By Chris Dornin
Correspondent

CONCORD – Many politicians in the fast-growing southern tier oppose a new school aid plan that hurts their constituents and helps poor and donor towns up north and on the Seacoast. An emerging coalition of the self-proclaimed new “donor” towns met in Londonderry last week to plot litigation against HB 616, which passed the House last month 181-178.

The formula aims $460 million at needy towns as measured by their tax base per child, their median income and their percentage of students who get lunch subsidies or speak English as a second language. The bill also pays more to districts with low standardized test scores, graduation rates and college admission rates. This was the last bill standing among a dozen plans and pieces of plans that flew back and forth between the House Finance and Education Committees before the House vote. It fulfills governor John Lynch.s campaign promises to get rid of the statewide property tax and donor towns while helping needy schools the most.

Senate Finance chairman Chuck Morse, R-Salem, complained the formula double and triple counts things like income and tax base per student.

"I've gotten letters from my communities that it will hurt them," Morse said.

House Ways and Means chairman Norman Major, R-Plaistow, said the bill devastates his constituents and fails to measure and pay for an adequate education.

Sponsors admit the bill has a one-word technical error on page two. According to the Office of Legislative Budget Assistant, that gives Berlin an extra $8 million and strips Londonderry of another $4 million.

Bill co-sponsor Packy Campbell, R-Farmington, said nobody meant to approve these bizarre results. He asked the Senate to correct the honest mistake, a simple task if it adopts HB 616. But key senators say the bill is already dead on arrival without the glitch.

Senate majority leader Bob Clegg, R-Hudson, got Campbell and his allies to concede the aid pool is all House Ways and Means was willing to spend. They also admitted the bill lacks a definition of an adequate education and that total aid is inadequate.

"I heard them tell us they gave us an unconstitutional bill," Clegg said.

Rep. Mike Asselin, R-Danville, and Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, D-Manchester, have competing plans in the works. D'Allesandro hopes to tweak HB 616 by adding special education and transportation costs as targeting factors. Asselin wants to hike the statewide property tax, but only make out-of-state homeowners pay it, a way of soaking Massachusetts. He seeks a senator to sponsor his idea, which died 4-4 in a House subcommittee.

Sen. Ted Gatsas, R-Manchester, is working on a plan too, but hasn't unveiled it yet.