The New Hampshire House voted on a budget that included significant cuts in state funding to our districts. For example, the House approved budget reduced Vocational Tuition and Transportation Aid from almost 10 million to about 6 million. Sending students attending the Cheshire Career Center at Keene High School stand to lose about 40% of the state revenue used to attend the Cheshire Career Center. Currently the state reimburses the receiving district for 75% of the tuition rate and the sending district is responsible for the remaining 25%.

The House approved a budget that level funded adequacy but lowered the underlying calculations from $3,450 for a typical student to about $2,800 for a typical student. The House budget extended the moratorium on school building aid for two years.

The Senate still needs to find about $200 million dollars to balance their budget resulting in deeper reductions and/or increases in revenues.

No budget numbers will be final until June. The Senate has set June 2nd as its budget deadline. Following the adoption of a Senate budget, the Legislature will then begin to confer as “Committees of Conference” to see if compromise language will be reached.

Senate Bill 186 continues to be debated and looks to have some traction. The bill changes from three to five the years necessary to be eligible for tenure. The bill also prohibits any form of arbitration or binding resolution for grievances on nonrenewal.   

House Bill 2 was passed by the House. This bill reflects the resolution adopted by the School Board Association at the January School Board Association Delegate Assembly. The school board resolution read as follows: “Should the special education mandates of the state of New Hampshire exceed the federal special education requirements, then the state of NH should fully fund those mandates that exceed federal requirements to the local school districts.” As a result of this bill school districts would only be obligated to provide those levels of special education services that are in minimum compliance with, but do not exceed, the requirements of the federal special education laws.

Both the House and Senate agreed to establish a committee to study collective bargaining by public employees. 

Senate Bill 75, was passed by the House this week. SB 75 specifically addresses the issue of part-time employment, setting the maximum number of hours in a calendar year to 1,300 to qualify as part-time and still collect a state retirement pension.

Last year and this year saw reductions in the state share of retirement, from 35% to 30% last year, and down to 25% this year. The House passed a bill that would increase employee contributions into the retirement system by 2%. The state is assuming any savings accrued to the pension system based on increased employee contributions can be considered as representing the state share. The total rate for teachers would increase 30% in July.

The Senate passed House Bill 216 this week. HB 216 establishes that the school boards and not the state are responsible for establishing the structure, accountability, advocacy, and delivery of instruction.

The Senate also passed House Bill 370.  HB 370 made changes to the Bullying Prevention Act by deleting a provision authorizing the superintendent to grant the principal a waiver from providing notice of an incident of bullying, and removing the provision which extends the bullying and cyberbullying statute to actions occurring off school property.