From the “making lemons out of lemonade” department, House Election Law Committee Chair Rep. Ross Berry (R-Weare) is hoping to take a redistricting bill that was DOA and use it to revive GOP hopes of controlling local property taxes.
On Tuesday, his committee is scheduled to take up HB 1300, which would redraw the state’s two congressional districts halfway through the 10-year census cycle. Despite pressure from the Trump White House, Gov. Kelly Ayotte has made it clear she is not on board.
Berry’s response: “Rather than continue a symbolic fight that goes nowhere, I am choosing to replace this bill with one that delivers results on issues voters are consistently telling us matter far more to them, starting with the crushing burden of property taxes.”
Instead of pressing forward with a divisive bill that has no political future, Berry plans to gut it and replace its language with a non-germane amendment that would turn it into legislation, making it easier for voters to cap local property taxes.
Under the new legislation, voters would decide whether to adopt a local property tax cap during their November general elections every two years, using the same three-fifths approval threshold currently required in town elections.
“This bill does not cap spending,” Berry said. “It only caps property taxes.”
Imposing a spending cap on local schools proved to be a bridge too far for 22 House Republicans, who crossed the aisle to back a “poison pill” amendment on spending-cap legislation backed by House leadership.
Berry gave a shout out to one of those members in his statement.
“I want to specifically thank Rep. Lorie Ball for her willingness to come to the table and engage constructively,” Berry said.
Ball, a Salem Republican, told NHJournal Monday she’s “reserving judgment” on the bill until she and a group of legislators can meet with Berry later this week.
Other features of the Berry proposal include:
- The cap would be formula-based and tied to the current budget, plus inflation and development-driven growth.
- The cap would apply only to property taxes and would not function as a spending cap, preserving flexibility for local governments.
- Other revenue sources, including state funding, would remain available to municipalities, school districts, and counties.
- Any cap would apply only in jurisdictions where voters choose to adopt it and would remain in place unless and until voters reauthorize it at a future general election.
Democrats have made New Hampshire’s high property taxes — among the highest in the nation — a frequent line of attack against the GOP. At the same time, they overwhelmingly oppose legislation to cap local spending and are not expected to support a property tax cap either.
“Many taxpayers attribute out-of-control property taxes to school costs, yet a key reason for local tax increases is reduced state-level contributions to school districts,” the New Hampshire Democratic Party said in a statement responding to HB 675. “Many also realize that the bill is the state’s attempt to avoid the inevitable — its decades-old failure to fund an adequate education.”
Democratic ally Megan Tuttle, president of NEA-New Hampshire, opposes both a spending cap and a tax cap.
“A state-mandated, arbitrary school budget cap does not address the funding crisis created by the state’s failure to fully fund an adequate education,” Tuttle said.
State-level contributions to school districts are currently at a record high on a per-pupil basis, having risen every year since at least 2016.
One key feature of Berry’s proposal, he said, is that “the language on the ballot will be uneditable. Towns won’t be able to hijack a warrant article and rewrite it to evade the cap.”
He pointed to Epsom, where a per-pupil spending cap of $25,000 adopted via a voter petition was converted into $100,000 during the deliberative session. Administrators in New Boston attempted a similar maneuver, trying to rewrite a tax cap from 2 percent to 50 percent. That case went to court, and the Select Board ultimately backed down.
“Balancing the principles of local control with the need to protect property taxpayers is not easy, but it is necessary, and this framework reflects a serious effort to do both,” Berry said.