Congratulations to Nashua taxpayers, you will no longer be fleeced by the New Hampshire School Boards Association. The Nashua School Board voted to stop paying dues to the New Hampshire School Boards Association today. (NHSBA)
Everyone needs to contact their local school board members and ask them to do the same. Tell them to eliminate funding of “dues and membership” to the New Hampshire School Boards Association and the New Hampshire School Administrators Association.
These two associations hire and pay six figure salaries to lobbyists that oppose local control of education.
The school board association sends out weekly emails but never designates which way they are lobbying on any particular bill. Nor do they seek input from school boards on these bills.
—The state prohibits the use of its funds from being directly or indirectly used to hire lobbyists under RSA 15. But schools pay dues to these organizations who then hire the lobbyists. Are they ignoring state law or just shuffling the money around?
RSA 15:5 Prohibited Activities. –
I. Except as provided in paragraph II, no recipient of a grant or appropriation of state funds may use the state funds to lobby or attempt to influence legislation, participate in political activity, or contribute funds to any entity engaged in these activities.
II. Any recipient of a grant or appropriation of state funds that wishes to engage in any of the activities prohibited in paragraph I, or contribute funds to any entity engaged in these activities, shall segregate the state funds in such a manner that such funds are physically and financially separate from any non-state funds that may be used for any of these purposes. Mere bookkeeping separation of the state funds from other moneys shall not be sufficient.
Source. 2006, 21:7, eff. June 2, 2006.
When the school district allocates money for professional dues, this money is often pooled with membership dues from other districts and then used to hire a lobbyist. Who controls this lobbyist? Most taxpayers are unaware that their money may be indirectly use against them when they testify before their state legislature. Many times taxpayers are inadvertently funding their opposition without their knowledge. How can the people direct or control the voice of these lobbyists, which not only undermines their voice because a lobbyist can spend weeks in Concord in opposition to their bill, but it discourages individual citizen participation?
NH School Boards Association:list of Bills the NHSBA OPPOSED by using YOUR money:
*HB 1231 relative to school district policy regarding obj. course material
*HB1366 relative to the definition of educational competencies
*SB 354 requiring the commissioner and deputy commission to be confirmed by a joint session of the general court
*SB 355 requiring the member of the state board of education to be elected by a joint session of the general court
*SB 320 relative to non-academic surveys administered by a public school to its students.
For 2010 nearly all the NHSBA revenue $881k came from taxpayers through memberships $734k, policy subscriptions $72k, school district services $37k, school board development $16k, etc. The only revenue which isn’t directly from the tax payers is NHSBA’s investment income $18k. Yet NHSBA hides their policy objectives FROM THE PEOPLE!!!
The NH School Administrators Association‘s lobbyist signed a letter in 2012 to support a Statewide Longitudinal Database federal grant application, which provides private student-level data to the federal government.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/pdf/NewHampshire2012.pdf page 80
How many taxpayers in New Hampshire, particularly parents, would have given their consent for this type of data-mining of their child’s private information? None. Yet using local taxpayer money, this lobbyist was hired with local taxpayer money and he supported a longitudinal data base that now tracks and stores some 400 data points of information on each and every New Hampshire student.
Taxpayers and parents need to start demanding that their board members vote to STOP funding lobbyists who work against parental rights. If Nashua can do it, all schools in New Hampshire can do the same.