Subject:	NHHR-POLITICS: Partial Report on Senate Finance Committee Exec Session
Date:	Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:21:21 -0500
From:	Diane Lachance
Reply-To:	nhhr-politics@mailman.dimentech.com
To:	<nhhr-politics@mailman.dimentech.com

Chris Hamilton and I attended the Senate Finance Committee Executive Session on SB268 today, both arriving after the start of discussion.  The following is a summary of what we heard.  We have no idea how much of the discussion we missed.  We arrived ~1:30 p.m.

The Senate Finance Committee members are Chuck W. Morse, Chairman
Robert K. Boyce, V Chairman, Theodore L. Gatsas, Robert E. Clegg, Richard Green,Bob Odell, Lou D'Allesandro, Sylvia B. Larsen. 

It appeared that all were present.

There is an amendment to the bill which Chris and I were not privy to.  It seems that the amendment states some graduated effective dates for portions of the bill, and perhaps some other things we were not there early enough to hear.  For districts with the PASS programs in place it seemed to state the effective date would be January 2007.

We arrived during discussions about whether or not SB268 could be a violation of article 28A of the NH State Constitution, making it an unfunded mandate.  

Article 28A of the NH State Constitution reads : Mandated Programs  The state shall not mandate or assign any new, expanded or modified programs or responsibilities to any political subdivision in such a way as to necessitate additional local expenditures by the political subdivision unless such programs or responsibilities are fully funded by the state or unless such programs or responsibilities are approved for funding by a vote of the local legislative body of the political subdivision.

This article was read aloud and discussion followed.

Senator Clegg, Senator Boyce and Senator Morse all expressed their concern that the bill is an unfunded mandate.  Senator Morse is going to contact the Attorney General's office before the bill returns to the Senate floor on Wednesday for an interpretation of whether Article 28A is being violated with this bill.

We missed an earlier discussion that was based on the impact this bill would have to the two largest school districts in the state, Manchester and Nashua.  It seemed that the consensus was that these districts would definitely be impacted financially.

Commissioner Tracy was present and was invited to answer questions.

There were questions about whether the money, no matter where it came from, to educate a child choosing an alternative learning option would follow the child, or would reside in the district school.  Concerns were raised about the ability for the dollars to follow the child.   

Questions about how districts prepare budgets came up.   The argument brought forward was that this bill would require funding just by the mere fact that those children who are now counted as drop outs would be forced back into the classroom.  Commissioner Tracy argued that districts do not plan on children dropping out and they therefore do not reduce their budgets based on an anticipated number of dropouts.  His arguments were suggesting that districts already have the money in their budgets to fund the students who would be back in class, therefore this is not an unfunded mandate.  (While this may be true in the literal sense, it is most likely also true that districts budget based on trends which account for the dropouts.  Chris is investigating this further to supply the legislators with the rebuttal for this argument.)

Senator Morse is getting phone calls from district superintendents saying that this bill will increase district expenditures and he believes this to be true.  He firmly believes that the AG should be consulted.

Senator Gatsas asked why Superintendent Nate Greenberg of Londonderry spoke at the SEC hearings.   He wanted to know what his objections were to the bill. It seemed that their was some confusion about whether the summary included all that was said at the hearing. (Hopefully someone will contact Nate Greenberg to let him know he was mentioned and there is an interest in what he thinks.)

At one point the committee was confused about the district's responsibility to educate children to the age of 21, or until they receive a diploma, whichever comes first.  Some committee members were thinking that the law only allowed up to age 21 for special needs children.  Senator. Green read the law and cleared up the confusion.

The law he read, in part: It shall be the duty of the school board to provide, at district expense, elementary and secondary education to all pupils who reside in the district until such time as the pupil has acquired a high school diploma or has reached age 21, whichever occurs first; provided, that the board may exclude specific pupils for gross misconduct or for neglect or refusal to conform to the reasonable rules of the school, and further provided that this section shall not apply to pupils who have been exempted from school attendance in accordance with RSA 193:5. 

A detailed discussion about PASS programs ensued.  Commissioner Tracy stated that the PASS program cost the city of Portsmouth $500,000.  Although the program cost the city of Portsmouth 500,000 they also were able to offset this cost with tuition from out of district students.  Commissioner Tracy then stated that the program did not cost the districts anything. Senator Clegg countered that someone had to pay for the program and asked for clarification of who.  It certainly appeared that it was the sending districts who paid the $500,000.  Senator Clegg went on to say that he thought the districts would certainly like to know who would be the sending districts and who would be the receiving districts so it would be clear who was bearing the cost of these programs.   Examples of what Hudson and Auburn might do were brought forward as examples.

Senator Clegg and Commissioner Tracy had a bit of a heated discussion on this one and some other points.  Clegg contended that someone would have to pay for the programs and he seemed angry that this was not being addressed by the DOE.

Senator. Gatsas summarized what he had learned.  The cost for SB268 would be about $600,000 per PASS program or 15 -20 million dollars for the entire state.  He thought that it would be money well spent and that the state should come up with the funds to make this a funded mandate. 

One of the facility needs specifically addressed was for districts to supply more parking lots for the driving population who would be staying in school.  Nothing else about facility increases was mentioned at that time.

The vote on the bill was Ought to Pass, we think it was 3 against and the remainder in favor. We think Clegg, Boyce and Morse voted no to the bill.  Morse voted against the amendment and maybe Boyce as well.   They didn't recap the votes.  It was hard to tell as we were in the back of the room.

Diane and Chris