Let The Voters

Control The Budget Process

To the Editor:

Earlier this month, the Charter Revision Commission voted to reject a separate vote on the town and education side of the budget and to ask a limited advisory question only to those who vote No on the combined budget. They also recommended that the Board of Finance would get another shot at the budget if it was rejected.

What is so interesting about this vote is the concerted effort by our elected and appointed officials to deny the voters the ability to vote separately on the town and school budgets and to limit the taxpayers’ ability to tell the Legislative Council what they want through advisory questions.

On the other hand, the commission wants the Board of Finance to have another shot at recommending a budget when they got the defeated budget wrong in the first place.

Last year I wrote that the budget process is broken, and that we are not listening to the voters. These recommendations by the Charter Revision Commission simply continue the broken system. This is about power. Our current elected officials are fighting hard not to share power with anyone, let alone the voters.

We need to ask both those who vote Yes and those who voted No whether they think the town side and the school side of the budget is too high or too low. That way if the budget is defeated, the Legislative Council has complete input from the voters. We need to allow the Legislative Council to add or delete money from the budget with a simple majority vote, not require a super majority vote to increase the budget but just a simple majority to cut it, as is the case now. I also believe that separate votes on the town and school budget is what the voters want and we should give them the opportunity to be able to vote on the issue of two separate budgets.

Finally it is crazy to reintroduce the Board of Finance into the process if the budget fails. They did their work and the public decided they got it wrong. The voters should now be in control. They should decide if the budget is too high or low. It is a value and priority decision by the voters, what they feel they want to spend and what they feel they can afford. There is no reason not to listen to the voters; it is their money our elected officials are spending. Shouldn’t we find out what they want?

Bruce Walczak

12 Glover Avenue, Newtown                                  November 12, 2010