During the next few weeks, residents across the state will vote to approve or deny local school budgets. This year, they also will decide whether to continue having these so-called school budget validation votes.
Created as part of the 2007 school consolidation law, the budget validation votes were billed as a way to allow more residents a say in how their districts are spending tax dollars. Under the law, after the school budget is passed by a town or city council or at a town-meeting-style district budget meeting, depending on the local form of government, it is placed on the ballot for a simple up-or-down vote. The state law also contained a provision that required districts after three years to ask voters whether they want to continue the school budget referendum process.
It is time now to abolish the budget validation votes and allow elected officials to do the hard work of creating complicated school budgets without this wasteful and unnecessary step.
The case for the validation process says that it provides residents with a way to be more actively involved in the school budget process. If the school board or city or town council is not listening to the will of the people, supporters say, then the people can, through a vote, force officials to make changes.
The validation process, supporters contend, also forces school officials to better educate voters about the budget in order to avoid a negative result at the polls.
“We feel it leads to a greater understanding by the voters of the budget,” said David Connerty-Marin, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Education, which supports the referendum process. “If a budget fails at referendum … it forces school officials to work harder at explaining the budget and why it is the way they presented it.”
But the validation process has hardly gotten more people involved. In Westbrook, just 595 of the city’s 11,316 voters cast a ballot in the 2009 school budget validation referendum. Gorham’s 2009 school budget referendum was decided by just over 5 percent of the town’s registered voters.
Without the validation vote, residents who want to be involved will have no choice but to participate in the budget process in order to have a say. Unable to simply cast a ballot at the polls, they will have to attend a budget hearing and learn about the budget from the people who have lived with it for months.
They will also have to pay closer attention to who is elected and how they contribute while in office. This may not have always been true in the time before the validation process, but it should be encouraged nonetheless. The focus should be on electing councilors and school board members who have the knowledge, experience and dedication to guide a budget from beginning to end. After all, these are the same people who will be shaping schools and municipal governments even when the public isn’t watching as closely as during budget season.
We agree with South Portland City Councilor Linda Boudreau when she said the electoral process provides residents with all the oversight they should need.
“The public elects a school board and city council. We go through all kinds of public hearings,” she said. “The transparency is there if you choose to participate.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
