How to Reduce Property Taxes - Step 1: Enforce the Law

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.