Feb
19
Valley News Supports Separate Articles
Filed Under Plainfield News, Town Info | Comments Off
Valley News Editorial Supports Separate Warrant Articles
Give credit to the Plainfield group that is pushing to change the way the school budget is presented to voters: It’s being entirely transparent about its ultimate goal. In seeking a separate vote on teacher contracts, group members say they hope to make it easier to slow down increases in school spending.
We don’t necessarily endorse that goal – educational ends and means should determine school budgets – but the group has made a compelling case for changing budget procedures in Plainfield. Or, to be more precise, none of the arguments presented in favor of maintaining the status quo is convincing.
Now, the cost of teacher compensation is folded into the operating budget, and Plainfield residents consider it as part of the annual spending package. The Plainfield Taxpayers [formerly Coalition] Alliance, a group of about 20 residents, wants the board to present new teacher contracts to voters as separate budget articles. If multi-year contracts are approved, increases in the following years would not come up again for new votes. If the contract is rejected, the two sides would have to return to the bargaining table.
Plainfield School Board members maintain that the current procedure provides taxpayers full access to the budget information they need through the warrant article, the town report, district meeting handouts, and the school’s Web site. That’s probably true, but it’s also the case that a separate warrant article that presented a new contract would give town residents the opportunity to focus exclusively on the implications of that contract and to decide if they wish to commit themselves to that level of compensation. More to the point, it would give voters the chance to express disapproval of a contract without taking the potentially disruptive step of rejecting the whole budget.
So what could be wrong with that?
Carin Reynolds, chair of the board, said including salaries in the operating budget accurately reflects the central role teachers play in what type of education students receive. “We don’t want to separate teachers’ salaries from the operating budget because you can’t run a school without the teachers.”
No, you can’t. But voters can consider the issue of compensation separately from the rest of the budget. And if those voters turn down a proposed contract, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve decided that teachers are any less crucial – only that they can’t afford to compensate them at the proposed level.
Angelo Dorta, president of the National Education Association in Vermont, where all school districts are required to present compensation packages as part of the regular budget, says that subjecting new contracts to a separate vote might complicate the collective bargaining process by necessitating additional rounds of negotiations, and revotes. That, too, is true, but no reason why Plainfield voters can’t conclude that the disadvantages of potentially prolonging the bargaining process are outweighed by the benefits of giving voters a direct say. Subjecting new contracts to a referendum is what New Hampshire officials recommend local districts do, and what many in the state do now.
Finally, there’s the notion, advanced by Fran Hills of the Plainfield teachers union, that the school board’s judgment should be trusted – and a majority of the Plainfield board opposes having a separate vote. Well, yes, the voters do assume that the people they’ve elected are uniquely qualified to render an opinion about what would best serve the school district. But whether voters should have ultimate say over a matter that so directly affects their own finances is really something only they can decide. If a majority indicate they want to have that authority, the board must accede to their wishes.