FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                        Thursday, March 13, 2008

Contact: Senator Iris Estabrook

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SENATE SENDS EDUCATION COSTING PLAN TO FINANCE COMMITTEE

CONCORD – The Senate voted 15-9 today for the new education funding plan, sending it on to the Senate Finance Committee for additional review.

“Senate Bill 539 is a new beginning in the long story of school funding in many ways,” said Senator Iris Estabrook (D-Durham), the bill’s sponsor. “First and foremost, it is constitutional. We worked within the constraints of the court’s unique rulings – to pay for the first and last dollar of adequacy and to avoid any consideration of property wealth.”

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.

“Though Senate Bill 539 directs resources to our most challenged schools, its spreadsheet results are in many instances a significant departure from past results,” Estabrook said, explaining the reason behind creating a second level of aid apart from adequacy called “fiscal capacity disparity aid.”

The fiscal capacity disparity aid directs additional dollars to communities facing the double whammy of lower family incomes and lower property wealth.

The total cost of providing an adequate education for every public school pupil under this plan stands at roughly $914 million. Another $48 million was added in fiscal capacity disparity aid.

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The Senate will vote again on the plan once the Senate Finance Committee comes forward with its recommendations. Once the bill passes to the House, that body also is expected to look closely at the funding plan and make potential changes.

“This plan is the result of a lot of hard work by the Joint Legislative Committee on Costing an Adequate Education and sets us on the path to meeting the July 1 deadline set by the New Hampshire Supreme Court. But we understand this is just the beginning and we look forward to further refining this plan to best meet the needs of all our communities,” said Senator Joseph Foster (D-Nashua), a co-sponsor of the plan.