Eugene Van Loan III: Donor towns are coming back

The Union Leader picks up Josiah Bartlett Center President Eugene Van Loan's column on the secret return of donor towns.

Donor towns are municipalities that collect more money from the statewide property tax than it costs them to provide an adequate education to their own students. The state requires such towns and cities to send the "surplus"to Concord to be redistributed to other municipalities. This, of course, is a classic rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul scheme, and the governor rightly opposed it.

As things turned out, the Legislature did pass a bill in the 2008 session -- SB 539 -- that requires the state to fully fund the cost of "adequacy,"and the governor did not veto it. (On the other hand, he also did not sign it because he still favored a constitutional amendment to restore New Hampshire's tradition of local control over education policy and funding. The governor, to his credit, simply let the time expire within which he could veto SB 539, and the bill became law without his express approval.)

So, that should mean that there will be no donor towns, right? Wrong!

State's dirty secret: 'Donor towns' are making a return

Josiah Bartlett Center Chairman Eugene Van Loan writes in the Concord Monitor that donor towns are making a comeback.

So, that should mean that there will be no donor towns, right? Wrong! SB 539 did create donor towns. However, in a separate piece of legislation (SB 530) - presumably designed to prevent a gubernatorial veto of SB 539 - the obligation of donor towns to send their excess tax collections to Concord was suspended so long as they used the money to pay for the education of their own students (i.e., for costs beyond adequacy). So, all is well, right? Wrong again! The suspension lasts for only two years and then it self-destructs. In other words, there are no donor towns today - but there will be tomorrow.

No one in Concord is talking about this dirty little secret.

Have you seen any list of prospective donor towns? Not likely.