Some homework for you.
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
The Rand trial concluded last week. This was a declaratory judgment action that was tried before a judge. There was no jury to deliver a verdict. No foreperson rose and declared a verdict. A lawsuit seeking a declaration is not like a runner breaking the tape at the end of the race and clearly winning. This was more like a relay where a middle runner passes the baton to the next stage and out of breath watches the race proceed.
The parties have until November 15th to submit their closing arguments in writing. After a short time to reply, Judge Ruoff will have the case to himself. No doubt he’s already begun thinking about his conclusions but he’ll hold off writing an opinion until he has read the arguments from both sides. He’ll likely be mindful of the ConVal case sitting at the Supreme Court and wondering if there is anything he can do in the context of our case to save the ConVal decision.
I thought I should give you some homework to give you a feel for the case we just tried. So, get out a calculator, pen and paper. And, if you don’t like homework, I’ve applied the directions to Pittsfield below so you can see how the analysis works.
First, figure out the true cost per pupil in your school district. Go here to find a town to school district conversion list to find the name of your school district if you don’t know it. The list you want is the fifth one down on this page.
If you know the name of the school district in which you live (and for which you pay taxes), start here. Look up the name of your district and write down the spending per pupil for all grades in your district. This number is in the far-right column.
Read the paragraph at the top of this Cost Per Pupil report and you will see that you have not recorded the full cost per pupil to maintain schools in your district. You have only recorded some of the operating costs. The full cost is about $4000 more per child. So, add $4000 to the number you have recorded to get the true cost per pupil in your district on a per pupil basis.
Multiply this true cost by two-thirds (0.67). School district costs are heavily dependent upon the cost of personnel. About two-thirds of all spending is for salaries, benefits and the like. You now have isolated the personnel cost for your district. There’s nothing in here for buildings or equipment. Nothing for materials. Nothing for transportation.
Now, let’s find out how much the state calculates for the cost of a constitutionally adequate education in your district and, again, we’ll do it on a per pupil basis. Go here to look up your district. Use the FY 2023 data. You’ll have to use the Microsoft Excel Format because the easier to read PDF cuts off columns. The amount the state says an adequate education should cost in your district is in column “U” the “Total Calculated Cost of an Adequate Education.” Write that number down. Now, look up the number of students in the district. It’s under column “F” for “Membership.” (Don’t worry that the prior year is referenced. That’s the way the state computes the cost of adequacy—based on data a year out of date.) Divide the first number by the second and you’ll have what the state says your district should spend to fund a constitutionally adequate education.
Remember, for every dollar the state underestimates the cost of adequacy, the state shifts its cost burden to local property taxpayers. Local property taxpayers pay education taxes at very different rates. If the state relies on local taxes imposed at different rates to pay for its cost of adequacy, then it violates the NH Constitution and the Claremont rulings because taxes to pay for adequacy are state taxes. State taxes must be imposed at uniform rates across the state.
Now compare your district’s personnel only cost per pupil to the state’s adequacy cost per pupil. If you’ve done your homework right, you’ll find the state says your district (and every other district in the state) should be able to provide a constitutionally adequate education for between 30 and 40 percent of the cost of personnel alone. Our experts, John Freeman and Corinne Cascadden, testified it can’t be done.
The state did not call a single witness at our trial to defend its adequacy calculation. No educator, neither of the two experts paid by the state, no member of the NH Department of Education, no legislator, and no governor testified that the state’s figure is sufficient to pay for adequacy. No one defended the state’s number at any point during our trial or during the prior ConVal trial.
Let’s do the homework in the context of the Pittsfield School District. Pittsfield spends at about the state average but it’s a high needs school district which means it gets extra adequacy money for each of its children who lives in poverty or qualifies for special education. These extra increments are called “differentiated aid.” Like the base cost of adequacy, we argue the increments are set at arbitrarily low rates untethered from the true cost of educating children who live in poverty or who qualify for special education. But, put this aside, Pittsfield gets these extra increments and if the state is going to come close to paying for adequacy it will be in a school district with lots of differentiated aid like Pittsfield.
Pittsfield’s average per pupil cost for the 2022-23 school year was $20,322.52. Add $4000 to this number and then multiply by 0.67. You should get $16,296.09 as the cost for personnel only in Pittsfield.
Now, look up Pittsfield’s total adequacy payment from the state. The total cost of adequacy from Column U was $2,816,676.69. The state reports Pittsfield as having 540.56 students. Divide the two numbers and you’ll get $5,210.66.
Compare the personnel only cost in Pittsfield of $16,296.09 to the all-in total cost of adequacy calculated by the state of $5,210.66. This is essentially what John Freeman did in his expert testimony. Freeman concluded that Pittsfield could not operate a functioning school district on twice the state’s calculated cost of adequacy. No district could.
Special education costs are similarly under-estimated. Dr. Jennifer Dolloff, who has deep knowledge of how special education works in NH, testified that no district, none, could pay for special education services for the state’s calculated cost of $2100 per child.
Judge Ruoff and the Supreme Court have much with which to wrestle but if you have done this homework, you know the answer is clear beyond doubt. The state has calculated the cost of adequacy and the cost of differentiated aid at arbitrarily low numbers that do not reflect the cost of education. The state is cheating and, by cheating, it downshifts its responsibility to the local taxpayer.
If you want to know how widely local education tax rates differ, go here and look at column 12. The rates range from a minus $1.80 to $14.95. This means annual local education taxes range, for a taxpayer who owns a $300,000 home, from getting a state credit of $540 to a taxpayer paying $4,485 in local education taxes. That’s a range of $5,205 on a fairly basic home.
The NH school funding system violates the principles set out in Claremont because these very different tax rates must be relied upon to supplement the state’s grossly understated cost of adequacy. If the state paid a fair estimate of the cost of adequacy, the varying local rates would not matter. But the state’s calculation is not even close. This is why we have asked the courts to, once again, declare that NH’s school funding system violates the NH Constitution.
Before I leave this post, let me express my deep gratitude to our witnesses, John Freeman, Corinne Cascadden, Annette Blake, and Kevin Clougherty. Let me also thank our clients, Steve Rand, Jessica Russell, Bob Gabrielli, Jim Lewis, and John Lunn.
