AIER has submitted amicus curiae briefs to the New Hampshire Supreme Court in the combined cases Rand v. State and ConVal v. State. We took this step because our economic research is directly relevant to the issues raised in these cases.
In Rand, the trial court ruled that New Hampshire’s property tax system was unconstitutional and ordered the State to start redistributing property tax revenue from towns with high property valuations to the rest of the state.
In ConVal, the trial court ruled that New Hampshire’s “adequacy aid” to local school districts was insufficient and ordered a near-doubling of state funding for local schools.
Our briefs support the State’s position that the N.H. Supreme Court should overrule the trial court and find New Hampshire’s property tax and school finance systems constitutional. Our research finds that “property-wealthy” towns don’t necessarily have wealthier people than property-poor towns. They just made good local government decisions in the past. Moreover, their high property values mean that most residents have already fully paid for the privilege of living in a place with good services and/or low taxes. In general, AIER supports choice and competition among local governments as the best way to give households the mix of services and tax levels that they want, while keeping local government as efficient as possible. Centralizing school finance would damage this objective.
Our filings (pdf downloads):