Towns sue over school aid plan
Londonderry, Merrimack, and a host of other towns across New Hampshire are suing the state over a new school funding formula that is sending millions of dollars less to some of those towns.
In the lawsuit filed last Wednesday morning in New Hampshire Supreme Court, the towns contend that the Legislature has abandoned its duty to provide a constitutionally adequate education. The Legislature, the lawsuit charges, created a new funding formula that unfairly reduces state aid to some communities by relying too heavily on median household income levels and the property wealth of a community.
Londonderry loses $2 million under the formula and Merrimack, $1.2 million, forcing the towns to raise local property taxes to make up the difference.
''Twenty-five percent of the formula is based on income -- to assume every part of a community has the same level of income is ridiculous," said Steve Young, chairman of the Londonderry School Board.
The state attorney general's office says the state is fulfilling its responsibility to provide New Hampshire students with an adequate education.
The Legislature changed the funding formula so it could send more money to communities with smaller tax bases. It also wanted to reduce the state's reliance on an unpopular statewide property tax to raise education aid, opting to increase taxes on cigarettes and redirecting other state revenue to schools.
The towns argue that the Legislature arbitrarily devised the funding formula without first defining what an adequate education in New Hampshire should consist of and then assigning a cost to it, as ordered by the state Supreme Court in its landmark Claremont II education ruling in the late 1990s.
The towns, which collectively call themselves New Hampshire Communities for Adequate Funding of Education, say the Legislature has repeatedly skirted the issue, going so far as to strike the word ''adequate" from some statutes and replace it with ''equitable." If the Legislature would only define an adequate education and assign a cost to it, officials from these towns say, then the state could finally devise a permanent funding formula instead of having to change it almost yearly and could avoid the inevitable lawsuits filed by towns that suddenly have less aid.
''We're not interested in throwing a grenade at the problem," Young said. ''We're interested in finding a solution."
The lawsuit follows one filed July 29 in state Supreme Court by Nashua, which asserted the state used outdated information in calculating the city's state aid grant, causing the loss of $2.1 million. The city has asked the court to halt the delivery of state aid checks to school districts if the court doesn't render a decision before the first scheduled disbursement of aid on Sept. 1.
The city also argued that the Legislature is attempting to duck its constitutional responsibility to provide an adequate education by using the word ''equitable."
The attorney general's office, in a response filed earlier this month to Nashua's lawsuit, acknowledged that the Legislature has been replacing the word adequate with equitable, but stressed that there was ''absolutely no evidence presented that the Legislature is not providing for an adequate education in accordance with the Claremont decisions."
Anne M. Edwards, an associate attorney general who specializes in state school funding, said the state will seek to have both lawsuits combined and moved to Superior Court.
''We believe both lawsuits raise factual issues," she said. ''Facts are typically developed in Superior Court."
James Vaznis can be reached at jvaznis@globe.com. 
