NEW LONDON — Voters from the Kearsarge Regional School District turned out en masse on January 4 to defeat a citizen petition that would have capped school spending, potentially leading to staff layoffs and school closures in the district. A record 1,556 people voted during the School District’s deliberative session, a normally quiet annual event that sets the items that appear on the ballot during Town elections on March 11.
At the deliberative session, 1,435 people, or 92 percent, voted against the budget cap. Just 113, or seven percent, voted in favor of the petition, which required a three-fifths majority to pass.
Prior to the meeting’s 9 AM start, cars were parked more than a mile away from Kearsarge Regional High School in North Sutton, where the meeting was held. When the school’s gymnasium reached capacity, voters from the towns of Bradford, Newbury, New London, Springfield, Sutton, Warner, and Wilmot filled the library, auditorium, and cafeteria.
The swell of interest in the session came after a group of 35 residents signed a petition to limit school spending to $27,000 per pupil. The move, which proponents said is in response to rising tax rates, would have represented a decrease of about $10 million, or 17 percent, to the district budget. Both the School Board and the Municipal Budget Committee unanimously opposed the cut, which one speaker called a “cleaver” to the District.
During sometimes heated public testimony, there was something that both sides could agree on: that the state is not adequately funding education, instead placing that burden on local residents through property taxes. One speaker noted that this tension between school funding and rising property taxes pits neighbors against each other, when both should be united in calling upon the state to do more to pay for schools.
New Hampshire pays the smallest percentage of educational costs of any state in the nation, according to the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute. Roughly 70 percent of the cost of public education is borne by local taxpayers, largely through property taxes.
Despite that, the state has vehemently fought efforts to increase its spending on education. The state is currently appealing a 2023 court ruling that found its funding for education violates the state constitution, which requires the state to pay for an “adequate education” for all students. That lawsuit, known colloquially as the ConVal case, was originally brought by the Contoocook Valley School District, and has since been joined by 18 more districts.
During a hearing on the ConVal case in December, the state’s attorney argued that transportation and facilities — like buses and school buildings — are not part of the “adequate education” that the state is required to fund. Transportation and facilities were two areas that would have been cut under the proposed budget cap in the Kearsarge District.
The state’s appeal of a second lawsuit on school funding, Rand v. State of New Hampshire, was heard by the Supreme Court in October 2024, but a ruling hasn’t yet been issued. During and after the Kearsarge deliberative session, community members called on the public to contact state lawmakers and demand changes to the way that education is funded in New Hampshire.