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New Hampshire Department of Education Publishes Fiscal Analysis of Education Freedom Accounts
Potential taxpayer savings of $360-$393 million over next decade from proposed legislation
CONCORD: The New Hampshire Department of Education today published the attached long-term comprehensive modeling analysis of the taxpayer savings of proposed legislation, “Establishing the Richard “Dick” Hinch Education Freedom Account Program.” The study projects that New Hampshire taxpayers would save $360 million to $390 million over the next decade.
The Education Freedom Account education program (“EFA”), as proposed, allows eligible New Hampshire students to direct state funded per-pupil education adequacy grants toward eligible educational programming of their choice.
“Through this pandemic, we have seen tremendous demand for educational options as families searched for instructional models that met the needs of their children and families,” stated Frank Edelblut, commissioner of education. “Some of those families were driven based on finding an environment where their children could thrive educationally and others were more focused on the need to get back to work. The EFA education program will provide much more flexibility and create many more options to those families while at the same time providing some relief to taxpayers who also have felt the strain of the pandemic.”
“Empowering families with educational freedom ultimately empowers students to achieve their full potential” stated Governor Jeb Bush, 43rd Governor of Florida and chairman of ExcelinEd in Action. “Education Freedom Accounts allow parents to customize their child’s learning, strengthening education outcomes and give students a boost toward academic and lifelong success. As America’s families recover from the pandemic’s broad disruptions, there isn’t a worthier investment.”
The proposed legislation enumerates a variety of operational aspects of the program, including student eligibility, program administration, defining qualified expenses, enrollment procedures, as well as governance and oversight by a newly established Legislative Oversight Committee. While these are all important programmatic aspects of the proposed legislation, the department’s analysis focused solely on the fiscal impact to New Hampshire taxpayers.