MANCHESTER, NH – Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Marchand of Portsmouth disclosed his plan, “Delivering America’s Best Public Education,” today in front of Manchester’s Gossler Park school – his alma mater. Marchand attended the school as a child, and reflected fondly on his experiences growing up on the city’s West Side.
“My goal is to deliver the best pre-K through 12 public education in the country,” Marchand said.
“For all of the good work being done to expand economic development in Manchester, the reality is that all of that work will be limited in its impact, unless we address the number-one factor in attracting families, their children, and businesses seeking to hire those families, and it’s the quality of education in Manchester,” Marchand said.
“Because of the tax cap, we put ourselves in a place that policy makers know are not optimal. It is going to be very difficult in the near term without additional state aid, because of the tax cap. My plan seeks to increase a percentage of the cost of education that comes from the state level, rather than the local level,” Marchand said.
During the event Marchand released a list of “Educators for Marchand” from around the state who have signed on as supporters, including Ann Backus and Lisa Parsons of Manchester; Barb Hynes of Londonderry; Melinda Chen of Bedford; and Susan Babine and William Babine of Goffstown.
Supporter and teacher critiques tax cap’s effect on education budget
Nashua history teacher and Marchand supporter Gary Hoffman, who was at the event, recommended changing the indicator used for increasing the tax cap, as Nashua has already done, in order to better pay for education:
“Manchester, like most New Hampshire cities with spending and tax caps, uses the national
Consumer Price Index Urban or CPI-U to limit increases on spending. Here’s the problem: The CPI-U is designed to measure inflation in the basket of goods a typical consumer would purchase, like groceries, housing, and car repairs.
“However, the goods that consumers purchase are very different than what municipal governments like Manchester purchase, such as benefit packages for their employees, sewer upgrades, and asphalt for road repairs. Government inflation tends to be higher than consumer inflation, mostly because of cost increases associated with employee benefit packages,” Hoffman said, elaborating on Nashua’s approach.
“Nashua has adopted an indicator that more accurately measures inflation in state and local governments, called the Implicit Price Deflator for State and Local Services (S&L IPD). It is calculated quarterly by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, an agency in the Department of Commerce,” Hoffman said.
“Adopting the S&L IPD would allow Manchester to increase its spending at the same pace as other city and town governments in this country. In Nashua, the spending cap has been about 1.3 to 1.4 percent under the new measure the past couple of years. It would have been 0.8 to 0.9 percent under CPI-U. That difference represents about a million dollars annually in extra cap room. Is it enough? No. But it prevented a lot of destructive layoffs that would have occurred had we not made the change.”
