The New Hampshire Constitution says: Education is a State
Responsibility. The State is "Responsible for giving each child an adequate education." It also says: "Taxes statewide must be uniform and equal."
So,
the State should be paying for 100% of public education. They could do
if with a statewide property tax that is equal for everyone. That would
reduce our school property tax to $8.00 per thousand.
Here’s how it would work:
Currently Farmington spends just about the State average per pupil
$20,000 plus. The school portion of our property tax is $13.22 per
thousand.
If there were a uniform and equal State property tax
to pay for education Farmington tax payers would see a substantial drop
in their education property tax.
The amount spent in NH on education for the 2022 school year was about $3.8 billion.
The total assessed property that could be taxed for schools in the state was almost
$312 billion. The equalized value calculated by DRA was just about $298.5 billion.
Whether you use the total value or the equalized value for your
calculations, the statewide property tax would be just under or just
over $8.00 per thousand so the education portion of our tax bill would
drop by about 40%.
Once the money is raised the State
distributes it to the school districts on a per pupil basis. There would
have to be a fund reserved for special education and probably some
other tweaks, but this would even the playing field throughout the
state. Farmington would get a fair shake instead of the fuzzy end of the
lollipop.
Photos
3-tag:People-1110px-slider