By DEBRA ALTSCHILLER, D-Stratham

Where does the money go? That’s the question every town and school budget committee is asking as they prepare for upcoming budget votes. Government operates best with transparency. Granite state taxpayers want accountability for where, why, and to whom their dollars are going. In my time in the legislature, I’ve remained a steadfast advocate for educational accountability. 

Transparency in funding, and auditing are a bare minimum standard in remaining accountable to our taxpayers. One of the fastest growing expenses in our education budget is the school voucher program, known as Education Freedom Accounts. What was sold to the public as a way for financially underprivileged students struggling in public schools to afford private school tuition, has rapidly ballooned into a universal, $87M boondoggle.

When the voucher program first passed, limited to families whose income was 300% of poverty or below, the extreme right wing group Americans for Prosperity celebrated by launching a recruitment effort to enroll as many families as possible, and they haven’t stopped pushing for voucher expansion since.  

In my three years with the Senate, I’ve introduced four different bills in an effort to implement some form of public administration, accountability, and transparency concerning these ballooning expenditures. In 2023, I was appointed to the Oversight Committee for the Education Freedom Account program, and spared no time in fighting to hold the private company which administers millions of our tax dollars accountable. Recently, to my surprise and disappointment, I was yanked off the committee. Despite not having a seat on this oversight committee I will remain committed and persistent in my efforts to advocate for public accountability.

In 2024 I fought for more transparency and regularly questioned the N.H. director of the voucher program, which is headquartered in New York, where the money was going and how decisions were made about voucher expenses. The answers were vague and anecdotal. Taxpayers need facts and data. Despite the lack of information, the republican majority continued expanding the voucher program; removing eligibility requirements to make the program universal. This move doubled its beneficiaries, most of whom are wealthy and now get a taxpayer funded subsidy. All while the chair of the oversight committee, a republican senator, decided to not convene a single meeting all year. Despite being required by law to meet, and my repeated requests for meetings, there has been no oversight for a full year. (After my last apparently pesky request for a meeting in August I was booted from the committee).

I find it particularly rich that the republican majority who is overseeing a budget in the red, are so willing to penny pinch when it comes to funding public schools but have absolutely no interest in trying to understand where $87M of their constituents’ dollars are going. The voucher program provides an average of $5204 to 10,000 students, 64% of whom were already enrolled in private or non-public schools. The wildly unregulated vouchers pay for summer camps, ski passes, toys and private sports fees. All at the expense of our 180,000 public school students, which the NH Supreme Court found the state funding to be  “woefully inadequate”.  The republican majority disregarded the court’s decision of a minimum of $7,356.01 per pupil per year and instead forced through a budget that allots only $4629 per pupil necessitating local property taxes make up the difference.  Meanwhile, House and Senate republicans have filed legislation poised to expand the program by 25%, while continuing to spike our property taxes again to pay for it.

 The voucher program is an albatross around the neck of our public universities too. This year’s budget, which allows for $87M to private school students, cut the University System’s budget by $35M. As a result, programs were cut, staff lost jobs, students were asked to pay more tuition, and New Hampshire’s in-state tuition rates remain the highest in the country by a wide margin, right up there with our property taxes.

Time and time again, Granite state republicans slap each other on the back congratulating themselves on “cutting taxes”. The reality is every single one of these so-called “tax cuts” is actually a downshifting of cost to you, and your hardworking family, purely for the sake of sheltering the wealthy, and knee capping our public schools. Our 180,00 public school students deserve better.

Senator Debra Altschiller is a resident of Stratham, serving her second term in the Senate, representing the communities of Exeter, Greenland, Hampton, Hampton Falls, North Hampton, Stratham, and Rye. She previously served three terms in the N.H House of Representatives.