, she said.
But, she said, in the current fiscal environment, she’s not hopeful anything that would add to the state’s expenses will win much support.
Wayne E. Woolridge, who serves as the Marlow district’s superintendent through N.H. School Administrative Unit 29, agreed.
He’s been surprised by other superintendents’ attitudes toward the formula in recent conversations he’s had with them, he said.
“Everybody wants to be fair until things get really tough. When things get really tough, people are less likely to be what they perceive to be generous,” he said.
To him, however, “it’s not about generosity, it’s about fairness. This is a state responsibility and a state revenue source should fund it.”
In 2011-12, the state plans to send districts $3,450 per pupil to fund what it’s determined to be an “adequate education.”
For districts with a lot of students, such as Manchester, Nashua and Bedford, it’s a multimillion-dollar boost they’ve been waiting for since 2008, when the new formula was written.
Marlow’s not alone in anticipating a cut. The Harrisville, Keene, Marlborough, Nelson and Westmoreland districts all stand to lose state aid under the new formula.
Charlestown, a member of the Fall Mountain Regional School District, is also expected to lose state funding under the new formula.
Legislators saw the adverse effect the formula would have on some towns so they set a two-year transition period, due to expire in July.
Odell recently proposed a new law, co-sponsored by 17 other legislators, extending the transition another two years.
But change is coming, he said, one way or another.
If the big cities, who have been “chomping at the bit” for their boost in aid, don’t like the idea of waiting another two years, they’re likely to sue the state, Odell said.
The Supreme Court might then force the new formula into place.
Another change might adjust the formula, he said.
It provides extra funding for schools if a certain percentage of students need free or reduced-price lunch, among other categories. If the school doesn’t meet the threshold, it doesn’t get the extra funding.
Some legislators have proposed installing a graduated system instead for giving aid, on that issue and others, he said.
Legislators are also working on a much bigger change: constitutional amendments.
The N.H. Constitution requires the state fund an adequate education, but does not allow money to be targeted to the most needy communities.
Drafts of amendments allowing targeted aid have been proposed several times over the past few years, but none have made it past the N.H. House.
“The devil’s in the details,” Weber said.
She said she supports the idea of an amendment, but hasn’t seen one she can support yet, because, in her interpretation, all the drafts so far allow the state not to fund some students’ education.
“And if the state doesn’t have to pay for something, I’ve learned over the years, it won’t,” she said, earning one of the night’s few laughs.
So, residents asked, what can we do?
“Do this,” Weber said, looking around the room. “You’re telling us what you want ... Let the governor know what your concerns are. The more input each of you has, the better.”
But residents in Manchester and Nashua, who want that money for their schools, to lower their property taxes, will be doing the same thing, and the large urban districts have more votes in the House, she warned.
Marcia Levesque, a member of the committee hosting the forum, said giving a voice to rural towns is the most important thing that can happen now.
“This state was founded on small, rural schools. To give all the state’s money to big cities and ESL (English as a Second Language classes) will fundamentally change our state and what kind of student is coming out of it,” she said.
So is it us against them?” resident Dave Vesco asked.

A voice from the crowd chimed in, “It always is.”