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An opportunity for action!
OPPOSE HB 115 the UNIVERSAL VOUCHER BILL
The House Education Funding Committee will hold a hearing on HB 115 , a bill that would remove all income limitations on eligibility for school vouchers.
WHERE: Scheduled for Room 205-207 in the Legislative Office Build behind the statehouse, but may be moved to Representatives Hall
WHEN: Thursday, 1/16 at 1:00 p.m.
Currently, vouchers are available only to families earning 350% or less of the federal poverty guidelines — i.e. $109,200 for a family of four. HB 115 would remove the income limitation, making all families with school aged children eligible regardless of wealth. Meanwhile, public schools are woefully underfunded by the state.
Sign in online to OPPOSE HB 115 SIGN-IN LINK Select Jan. 19, Education Funding Committee. You must enter your email address, but it will not be published. If you want to include written testimony, see suggested talking points below. (directions for signing in.)
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Attend visibility against HB 115, 12:15 to 1 pm, Legislative Office Building, Concord.
- Attend the hearing to show your opposition.
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Testify at the hearing (see details of hearing above and talking points below).
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Email members of the House Education Funding Committee. Be sure to say in the subject line that you oppose HB115. Please note if you are a constituent. List here.
TALKING POINTS:
Choose one to three to focus on; use your own words to avoid sending messages that seem canned!
NOTE: be sure to be clear that you oppose ANY expansion of the program, so lawmakers are clear that you wouldn't support a “compromise”, e.g. increasing eligibility to 500% of poverty.
- Until NH lives up to its constitutional obligation to fully fund our public schools, it has no business expanding a give-away program for people who want private education;
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NH is facing a state revenue deficit, which means budget cuts will be necessary. We shouldn’t expand an entitlement program to include people at the higher end of the economic spectrum, when we have such limited funds to address issues like homelessness and food insecurity;
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It would be irresponsible to expand this program when we have no evidence that it’s has had a positive impact on student achievement. No research has been done on the impact of NH's program, but a report by Reaching Higher NH concludes that “ Years of research [from other states] have shown that school vouchers actually reduce student achievement…”
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It would be irresponsible to expand the NH program in the absence of any performance audit to ensure that it’s being administered in compliance with law and that the risk of fraud is minimized. A recent compliance review of 50 randomly chosen voucher accounts found errors in 25% of the eligibility determinations made by the administering organization — a closer look at how the program is administered is clearly warranted.
In 2022, AZ implemented the first universal voucher program in the US, and it ended up costing well more than predicted. In combination with tax cuts for the wealthy (like NH’s recent elimination of the Interest & Dividends tax), the voucher expansion in AZ resulted in a huge budget deficit. It also led to increased fraud in the voucher program, because a paperwork backlog resulted in decreased oversight.
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