Overview
- Two parents, David Bates and Kelly Wieser, filed the lawsuit on Monday in Merrimack County Superior Court asking for an emergency injunction to stop Secretary of State David Scanlan from printing the Nov. 3 ballot question.
- The complaint targets a sentence that says the caps “do not affect classroom instruction” or “school‑based services,” arguing that claim is misleading because local districts facing the cap could still need to cut budget items that affect classrooms.
- The law signed by Gov. Kelly Ayotte in July would place an inflation‑adjusted cap on local school property tax levies for two years, cap SAU central office spending at 6 percent of appropriations, and exclude bonded capital costs.
- Republican executive councilors have urged the attorney general to resolve the dispute by Sept. 19 so ballots can be finalized, and officials in the Secretary of State’s office and the attorney general’s office had not publicly responded to the complaint.
- If allowed on the ballot, the measure would appear in 2026 and again in 2028 and would need at least 60 percent approval in both votes to change the state constitution, a process that matters in New Hampshire because the state relies heavily on local property taxes to fund schools.