Ninety Districts Said Yes to a Cap. Now the Cap Becomes a Budget.

The ballot question is over, and this morning New Hampshire’s school tax cap stops being a campaign issue and starts being a budget. By our district-level count of the returns reported so far (district results pooled against the required sixty percent), Question 2 has passed in 90 districts, failed in 79, and remains pending in 11 of the 180 districts classified, unofficially until school administrative unit boards certify to the Department of Revenue Administration. Several districts voted majority-yes and still failed, because a majority is not enough under this law.

Here is the formula a capped district now has to run, set by RSA 32:5-i. Start with the prior year’s property tax levy, leaving bonded capital costs out. Multiply by one, plus inflation — the one-year change in the Consumer Price Index for the Northeast Region — plus the growth from net new taxable property. The result is the maximum allowable levy. Separately, the school administrative unit’s central office budget may not exceed six percent of total school district appropriations. A budget that needs a levy above the cap can still pass, but only with a sixty percent vote to override. In the Monadnock Region, where the Keene Sentinel counts seven adopting districts, Monadnock Regional’s superintendent has already said reductions are unavoidable, citing union contracts, health insurance, and higher utility and fuel costs.

Two timing problems arrive with the formula. First, the cap first limits the fiscal year 2028 budget (July 1, 2027–June 30, 2028), and its inflation factor comes from the index published in March 2027 — the same month many districts hold their annual meetings, so voters may approve a budget before the number defining its ceiling exists. Second, the Department of Education must publish its first adequate education grant estimates for fiscal 2028 by November 15. Until then, a single-point levy estimate is false precision; scenario budgeting at two or three plausible inflation figures is the honest method. Winchester, which cleared the threshold narrowly, faces a November 12 recount.

The special education lens is the arithmetic underneath all of it. A levy cap limits how much a district can raise; it does not limit what the law requires a district to provide. A child entitled to a free appropriate public education is still entitled to it, an evaluation timeline under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act still runs on the same clock, a service written into an individualized education program still has to be delivered, and a Section 504 accommodation still has to be provided. Where contracted special education costs rise faster than general inflation, the cap squeezes everything around the mandated services first. That is the calculation capped districts are doing this week.

Takeaway: If your district adopted the cap, the work this week is calculation, not commentary: run the levy formula under more than one inflation assumption, test the central office budget against the six percent line, build the list of legally required services before discussing any reduction, and — if the numbers do not fit — start the override conversation early, because an override needs sixty percent, not a simple majority.

Sources: RSA 32:5-i (HB 1300, Laws of 2026); Education Across the States’ district-level count of reported Question 2 returns against the sixty percent threshold; Keene Sentinel reporting from the Monadnock Region — all as covered in today’s episode, which publishes its sources in its episode description.