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Committee sends SAU budget‑cap bill to interim study after drafting questions
Summary
Members sent HP1288 — legislation enabling school administrative units to adopt budget caps — to interim study after raising drafting and voter‑threshold questions, including how multi‑district SAU votes would be counted and a possibly incorrect statutory citation.
The House Education Committee voted to send HP1288, which would enable school administrative units (SAUs) to adopt budget caps, to an interim study after members identified drafting errors and ambiguities.
Representative McGuire, sponsor of the enabling measure, said the bill would allow SAUs to adopt budget caps via a three‑fifths vote among voters in member districts and include various escalation options for inflation. He introduced amendment 0883H to clarify corner cases and technical language.
Committee members questioned how the three‑fifths threshold would work in multi‑district SAUs and whether votes should be tallied by aggregate voter totals or by district. Representative Luno flagged a discrepancy between wording on adoption and rescission thresholds and raised a separate issue: a citation (RSA 194‑C9‑D) referenced in the amendment could not be found in the committee’s law book.
Given the uncertainty, sponsors withdrew the motion to adopt the amendment and instead moved the bill to interim study so staff and sponsors can correct drafting problems and return a clarified proposal. The committee approved the interim study motion by roll call.
Representative Spillsberry said an interim study will give the committee time to ‘‘clean this thing up’’ and avoid unintended consequences in statutory drafting. The interim study report will be prepared by the designated committee member.
