By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — If you are a property taxpayer in New Hampshire, the latest National Education Association annual report on school statistics across the country will not be a surprise.
New Hampshire is a kind of reverse lottery: property taxpayers pay the highest percentage of public school costs of any other state in the country and New Hampshire state government contributes the least state aid to public education of any state.
Property taxpayers pay 63 percent of the cost of public education, while the state contributes 28.8 percent, leaving a little over 8 percent for the federal government to contribute, the 45th lowest for states.
The state’s historical reliance on local property taxes with wildly varying rates has led to numerous lawsuits over its education funding system which creates discrepancies and inequities in school districts across the state.
The two latest lawsuits await decisions from the state Supreme Court on Superior Court rulings saying the current system is unconstitutional because it fails to comply with the proportional and reasonable requirement for taxation along the state failing to live up to its constitutional obligation to pay for an adequate education.
For three decades the legislature has been under a Supreme Court order to provide an adequate education for its children and to pay for it, but has failed to institute a system that fixes the tax inequities.
Along with enacting inadequate funding systems, there have been numerous unsuccessful attempts to pass constitutional amendments to remove court oversight of the public education system.
“New Hampshire’s underfunding from state coffers and over reliance on property taxpayer dollars to fund education means that students in different ZIP codes and communities don’t receive the same opportunities to learn,” said Megan Tuttle, President of NEA —NH. “Differences in funding levels across the state also impact educator salaries, leading to serious recruitment and retention issues that directly harm student learning.”
She said her union will continue to fight “to ensure schools are resourced based on what children need, not where they live.”
The data released Tuesday include?“Rankings and Estimates,” a report NEA has produced since the 1960s.
The NEA research bureau collects data from individual states and from federal sources to determine such things as enrollment in public education, average daily attendance, the number of teachers and other staff, their average salaries, how much states spend per pupil and how much revenue they raise per pupil to cover those costs.
And then the researchers rank the states from one to 51 because Washington, D.C is also included in the tally, which is a good thing for New Hampshire because it just missed having the number one ranking for the highest percentage of local property taxes to cover public education costs.
Washington, DC is not a state so there is no state contribution leaving the bulk of the burden on its property owners who also get a double whammy because so much of Washington DC is federally owned and therefore exempt from property taxes as are foreign government owned property in the Capitol.
According to the report, property taxpayers in Washington pay 82.8 percent of the public school costs.
Other states ranking high in property tax percentage beside New Hampshire are Nebraska at 59.8 percent for the 2023-2024 school year and Missouri at 49.2 percent. The lowest local property tax contribution for property owners is in Hawaii at less than 1 percent or .8 percent, Vermont at 2.8 percent and New Mexico at 16.1 percent.
The other New England states’ percentage of local property taxes paying for public education are Connecticut 55.3 percent, Maine and Rhode Island 45.9 percent, and Massachusetts 49.5 percent.
The national average for local property taxes to pay for public education was 42.7 percent for the 23-24 school year.
“While New Hampshire ranks in the top 10 for public education funding, nationwide we rank 50th in state funding for public education. That means we, the property taxpayers, are forced to cover the balance because the state will not pay its fair share,” Tuttle said. “Providing students across our state with a quality education is a shared responsibility and we need Concord to do their part – not take more public dollars out of public schools to pay for private school vouchers for wealthy families.”
In terms of state contributions to public education, New Hampshire is dead last at 28.8 percent for the 23-24 school year, up from 28.2 percent the prior year, Missouri is at 30.2 percent for the 23-24 school year and Nebraska 30.8 percent.
At the other end of the scale, Hawaii state government contributed 88.4 percent, Vermont 85 percent and Michigan 69.2 percent.
In New England, Connecticut state government contributes 35.5 percent, Maine 46.1 percent, Massachusetts 42 percent, and Rhode Island 43.3 percent.
The national average for the last school year was 46.2 percent for states.
If New Hampshire paid the national average for its public education cost which is a little over $4 billion, not including capital projects which is a separate funding program, its contribution would be about $1.7 billion instead of the $1.1 billion it contributes now including the Statewide Education Property Tax which is $363 million.
Despite the property tax burden, according to the report New Hampshire is eighth in the nation in per pupil spending at $24,235 per pupil, up from $22,726 for the 22-23 school year, or 6.64 percent.
New Hampshire is not alone among New England states as Massachusetts is 6th at $26,262 per pupil, Connecticut is 5th at $27,135, Vermont 4th at $27,834, Rhode Island 9th at $23,289 and Maine 11th at $23,102.
New York tops the list at $37,967, Washington DC is 2nd at $33,651 and New Jersey 3rd at $28,707.
At the bottom of the list is Idaho at $10,779, Utah at $12,682 and Oklahoma at $13,028.
New England states have some of the highest number of teachers to students ratios in the country.
Vermont has the best ratio of 9.3 students per teacher, Washington DC is next with 9.4 students, New York with 10.2 and then New Hampshire and Maine with 10.4 students.
Other New England states are Massachusetts with 10.9 students per teacher, Connecticut with 11.4 and Rhode Island 11.6.
The highest number of students per teacher are Nevada with 23, California with 21.1 and Utah with 20.2.
The national average is 13.9.
New Hampshire is in the middle of the pack for what it pays its teachers and is near the bottom in New England.
The average teacher salary in the Granite State was $67,170 at 24th, up from $64,169 the year before.
However, $67,170is below the New Hampshire living wage of $88,074 and the average beginning teacher salary in New Hampshire was $42,588.
In New Hampshire, 77.3 percent of school districts have a starting salary below $50,000 and 33.6 percent of all full-time K-12 education support professionals earn less than $25,000 annually.
By contrast, Massachusetts average salary was $92,076, the 3rd highest in the country, Connecticut was $86,511 for sixth, Rhode Island $82,189 for ninth, Vermont $69,562 at 17th and Maine $62,570 for 30th.
The highest average salary is for California at $101,085 and the lowest is Mississippi at $53,704, while the national average is $70,030.
Although there has been a fair amount of discussion about the state’s declining student enrollment numbers, New Hampshire’s decline is not the largest in New England. Comparing the 22-23 school year to 23-24, Vermont lost 1.43 percent of its enrollment, going from 83,654 to 82,455, while New Hampshire lost 1.32 percent going from 167,298 to 165,082. Rhode Island also lost about 1 percent of its students going from 137,452 to 136,154 and Maine lost .75 percent going from 173,931 to 172,622.
Massachusetts gained students going from 912,117 to 913,160, while Connecticut had a decrease from 513,513 to 512,652 students.
The state with the greatest drop in enrollment was West Virginia at 2 percent while the biggest pick up was in Washington DC at 1.97 percent and New Jersey at .6 percent while the national average was a loss of .21 percent.
Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.