Your Champion for Good Policy

The way we fund schools in New Hampshire is broken. Unfortunately, this isn’t an easy fix.

While all spending decisions are made locally, the state provides a certain amount of money for every public school and EFA student. The amount per student is higher for a few reasons including income and special eduction needs.

On top of these per-student payments, there are a few “bandaids” to give some towns and cities more money.

In the most recent budget, the Senate adjusted the formula to reduce these extra payments. Unfortunately Derry still needs $5 million of this extra money to not receive less from the state each year.

In the end, the Senate formula reduced the per-student money in Derry by $75 – but this would be a $1,200 per student reduction without the extra $5 million!

Because the House was essentially tied, our only choice was to accept this new formula or vote down the entire budget.

Derry has significantly more students in special education than the state average, and I look forward to finding a better way to share the extra cost of educating special education students.

I define school choice as students finding and thriving at a school that meets their needs. This can be a neighborhood public school, a (public) charter school, a private school, traditional unfunded homeschooling, or using an Education Freedom Account.

In my first term, I took a major role in crafting and passing the Education Freedom Account program. This allows the per-student state funding to follow the student to any education option. While opponents would say that students who weren’t in public schools when they signed up for an EFA are “taking away money from our schools” that couldn’t be further from the truth.

According to Fox News, the average family is spending about $1,000 more a month to live like they did just 3 years ago. Without the $4,100 basic grant (plus $2,300 for those who qualify for free and reduced lunch) many students in private or home school would need to return to their local public school. While this would return their personal state funding, local taxpayers would need to come up with another $15,000+ for each returning student.

While only 50 students in Derry are currently in the EFA program, knowing that this resource is available has helped many parents I’ve talked with understand that they have options when dealing with challenges at the local public school. Most stay, but knowing there is another options means that they CHOOSE the local school.

When I was first elected, I thought that most legislators would carefully consider the details of bills and their impact on the state if passed. I have unfortunately learned that too many don’t concern themselves with the details and vote based upon emotion and ideas of what would be good.

Before I ran for State Representative, I testified on bills in Concord calling attention to the details and their impact

I ran for office after Covid because I thought childcare would be more predictable if I was elected, and I knew that we needed close attention to detail as we worked through this historic time.

Year One, I wrote and passed a bill to improve the way people who don’t live in town are removed from the voting list and I got deeply involved in improving and passing Education Freedom Accounts.

Year Two, I wrote and passed a bill to update the laws for traditional unfunded homeschoolers.

Year Three, I was appointed to the committee that approves administrative rules so I REALLY got to dig into details.

Year Four, I am on track for at least one bill I wrote to become law and I flagged legislation which passed the Senate with poorly vetted policy and improved the language where I could in the House.

The most important job of a legislator is making sure that the laws they pass are worded right. This is to make sure the bill actually solves the need, and also to avoid creating new problems. This is most important in committee, as we must trust the legislators in other policy committees to do their homework while we do theirs.

Without a focus on detail, bad things can happen. That’s why I am willing to be a lone voice calling attention to a problem.

In my first year in office, I sponsored a bill to improve the process to remove people who have died or moved from the voter lists. Derry is removing a significant number of people from the checklist regularly, however the Supervisors of the Checklist in some towns/cities aren’t meeting to do this work. I introduced a bill in 2023 – and refiled it in 2024 because it was set aside with other business and lost. Hopefully the House will agree with the minor changes from the Senate, and require supervisors of the checklists to meet at least every 3 months to do their job.