Lawmakers send budget proposal and temporary spending bill to Governor’s desk

On Thursday, June 27, the House and Senate passed a budget proposal that would lay out state spending over the next two years. The proposal would provide cities and towns with $138 million in additional state funding for schools in 2020 and 2021 through targeted aid programs that concentrate state funding to the state’s most vulnerable communities. 

Lawmakers also passed a “continuing resolution,” which acts as a temporary budget to keep the government open if the Governor vetoes the original budget proposal. 

The continuing resolution freezes spending at current levels until October 1, 2019. 

Cities and towns are set to lose $9.1 million in state funding for schools over the two-year period if the Governor vetoes the budget proposal and current law remains in effect. Stabilization grants, which were implemented in 2012 following a change in the formula used to distribute school funding, have been decreasing by 4% every year since 2017. 

The budget proposal passed on Thursday reverses these cuts and restores the stabilization grants to their original 2012 levels, in addition to several aid programs: Fiscal Capacity Disparity Aid (for property-poor communities), Enhanced Free and Reduced Lunch Aid (for communities with high percentages of students living in poverty), and fully funding full-day kindergarten.

Read Reaching Higher NH’s town-by-town impact analysis of the budget proposal and veto, and more about how New Hampshire funds its schools: