SENATE COMMITTEE SUPPORTS EDUCATION COSTING PLAN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Contact: Senator Iris Estabrook

(603) 271-3042

SENATE COMMITTEE SUPPORTS EDUCATION COSTING PLAN

CONCORD – The Senate Education Committee voted 4 -2 to recommend passage to the full Senate of the new education funding plan.

“This plan is sound and it’s constitutional,” said Senator Joseph Foster (D-Nashua) a co-sponsor of the legislation.

Senate Bill 539 is designed to meet the requirement that the state fund an adequate education for every public school pupil in the state. The bill calls for $3,450 per pupil for “universal” costs, such as teachers and supplies, and “differentiated” aid of $675 per pupil requiring instruction in English as a Second Language along with two tiers of funding for special education students depending on the level of services received.

Senate Bill 539 also creates a five-step plan for directing additional aid to schools with greater concentrations of students receiving free or reduced-price lunches. Schools targeted to receive this “differentiated” aid will be asked to apply it to one or more programs that have proven successful in raising academic achievement for economically disadvantaged students. State aid under this system will be aimed at individual schools as opposed to previous plans which targeted aid at the district level.

“This bill takes on costing from the perspective of the student’s learning environment. It is student focused and school focused and it includes all the costs association with the definition of an adequate education adopted last year in House Bill 927,” Estabrook said.

The total cost of providing an adequate education for every public school pupil under this plan stands at roughly $914 million. Another $48 million is added to help towns that struggle to raise enough money on their tax base to meet the needs of their students.

The “fiscal capacity disparity aid” directs additional dollars to communities facing the double whammy of lower family incomes and lower property wealth. The aid is limited to communities in the bottom quartile in terms of what they can raise per pupil on their tax base -- but only if the community also has a median family income that’s below the state average of $57,575.

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The bottom quartile would be divided into two sections so that the very bottom half would get $2,000 per pupil and the upper half of that quartile would get $1,250 per pupil extra – again only if their median family income is below average.

“This bill is good public policy,” said Senator Molly Kelly (D-Keene). “I believe the fiscal capacity disparity aid is a critical part of the plan and I insisted on it. We need to address not just adequacy but the differences between communities in what they can raise to support their schools. I will continue to work with my colleagues to refine the fiscal disparity aid to meet the needs of the communities in my district and other communities that may be hurt by the plan as it currently stands, “said Senator Molly Kelly (D-Keene).

The bill is expected to be voted on by the full Senate on March 13 and then head to the Senate Finance Committee for further review. Committee members agreed that additional discussions could lead to some adjustments to the fiscal capacity disparity aid before the Senate holds a final vote to send the bill on to the House.