In 2011 the Legislature balanced the budget without new taxes, reformed Medicaid and pensions, and reformed taxes on business owners. The economy has started to recover. But education funding remains unfinished business. A formula (SB-183) passed in 2011 ensured towns don’t lose education dollars and prevented return of the dreaded statewide property tax. But this 2011 formula does not resolve the decades-old education funding dilemma spawned by the NH Supreme Court’s Claremont-related decisions that require the state to fund every dollar of the cost of an adequate education through equalized grants for every student across the state regardless of need. Sooner – rather than later – taxpayers will be confronted with an income tax or sales tax, probably both, to pay the court-ordered costs of education. → Read more