The rejection of a proposed $80 million budget by Newtown voters this week reflects a frustration in the electorate with the solutions offered by elected officials to Newtown’s runaway tax rate. The Board of Education, in particular, has come under attack for proposing a budget that is 9.6 percent higher than last year’s spending package in a year when the typical taxpayer is already feeling mugged by revaluation. And the frustration goes both ways. The school board cannot seem to get the message across that even if it eviscerated longstanding educational programs of proven value, the effect on the typical tax bill would be minimal.

In the world of politics, perception is everything, and Newtown’s school board has come to be perceived in some quarters as disconnected from the community it serves. Despite the board’s sincere and conscientious encouragement of public participation at its sparsely attended meetings, school board critics complain that its members are not accountable to the public at large and are beholden to special interest groups eager to spare pet school programs from the kinds of sacrifice taxpayers are called upon to make year after year. The criticism sticks, in large part, because of the way in which Newtown “elects” its Board of Education.

School board members are not so much elected as handpicked by the nominating committees of the local political parties, or in the case of midterm vacancies, by the board itself. Party leaders are careful not to nominate more candidates than there are open seats, thereby eliminating all contests for the Board of Education. The rationale most often cited for this system of selection, which completely bypasses the electorate, is “to keep the school board apolitical.” That may be the rationale, but the all-important political perception is that the school board is an exclusive club. And from the perspective of Newtown’s largest bloc of voters, unaffiliated voters, it is true. The board is composed entirely of Republicans and Democrats.

Recent revisions of Newtown’s charter have failed to address the problem. Whether the solution is an at-large nominating convention for all school board candidates or some other approach that opens up the process to make the proprietors of Newtown’s biggest budget a truly elected board, something needs to be done to reconnect the Board of Education to the electorate. In the near term, Newtown’s political parties can start this year by nominating more candidates than there are “safe” seats on the board. They might even consider nominating an unaffiliated candidate. As for school budget opponents, why not get out of the peanut gallery and put your ideas, time, and energy on the line? It only takes 35 signatures to petition your way onto the 2003 ballot.

The vote this week shows that Newtown voters clearly do not think an $80 million budget represents their priorities. The best way to get them back supporting the school board’s priorities is to reinvigorate the local democratic process so the electorate believes it has a part in setting those priorities. Democracy is all about the competition of ideas. As we have seen this week, the ideas generated in a system of non-competition are destined to fail at the most critical times.