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
Last week I heard Governor Janet Mills of Maine speak to a crowd of about one hundred fifty people. There was a lot of talk about her accomplishments in the field of education because the lecture was at a college. Her comments about education were intertwined with her thoughts about in-migration to Maine and economic development.
Three accomplishments that Mills championed, and the purple-ish Maine legislature passed, stuck out and offer ideas for NH leaders (and for voters next week who will choose NH leaders):
· Free Community College;
· State Payment of College Debt; and
· Free School Lunches.
Recent high school graduates, or those who have earned GEDs, are eligible for up to two years free tuition and fees at Maine’s community colleges. Students must be Maine residents and also apply for available federal assistance. Massachusetts, under Governor Maura Healey, has a similar program.
Lest we think this is only geared toward the most academically minded, in addition to liberal arts and humanities courses, schools like Maine’s Kennebec Valley Community College in Augusta offer courses in hospitality, computer science, business, industrial technology, transportation, health sciences, and public safety. The free tuition is available to students who graduated, or who will graduate, between 2020 and 2025.
Maine’s Student Loan Repayment Tax Credits are part of an economic development program that began in a slightly different form in 2008. The program offers residents of Maine a credit against their state income taxes to repay loans used for college tuition. The tuition may have been for associate, bachelor or graduate degrees. The credit currently tops out at $2500 per year and is available for ten years. It is not limited to students who graduated from Maine colleges. The tax credit simply requires the taxpayer to pay Maine taxes.
The Loan Repayment Tax Credit program attracts young people to live in Maine and offsets Maine’s relatively high local and state tax burden. In 2022, Maine was top ten in the US in state and local tax burden at 12.4 percent of income. All of the New England states were in the top fifteen, except NH which was in the bottom twenty states at 9.6 percent of income paid in local and state taxes. NH, however, is always top five in local property taxes, one of the more regressive tax choices available to state and local governments.
Finally, Mills touted the universal free school lunch program by saying that schools shouldn’t go down the lunch line asking kids what their parents did for work. Nor, I might add, should schools deny children a nutritious meal, offer a stigmatizing peanut butter and jelly sandwich alternative to what is being served (no shade on PB&J) or threaten to sue parents for unpaid school lunch fees.
Mills is not particularly liberal. She is a 77-year-old former prosecutor and attorney general from Farmington, Maine. She even hesitated at implementing strong gun reforms in the wake of the Lewiston shootings last year. Yet, she appreciates the importance of funding public education at all levels both for the good it does the students and the good it does Maine’s economy. And the programs appear to work.
Nationally, enrollment in community colleges has increased by just under 5 percent over last year. Maine’s community college enrollment increased by 10 percent.
By contrast, NH’s community colleges are in deep trouble. There’s an absence of new ideas and elected leaders aren’t even thinking of something as radical as free college tuition. Community college enrollments in NH have plummeted by more than 14 percent. NH Governor Chris Sununu’s response to this crisis is to advocate for consolidation of the community college and university systems as a cost cutting measure even though the two systems have very different missions. Even before Maine offered free community college to residents, NH’s tuition at $215 per credit was twice that of Maine’s. Touting a tuition freeze, as NH college administrators often do to promote their colleges, is not a very effective strategy when your neighbor charges only $96 per credit hour.
NH’s troubles are also evident at the public college and university level. NH’s enrollment in public colleges and universities dropped by 13.6 percent. The national average decline was 8 percent. Maine’s public college and university enrollment increased by 5 percent, reversing a four-year decline. Administrators attribute Maine’s growth to its use of online and hybrid course structures and the fact that Maine charges less than other public universities for tuition.
Maine contributes $10,666 per full-time equivalent student (FTES) in state money to its public colleges (2 and 4 year) and universities, about the national average. NH contributes $4,716 per FTES, 43 percent below the national average. NH’s support for public higher education has fallen by 24 percent per FTES since 1980.
Maine’s out-of-state tuition is around $35,000 per year. NH’s is almost $40,000. In-state tuition to U Maine at Orono is $12,360 plus $966 in fees. In-state tuition at UNH Durham is $15,520 plus $3,682 in mandatory fees.
Mills also was asked about the attributes of a good leader. She pointed out that good leaders do not function in a vacuum. Instead, they work with and rely on others. Strong leaders choose staff and, I would suggest choose agency heads, who are highly qualified, communicate well, can digest and analyze information, and work well together.
I don’t know why, but this part of Mills’ comments made me think of NH Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut who is the antithesis of someone on whom a governor can rely. He is unqualified and ideological to the point of being unable to digest and analyze complex data. Ask anyone in the public education field and you’ll find he doesn’t work well with others. Yet, he was Sununu’s first appointment and, had the Executive Council not been 3-2 Republican, he would never have been confirmed.
Who will NH’s next governor nominate to be Education Commissioner and will the Executive Council confirm based on merit or partisanship?
NH has none of the three programs touted by Mills. Few in the legislature even talk about them; the exception being funding for school lunches which was championed by Rep. Art Ellison (D-Concord) who sadly passed away last year.
NH is among the lowest in the nation in state support for higher education and lowest in state support for k-12 public education. NH also does not have an income tax on its wealthiest residents. No one would suggest adopting an income tax just to issue tax credits but income taxes are a fair way to raise needed state revenues and most Republicans and Democrats are afraid to even talk about income taxes. Indeed, NH is moving in the opposite direction by phasing out its limited Interest and Dividends Tax.
No income tax means no ability to invest and no ability to credit or offset the tax to advance worthy policy initiatives while still raising revenues from those who can afford to pay 5 to 7 percent. No investment makes NH’s high education costs the norm.
Phasing out the limited Interest and Dividends Tax creates an annual hole in NH’s state budget of more than $100 million a year. Sununu and the Republican legislature’s irresponsible phase-out of the tax will make any future leader who advocates restoring the status quo look like a free spending liberal. (I can see the TV commercial now. “You mean you want to raise taxes by $100 million?”) It will take courageous and thoughtful leadership to fix the mess that Governor Sununu created with the help of Speaker Sherm Packard and Senate President Jeb Bradley.
The average Joe (or Josephine) reading this may ask why they should pay for college for someone else’s kid or encourage the adoption of an income tax. The average NH millionaire, by contrast, isn’t saying much of anything, just smiling quietly and being glad no one is complaining about them. NH has the largest percentage of households with assets worth more than $1 million of any New England state. In fact, NH is eighth overall in the country on this measure.Looked at another way, thirty one out of every 10,000 NH residents filing an income tax return in 2020 earned more than $1 million a year. Maine had 17.3 per 10,000 and Vermont had 19.9 millionaire incomes per 10,000 tax returns.
Do we think folks earning more than $1 million each year can afford to pay 5 percent in a state income tax dedicated to public education?
We can make a difference and bend NH’s trajectory towards a state willing to invest in itself and its citizens.
Tuesday, November 5th, is Election Day. Go vote. Vote for a new president who isn’t about lining her pockets and those of her cronies but also vote the down ballot. Who we choose for state reps and state senators matters.
Find your polling place here. Search by the name of your town and your street name.
As you enter the ballot box, ask yourself:
· Will the person for whom I am voting support funding our public schools fairly?
· Will they recognize that funding k-12 public schools, community colleges and public colleges and universities represents an investment in NH’s future as well as an investment in individual students?
· Will the person you vote for get the joke that William Loeb and the Union Leader have played on NH for decades and reject the Pledge that prevents good leaders from considering and discussing a fair broad-based tax that will allow NH to make sound investments in our future and finally tax those millionaires most able contribute?
Mills doesn’t have to be an anomaly. Maine isn’t that different from NH. NH can change and, if you can’t find a candidate prepared to meet the need, consider running in two years.
