CONCORD--On Thursday, Senator Mary Brown, R-Pittsfield, called on her fellow senators to consider the implications of their planned decision on the mixed-bag tax plan expected to be voted on today. Stating that there are too many unanswered questions, Brown said, this is a time in which cooler heads need to prevail and the impact of these decisions made in haste studied first.

One question she'd like to see answered regarding the plans before the legislature is, "will our public schools be better as a result of what we do here today?" Brown said she has concluded that the answer is no.

Dartmouth College Economics Professor William A. Fischel agreed. Having completed a recent study of fifteen other states which moved away from reliance on local property taxation as a result of court decision similar to Claremont, Fischel said "it is reasonable to conclude that centralized financing does not improve measurable educational quality, and there are reasons to suspect that a larger state presence in financing education makes scores go down." Regarding New Hampshire, he added, "...to implement the Claremont ruling, with its mandate for the centralized financing, is to take a gamble whose odds are loaded against the future of our children."

A gamble that Brown says she is not willing to take. She said, " I do not believe any good will come of this, and in the long run, we will look back on this day and wish we had done differently... so will our constituents."