Latest news with #SWEPT
Boston Globe
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
‘Woefully inadequate' state funding for K-12 public schools is unconstitutional, top N.H. court rules
'We urge the legislative and executive branches to act expeditiously to ensure that all the children in public schools in New Hampshire receive a State funded constitutionally adequate education,' Senior Associate Justice James P. Bassett wrote for the majority. Get N.H. Morning Report A weekday newsletter delivering the N.H. news you need to know right to your inbox. Enter Email Sign Up Whether the ruling will lead to any legislative changes remains to be seen. The budget that Republican Governor Kelly A. Ayotte Advertisement The case is often called the 'ConVal' case, in reference to the Contoocook Valley School District, which sued the state in 2019 and was joined by 18 other school districts that argued the state must contribute more toward education costs, rather than leaving so much up to local communities. Advertisement New Hampshire relies more heavily than any other state on When he ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the ConVal case in 2023, Rockingham County Superior Court Judge David Ruoff also ruled that the way revenues were being collected under the statewide education property tax, or SWEPT, was unconstitutional as well. But the Supreme Court The ConVal case was decided at the Supreme Court on Tuesday by justices James P. Bassett, Patrick E. Donovan, and Melissa B. Countway, along with retired Superior Court judges Tina L. Nadeau and Gillian L. Abramson. Nadeau and Abramson were appointed to fill in for Chief Justice Gordon J. MacDonald and Associate Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi. MacDonald, who was the state's attorney general when this litigation was first filed in 2019, recused himself from hearing the appeal. Hantz Marconi has been on administrative leave since Countway and Donovan agreed that the trial court was wrong to direct the state to immediately increase school funding, but dissented to the rest of the ruling. Steven Porter can be reached at
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NH high court upholds education property tax scheme as constitutional
The New Hampshire Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the state's education aid law, upholding a plan that lets property-rich towns keep excess money raised under a statewide property tax that supports public schools. The high court's 3-1 decision overturned the 2023 ruling of Rockingham County Superior Court Judge David Ruoff, who had said that letting richer towns keep some of that tax violated Part II, Article 5 that holds all taxes must be 'proportional and reasonable.' In the majority opinion, Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald wrote that the statewide property tax passes legal muster because it's imposed at the same rate on all cities and towns. 'We hold that the SWEPT (Statewide Education Property Tax) scheme is constitutional under Part II, Article 5 because it is 'administered in a manner that is equal in valuation and uniform in rate throughout the state,'" MacDonald said. Joining MacDonald in the majority decision were Associate Justices Patrick Donovan and Melissa Countway. Associate Justice James Bassett was the lone dissenter. He maintained that the SWEPT clearly gave a financial benefit to property-rich towns not available to other communities. 'The impact of the SWEPT scheme on taxpayers in excess SWEPT communities is anything but 'theoretical' or 'indirect': the effective SWEPT rate reduction those taxpayers enjoy is real and direct. The impact of the SWEPT scheme on taxpayers in other communities that do not generate excess SWEPT is also real and direct: those taxpayers enjoy no comparable reduction in their effective SWEPT rate,' Bassett said. In its lawsuit, the plaintiffs noted that the property-rich Lakes Region town of Moultonborough has an effective SWEPT tax rate of $0.44 per $1,000 of property value while the poorer town of Plymouth has an effective rate of $1.56. 'This disparity in effective tax rates violates Part II, Article 5 and 'is precisely the kind of taxation and fiscal mischief from which the framers of our state Constitution took strong steps to protect our citizens,'' Bassett wrote. An ongoing fight When lawmakers first created SWEPT in the 1990s, it compelled rich towns to send to the state all it had collected under the tax. This plan sparked a movement by these 'donor' towns that banded together as the Coalition Communities. For many years they lobbied the Legislature to change the statute so that they didn't have to send more than $20 million to the state for distribution to other communities as part of state aid to education. In the Tea Party-dominated election of 2010, voters gave Republicans a 3-1, veto-proof majority in both chambers of the State House. The Legislature in 2011, over the objection of then-Democratic Gov. John Lynch, got rid of donor towns, passing a law that let them keep their excess amounts. Zach Sheehan, executive director of the NH School Funding Fairness Project, said the decision allows a 'two-tiered' system of public schools to exist. 'For far too long the state has allowed this two-tiered system to operate, and this order will allow it to continue at the expense of funding for schools in the districts that need it the most,' Sheehan said in a statement. He urged lawmakers to remedy the matter by changing the SWEPT law. 'This is a major step backwards for our state, but it doesn't have to be forever,' Sheehan said. 'Just because this SWEPT loophole is allowed does not mean that the Legislature cannot act to close it. ' The Supreme Court still has another education funding case, and another appealed ruling by Ruoff, on its plate. The Ruoff ruling under appeal is the case in which the ConVal regional school district and nearly 20 others sued the state, alleging that the level of state aid to public schools wasn't enough to meet the requirement that the state support the cost of an adequate education for all students. In that matter, Ruoff concluded that the state's definition of an adequate education cost was 'woefully' short and ordered the Legislature to increase state spending to public schools by more than $500 million a year. klandrigan@
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Supreme Court rules SWEPT tax constitutional, settling one school funding issue
Supreme Court Justices Patrick Donovan, Gordon MacDonald, and Melissa Countway hear oral arguments in Rand v. State of New Hampshire, on Nov. 13, 2024. (Photo by Ethan DeWitt/New Hampshire Bulletin) New Hampshire's Statewide Education Property Tax is equal and uniform and does not violate the New Hampshire Constitution, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, in a blow to state taxpayers who had sued the state and alleged unfairness. In a 3-1 decision, the court held that the tax, known as the SWEPT, is administered fairly and evenly by the Department of Revenue Administration, even though wealthier towns might collect more than they need for their schools and keep the excess. 'Accordingly, regarding the 'excess SWEPT' issue, we hold that the SWEPT scheme is constitutional under Part II, Article 5 because it is 'administered in a manner that is equal in valuation and uniform in rate throughout the State,'' wrote Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald in the majority opinion. The SWEPT is a mandatory process in which towns collect property taxes to pay for their schools. Under law, the state sets a goal each year for New Hampshire cities and towns to collect a combined $363 million, and each year the Department of Revenue Administration sets a tax rate per $1,000 of property value that towns must collect. But that statewide tax rate typically results in towns with higher property values collecting far more from the SWEPT than towns with lower property values, and sometimes more than is needed to fund their schools. When the tax was enacted in 1999, those wealthier towns were required to relinquish any excess SWEPT revenues to the state to be redistributed to needier towns through the state's adequacy formula. But in 2011, then-Gov. John Lynch signed a law to allow those towns to keep the excess, after pushback by some communities that considered themselves 'donor towns.' Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Rand v. State, had argued that because the current system allows wealthy towns to collect more in property taxes than they need, and because those towns can use the excess to lower the overall percentage of property taxes paid, the tax is neither equal nor uniform in practice. Residents of towns with lower property values pay much higher local property tax rates as a percentage than those in wealthier towns, plaintiffs said. Lawyers for the plaintiffs — who included Natalie LaFlamme as well as John Tobin and Andru Volinsky, two attorneys on the winning side of the landmark Claremont school funding decisions in the 1990s — had brought a motion for 'declaratory judgment' to the Supreme Court. That motion was intended to allow the Supreme Court to rule quickly on the constitutionality of the SWEPT tax before the rest of the case receives a hearing in superior court, in order to lay questions about the SWEPT tax to rest. The court did put the question to rest Tuesday, but not in the plaintiffs' favor. MacDonald held that the SWEPT is administered evenly because the Department of Revenue Administration applies the same flat tax rate each year to all cities and towns, wealthy or poor. Whether those towns keep the excess revenue or not, and whether some towns raise enough to pay for schools or not, does not affect whether the underlying tax is unequal and does not make it unconstitutional, MacDonald wrote. In doing so, MacDonald dismissed evidence from an expert indicating the difference in effective property taxes between towns. 'The plaintiffs do not dispute that under the SWEPT, as administered, taxpayers are actually assessed at a uniform rate. That concludes the constitutional inquiry,' MacDonald wrote. 'The 'effective rates' in the expert's data reflect, at most, an indirect effect of municipalities retaining excess SWEPT revenue, as the statutory scheme permits. Theoretical indirect effects of the scheme on municipalities are not relevant to the analysis under Part II, Article 5.' Associate Justices Melissa Countway and Patrick Donovan concurred with MacDonald. But Senior Associate Justice James Bassett dissented on the question of the constitutionality of SWEPT. Responding to MacDonald, Bassett argued that under SWEPT, taxpayers in poorer towns do face disparities in taxation compared to those in wealthier towns. 'The impact of the SWEPT scheme on taxpayers in excess SWEPT communities is anything but 'theoretical' or 'indirect': the effective SWEPT rate reduction those taxpayers enjoy is real and direct,' Bassett wrote. 'The impact of the SWEPT scheme on taxpayers in other communities that do not generate excess SWEPT is also real and direct: those taxpayers enjoy no comparable reduction in their effective SWEPT rate.' The fifth associate justice, Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi, has been on administrative leave from the court since July 2024, pending a criminal case against her for allegedly interfering with the criminal investigation of her husband. The decision overrules parts of an earlier decision by Rockingham Superior Court Judge David Ruoff, who ruled in 2023 that the SWEPT was illegal. The ruling does not end the Rand case; it merely answers plaintiffs' attempts to receive a declaratory judgment on SWEPT. The rest of the Rand case alleges that New Hampshire's adequacy formula, which currently gives a minimum of $4,182 per student to public schools that need aid, is far too low to pay for an adequate education and is unconstitutional. The court did not rule on that question Tuesday. But it is currently considering a different school funding case, Contoocook Valley School District v. New Hampshire, in which a number of school districts have also alleged that the adequacy formula is too low to provide an adequate education. Oral arguments in that case, known as the ConVal case, took place at the Supreme Court in December. Ruoff has also ruled that the state's formula is unconstitutionally low. The Supreme Court's expected ruling in the ConVal decision could affect how the rest of the Rand lawsuit plays out in superior court, now that the constitutionality of SWEPT has been affirmed by the high court. In an order sent in October, the court indicated that it is unlikely to overturn the Claremont decisions, in which the Supreme Court established the constitutional requirement that the state of New Hampshire ensure an adequate education. Tuesday's ruling did include a partial victory for plaintiffs. The court held that use of 'negative tax rates,' in which the Department of Revenue Administration allows unincorporated towns that don't have school districts to offset their SWEPT tax with negative rates to effectively raise no SWEPT revenue, is unconstitutional. But the court did not direct the state to stop setting negative tax rates. Instead, it said the process for doing so, and fixing the unconstitutional law, is in the hands of the legislative and executive branches. 'Resolving the constitutional infirmity in the State's practice of setting negative local tax rates is the responsibility of the other co-equal branches of government,' MacDonald wrote.
Boston Globe
10-06-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Wealthy N.H. communities can keep their share of statewide education property tax revenues, top court rules
'Allowing some taxpayers in this state to continue to get special treatment and avoid paying their fair share of taxes to support the education of all students in the state is beyond disappointing,' he said. Advertisement New Hampshire Attorney General John M. Formella said his team is pleased with the court's decision, which he said reaffirms the Legislature's constitutional authority to spend tax revenues on the public's behalf. Without an income tax or broad-based sales tax, New Hampshire relies more heavily Under the SWEPT system, which was established Advertisement As a result, some cities and towns — such as Portsmouth, Moultonborough, and Waterville Valley — raise significantly more in SWEPT revenues than they need to fund an adequate education for their local students, while other municipalities must supplement their local SWEPT revenues with additional property taxes. Rockingham County Superior Court Judge David Ruoff 'The plaintiffs do not dispute that under the SWEPT, as administered, taxpayers are actually assessed at a uniform rate,' Chief Justice Gordon J. MacDonald wrote for the majority. 'That concludes the constitutional inquiry.' In his dissent, however, Senior Associate Justice 'To be sure, I agree with the majority that the SWEPT rate is facially uniform and that the SWEPT is assessed and collected from the taxpayers in full. But, as in our earlier school funding cases, that does not end the inquiry,' he wrote. 'The majority looks past the fundamental economic reality that money is fungible, and that when communities retain excess SWEPT revenue, the local education tax rate is reduced — and the overall property tax burden for the taxpayers in those communities is likewise reduced,' he added. Jason Sorens, a senior research fellow with the Advertisement 'Property values in high-capacity towns already reflect any advantages accruing to them from the ability to retain excess SWEPT funds,' he wrote Tuesday's ruling also addressed a separate but related question about how the state should handle SWEPT in unincorporated places. Ruoff had ruled the state's practice of setting a negative local education tax rate for those areas was unconstitutional, and all four Supreme Court justices agreed. The ruling didn't address another big-ticket dispute over public school funding in New Hampshire. In a separate case, Ruoff said in 2023 that state-level funding was so low that it violated a state constitutional obligation to provide for an 'adequate' education. He ruled the state would need to increase its education funding by Steven Porter can be reached at
Boston Globe
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
New Hampshire still ranks last in state-level share of K-12 education funding
The state's current education funding model Get N.H. Morning Report A weekday newsletter delivering the N.H. news you need to know right to your inbox. Enter Email Sign Up Megan Tuttle, president of NEA New Hampshire, said some state lawmakers 'keep failing to adequately fund public education,' and the state's overreliance on local property taxes means students receive differing opportunities based on their ZIP codes. Advertisement 'For example, students in property poor and lower-income communities often don't get to take AP courses or join extra curricular activities,' she said. 'Differences in funding levels across the state also impact educator salaries, leading to serious recruitment and retention issues that directly harm student learning.' Advertisement Whether the current model should be replaced with a system that requires the state to contribute more funding and distribute SWEPT revenues more equally is the subject of a pair of disputes While the state's share of K-12 public school spending is relatively slim, the overall amount that New Hampshire schools spend per student is higher than most other states. New Hampshire ranked seventh in the US last school year, spending $22,252 per pupil, according to the NEA data. That was slightly more than Maine schools spent per pupil and a few thousands dollars less than Massachusetts schools spent per pupil. Republican state lawmakers have advocated for caps to limit the growth of school spending at the local level. They have also proposed universal eligibility for the Education Freedom Account program, which would allow all families to take the state's share of education funding and use it for private school or other education expenses. Democrats have advocated for their own legislative proposals to increase education funding at the state level and distribute SWEPT revenues more evenly. A wide variety of factors, including In terms of Advertisement This article first appeared in Globe NH | Morning Report, our free newsletter focused on the news you need to know about New Hampshire, including great coverage from the Boston Globe and links to interesting articles from other places. If you'd like to receive it via e-mail Monday through Friday, Steven Porter can be reached at
