More briefs are filed in the pending appeals.

From ‘A Book, an Idea and a Goat,’ Andru Volinsky’s weekly newsletter on Substack is primarily devoted to writing about the national movement for fair school funding and other means of effecting social change. Here’s the link:  https://substack.com/@andruvolinsky?utm_source=profile-page

By ANDRU VOLINSKY

Jessica Lewis, our taxpayer client from Penacook, was the first witness. She testified as a taxpayer, a parent of two young sons and a school board member.  Her testimony as a property taxpayer was necessary to establish “standing,” which is the proof of a legal harm. She wanted to testify to express her commitment to strong public schools and an equitable way of funding them. The state’s cross? Just because the state contributes more to the cost of public schools doesn’t mean local taxes will necessarily go down. Although Jessica answered the question well, Justice Thurgood Marshall provided the answer over fifty years ago in the San Antonio v. Rodriguez school funding case.

Marshall was challenging the ridiculous notion that money does not make a difference in education as it does in all other things. He wrote, “In my view, though, even an unadorned restatement of this contention is sufficient to reveal its absurdity … It is an inescapable fact that, if one district has more funds available per pupil than another district, the former will have greater choice in educational planning than will the latter.”

It all comes down to local control. The more equitable the funding, the more choices each school district has. That’s what local control is about and that was the point of Jessica’s testimony.

John Freeman’s testimony as our lead expert was up next. I’ve written about John before. He’s to our Rand case what Charlie Marston was to the Claremont case. He’s our lead explainer and storyteller. He ended the day on an emotional note talking about children who struggle and sometimes feel abandoned by their families and their communities. John obviously felt terrible about the level of teacher turnover in his former district of Pittsfield but with little money to pay teachers he could not afford competitive salaries and he often lost teachers to neighboring communities. One teacher earned almost a 50 percent raise simply by going to work for the neighboring school district in Epsom. Even though the state claims the “averages” are irrelevant, we’ll introduce state data about pay averages through John. The averages become damned relevant when you can’t compete because you pay too little and suffer 25-50 percent annual staff turnover as a result.

It’s all about contrivance. I should mention that last week, the state’s lawyers moved to continue the trial and quash our subpoenas to Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut and DRA Commissioner Lindsey Stepp. They also reneged on a formal agreement to allow the introduction of important evidence. We’re sure the move to stiff us on the evidence was designed to force the continuance. The state’s position is now that their own education and tax data are unreliable and inaccurate even though all sorts of legislative and executive branch action depends on the data, and the state claims its share of federal monies by submitting some of this very same data to the US DOE. The state’s contrivances haven’t work but we’re sure the state will keep trying. They don’t have anything else.

The Appeals

The ConVal and Rand appeals have just about completed their first round of briefing. There will likely be one more brief filed by the state in each of the appeals. I’ve previously mentioned the amicus briefs filed by a group of Republicans, and Senate President Jeb Bradley. They seek the outright reversal of the Claremont and Londonderry decisions.

Democratic Reps. David Luneau (Hopkinton), Mel Mylar (Hopkinton) and Dick Ames (Jaffrey) have retained leading Republican tax lawyer Bill Ardinger to file an amicus brief designed, shamefully, to return New Hampshire to the days of Governor John Sununu and the Augenblick formula. They hope to remove the requirement that the state must pay for adequacy for all school children.

The ACLU and the NEA teamed up to submit an amicus brief arguing the importance of respecting precedent in our legal system (called stare decisis) and provided all the good reasons to maintain the precedents of the Claremont and Londonderry cases.  Thanks to both organizations.

The League of Women Voters, a non-profit organized in 1919 and committed to good citizenship, also has weighed in as an amicus. Their argument is that school revenues should be raised by fair and uniform taxes so that the responsibility for educating all of New Hampshire’s children is shared equally by taxpayers across the State. Thanks to Bill Glahn and the McLane firm for once again stepping up to work for fair and sustainable funding.

Finally, we submitted our brief arguing the Supreme Court should respect existing precedent and reject the Intervenor wealthy towns’ claim that everything is just a spending decision within the discretion of the legislature is false. “The argument that preferential tax treatment for property wealthy towns is a ‘spending decision,’ has no basis in the statute, legislative history, logic, or the actual facts of this case,” is what we wrote.

We also pointed out the irony inherent in the state’s argument that unincorporated areas are exempt from the Statewide Property Tax (SWEPT) when the DRA has issued tax bills to residents of these unincorporated places for decades.

What’s left in the appeals?

The ConVal plaintiffs will file their primary brief in the next few days. The state and intervening wealthy towns will then file rebuttals. The Supreme Court will schedule oral arguments in each of the ConVal and Rand appeals towards the end of the year.  Oral arguments are when the lawyers carefully plan twenty-minute presentations focused on the highlights of their cases.  The justices ask so many questions that the lawyers never get to say what they planned. Barring something unusual, expect written decisions in the late Spring.

The Rand trial in Rockingham County before Judge Ruoff will continue through this week and next.

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