Apr
9
Why SB2 Ballot System is Good
Filed Under Plainfield News, School Info, Town Info, Voting Information | Comments Off
On March 11, 2008 voters cast their ballots for or against SB2. There results were YES: 240 and NO: 254.
That means c.49% 0f voters wanted SB2 all day voting system. Remarkable for our first try.
In Plainfield, money warrants succeed when voter numbers are minimal. Ideally, School Boards want to encourage a maximum # of voters to come and vote for the budget it has constructed. Ideally! Reality? Having honestly struggled for months to compose a budget, a board wants acceptance.
Around the State voter turnout for School budgets is about 25% more or less. And the voters who do come often have a vested interest in passage, v.g. salary increases. So the temptation for a Board is to stack the deck; stay with a system that produces low turnout and acceptance. Minimal looks good!
But why such low turnouts? The faithful 25% who do meet and vote say to the other 75%“Tough if you don’t like it. You didn’t bother to come! It’s your fault.”
But we don’t know why 75% fail to come. Many of the no-shows are our friends, solid citizens; so we can’t attribute carelessness or sloth for failing to meet and vote. Maybe the traditional 200 year old method doesn’t satisfy the modern family and society. And they can inform themselves about warrant articles through other modern means: newspapers, pamphlets, radio, computers, discussions with friends, bulletin boards.
Rather than blaming, let’s support an alternate way to vote. All-day voting sessions on non-meeting days tends to produce 40-50% more voters. The old system doesn’t meet today’s needs. Senate Bill 2 (SB 2) does provide a solution. And today 30-40% of our towns use SB2 successfully. . Board members and teachers openly discourage voting for SB 2. They claim they want to preserve the charming traditional citizens’ meeting and discussion But what about the voters?
The Board’s obligation to citizens (who voted for them) is to provide an accommodating voting opportunity. “The more people who vote, the better. Isn’t that what Town Meeting is all about?”, as Jim Kenyon asks in his Valley News column, p.A2, 02-27-08.
And the beauty of the SB2 system is that it does not eliminate the traditional New England citizens’ discussions on town issues.
Please watch for an upcoming poll on why only 75% of all eligible voters fail to come to vote.
Apr
4
Anti-Pledge Resolution of 2007
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The following article by Margaret Drye was published in “Back Talk” of Valley News for 04-01-07
After Plainfield’s town meeting vote on the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition’s article urging candidates to forsake “The Pledge” against broad-based taxes, one of our state representatives asked me why I had a problem with the article. The resolution urges candidates to reject “The Pledge,” have an informed discussion covering all options (including broad-based taxes like an income or sales tax), and “adopt a revenue system that…relieves the unfair local property tax burden.” Although the GSFTC claims it is not advocating any particular solution, the article seems to be asking in a roundabout way for an income or sales tax. Aside from the fact that candidates should be free to make whatever stands or pledges they want when campaigning, I felt that a ‘pass’ could be construed specifically as support for either of those taxes. I replied that I was concerned about how the results would be reported – not for what would be reported, but for what would be left out. And I was right.
Did you read that it passed in 13 of 14 towns? Possibly.
Did you read that in at least half of these towns it passed with less than 10% of the eligible voters present? Probably not.
But these numbers are important. For example, Francestown had less than 7%, Hancock had less than 7%, Holderness had 6%, Plainfield had 9%, Henniker had 4% and Hinsdale had 3%. Peterborough had 2.8! (No one answers the phone in Harrisville.)
And that’s just voters signed in. When actual votes were taken, those in favor dropped to 3.7% in Hancock, 4% in Francestown, 7.5% in Plainfield, 5.6% in Westmoreland (where it passed by 3 votes), and 2.2% in Peterborough; many towns took voice votes or standing votes with no voter count.
Even in some SB2 towns allowing a whole day to vote, the article garnered only 16% (Amherst) and 19% (Milton) in favor.
While this idea may technically have “passed” in 13 towns, it certainly didn’t carry the day. What can we infer from a movement that in many towns 95% of the voters didn’t care enough to show up or stick around to vote on? Probably not that “there really is a crisis, and people are willing to accept change where they haven’t in the past,” as GSFTC executive director Paul Henle is quoted as saying.
Why should we accept as binding a vote by the same small number of people to do town business, like buying a grader, but cast a wary eye on a vote by so few on a referendum? Because town meetings are governed by statute. The town officers (selectmen) are instructed by the governing body (the voters) on how to spend town money. There is no set quorum and all votes are binding. The voters know who (the selectmen) are going to do what (buy a grader) and how (move money from a reserve fund or raise taxes.)
The only statute governing a non-binding petition article is that the selectmen must put it on the warrant if its sponsor collects a certain amount of signatures by a certain date. It’s doubtful that voters have a real handle on who runs the Fair Tax Coalition, what information the vote is supposed to validate or how they plan to use that information. Referendum questions are not like budget questions that have a straight up-or-down vote; they are more like poll questions, where the results often depend on how a question is worded. The Fair Tax article is taken word-for-word from a boilerplate article listed on their website – it’s not a home-grown, grassroots article in any of the towns.
Their website says that one of the Coalition’s goals in all this is to “encourage community dialog by placing the issue on the warrant of school districts and towns in the spring of 2007.” Did it accomplish its purpose?
In Cornish, it passed on a voice vote with no discussion. In Plainfield, it passed following some debate, in Sharon it passed with no discussion. In Holderness, the town clerk said the voter population started “dropping like flies” after the last important town item and few voters stayed for the article; the voters did likewise in Henniker.
And who can blame them? Most of these votes came at the end of five- or six-hour long meetings held during a nor’easter. In Sandwich, the article was #52 out of 55.
Passing in 13 out of 14 towns may seem like tremendous support, but what isn’t included in that statistic is as important as the tally. Presuming to speak for an entire town, whether on a vote to impeach the president or to change the tax structure, is a precarious position when the numbers don’t back it up.
The Coalition plans to try to put its resolution in all New Hampshire towns in 2008. Given that petition articles usually fall at the end of town meetings and given the dismal voter participation in this year’s try, perhaps the Coalition should find another venue to encourage public dialog. Otherwise, they will probably end up with 236 inconclusive results instead of 14.
Feb
19
Valley News Supports Separate Articles
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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.