New Hampshire voters will face a question on their ballot come November, deciding whether to cap property taxes in their local school districts. As voters weigh their choice, however, leaders at the Mascenic Regional School District said they’re trying to build next year’s budget in limbo.
Not knowing whether they’ll be under a tax cap in March, when school districts will vote on their budgets, makes it difficult to plan ahead, Mascenic Superintendent Liz Pogorzelski said at Monday’s school board meeting.
Pogorzelski said that administrators at Mascenic, as well as surrounding districts, still have questions about the law, which she said they’ve struggled to get answers for.
“The major concern around the state is that if Wilton does one thing, Jaffrey does another, we do another, we are setting all of ourselves up for failure here,” Pogorzelski said.
One such question, Pogorzelski said, was whether when they’re calculating the total budget, if they include capital reserve expenditures. Pogorzelski said when the district has attempted to gain clarity, they’ve run into instances of “pass the buck” between the legislature and the Department of Revenue Administration — and no real answers.
That could be an issue, said Pogorzelski, as the budget process for the district is already starting and will be well underway by the time of the vote.
“We’re also in the middle of budgeting in November,” said Pogorzelski.
The ballot question is mandated by a new state law, HB 1300, which requires every town and ward in the state to place a school district local tax cap and a central office administration spending question on the general election ballots in November 2026, then again in 2028. It would also place a cap on spending by school administrative units, limiting it to 6% of the total school district appropriations. The vote requires a three-fifths majority to pass.
The bill states that if voters approve the cap, the “local property tax levy may not grow beyond the prior year’s amount, adjusted for inflation and new construction.” It also excludes bonded capital costs.
In some aspects, Pogorzelski said, Mascenic began budgeting with an eye for a scenario where the tax cap passes. She said the district will likely be able to present an SAU budget that’s within the 6% limit of the total district budget. Creating a budget that would work under the tax cap is a bigger challenge, she said.
“I have a really big concern about the tax cap,” Pogorzelski said. “We have some pretty significant concerns about this.”
The bill cleared the Legislature on party lines, with Republicans championing it as empowering voters.
“New Hampshire is at its best when we’re putting decision-making power in the hands of the people,” Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte said when she signed the law in July. “This bill gives voters a say about their local property taxes and ensures Granite Staters’ voices are heard.”
Anticipated decreases in catastrophic aid from the state, which is used to fund expensive special education services, are enough to increase the budget to hit the inflation threshold, Pogorzelski said, before the district even begins to calculate increases in other expenses.
The board also discussed another new law, HB 564, which requires districts to place the warrant article for the School Administrative Unit (SAU) budget at the beginning of the warrant, to be voted on separately from the rest of the budget.
It allows voters to vote on just SAU expenses. Similar to the regular budget, if voted down, the SAU would operate on a default budget — the same as the previous year, with certain contracted adjustments.
Pogorzelski said staff are working now to determine which expenditures fall under the general management of the SAU or are excluded school-based services. She said Mascenic was consulting with other districts, as well as its own legal counsel, to create common implementation.
Pogorzelski said she had concerns with the separation, particularly that voters could turn down SAU budgets, resulting in pay freezes for administrators. That creates an “ugly precedent” and an “us vs. them dynamic,” she said.