Strong, well-funded public schools are the basis of a strong community. During his time on the Budget Committee, William has seen the state’s contributions to public education fail to keep pace with education costs. First, the state eliminated their contribution of teacher’s pensions.

More recently, the state has further diverted money from public schools through the voucher system. This voucher system provides thousands of dollars per student to attend non-public schools which often do not have the rigor or requirements of NH public schools. The voucher system has no income cap either, so wealthy families that were already sending their children to prestigious academies now get an extra stipend from the government for doing so. This program is costing NH public schools $50 million per year.

The state has been proven to not meet the NH Constitutional requirements for funding adequate education through two separate lawsuits. Rather than address this deficiency, representatives in Concord have made the problem worse. They do nothing to help address the rising costs of education, only working to make local towns pay more.

We need leaders in Concord that will work to curtail the school voucher system and meet the Constitutionally mandated state funding requirements for public education. The state can raise the money to do this too.

The state has recently eliminated the Interest and Dividends tax and further reduced the Business Enterprise Tax, two taxes that are largely paid by the ultra-wealthy and large corporations. These reductions have cost NH citizens almost a BILLION dollars since 2016 and continue to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions each year. By rolling back these bad policy decisions, NH would have revenue to adequately fund our public schools for all our children