NH Senate Ed Committee hearings 9 April

Tuesday, Ed Committee hearings.  We heard four bills, none of them very important in my view.  There was HB 689, a bill to set up a system of educational savings accounts for most, perhaps all students in New Hampshire.  The state would kick in $250 per kid.  This would be funded by a $100 per account tax on brokerage houses.  This is enough to drive most brokerage houses out of state.  Advocates claimed that kids with an educational savings account were seven times more likely to go to college than kids without.  Tied in with the savings account deal was a requirement to teach “”financial literacy” starting in SECOND grade.  I asked about that, when I did second grade we were still learning to add and subtract.  How do you teach balancing your checkbook, or discuss how interest hurts you on loans and helps you on savings (when the banks pay interest on savings, which few do today). 

Next was HB 489 setting up rules and procedures for children to change schools.  The system in HB 489 seemed unobjectionable.  I asked why we needed this bill this year.  Surely kids have been transferred over all the years the Republic has stood.  Why do we need to re write the rules now?  No good answer was forth coming.

And yet another fund creeps out of the woodwork.  There is a “Public School Infrastructure Fund”.   HB 357 would extend the life of this fund.  From the testimony, the money has mostly gone to hardening school buildings against school shooters. 

And another house keeping bill that should have been handled administratively.  Apparently the state collects as stores higher ed transcripts, in case the higher end institution goes out of business, graduates will still be able to get a couple of their transcript.  The state has been keeping the transcripts forever.  HB356 would let the state throw the transcripts away after 40 years.  We amended that to 50 years. 

  So fresh bills all heard, we went into executive session and declared previously heard bills HB 357 HB 171 HB 356 and HB 719 ought to pass. 

   I went to the afternoon senate commerce committee meeting and spoke in favor of HB 540, a deal to finance restarting the Balsams resort up in Dixville Notch.  The entire North Country is in favor on account of the jobs and the tourists involved.   After hearing all the testimony, Commerce voted it Ought To Pass 5-0 and put it on the Fast Track calendar, which means to bill is almost sure to pass the full senate. 

  And for my last trick of the day, I testified in favor of SB 138 over in the House.  This bill would grant degree granting authority to Signum University, a small new startup offering courses over the internet.  I have spoken with the Signum people, and they mean well, they are not a diploma mill. 

   It was snowing north of Concord.   I 93 was unplowed and slippery.  I spun out, did a 360 and wound up in the ditch.  Luck was with me, I didn’t hit anything, car was unbend, and I was able to pull out backwards onto the shoulder.  It got worse; snow was 3-4 inches deep at Plymouth.