CONCORD – The House Education Committee will write to the State Board of Education urging the state agency to continue approving new charter schools.

The committee met Wednesday with representatives of the Attorney General’s Office to discuss the reasons behind the board’s September action to deny all pending and future applications for new charter schools until additional state funding is approved.

Associate Attorney General Anne Edwards said a change in state law in the two-year budget approved in 2011 caps the amount of money for charter schools. Before that change, she said, the funding for charter schools was open-ended.

She said her office advised the board they needed to deny the pending applications because there is no funding for additional schools at this time.

The new budget law allows the Department of Education to request additional funding with the approval of the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee and Governor and Executive Council, but the agency has not yet made a request for an additional $5 million needed this fiscal year for state aid to charter schools.

Edwards said the request would be made this month to the fiscal committee, but Matt Southerton, director for the N.H. Center for Innovative Schools, said the board has the fix to the problem, but it has not used it.

“I believe there is a lot more going on besides funding,” Southerton said after the committee hearing.

The committee decided to send a letter to the board expressing its concerns and urging board members to continue approving new charter schools that meet the established criteria.