Concerns About The Charter Question

To the Editor:

In just a couple short weeks we are going to find ourselves at the polls voting for President, senator, etc. While most of us are putting a great deal of thought into who we feel will best represent our country and state etc, Newtown is going to have another question on their ballot that may not be receiving as much consideration by the voters. It is whether or not to accept a revision to Newtown’s charter and bifurcate our budget, i.e., to split the town and Board of Education budgets.

This was fast-tracked to be on November’s ballot because of the four failed referendums we recently faced. Town officials feel that the ability to vote on the two budgets separately, and to put advisory questions on our ballots, will help them to better understand what the taxpayers want and why they are voting one way or the other. This in itself is a great idea, a way to ensure that the taxpayer voices are being heard. However, the charter revision as presented goes further than that.

It is stating that if just one of the two budgets is passed, it becomes binding. This means that continued referendums that year will concentrate only on the one that didn’t pass (either the town or BOE), and the particular budget that did pass can no longer be touched. We all know that once a budget fails, a great deal of scrutiny is done to find where it can be adjusted in order for it to pass. We saw it first hand during the last budget. The question is do we really want to limit ourselves to just one aspect of the overall budget?

Do we not owe it to ourselves to have all of our options looked at? Can we afford to leave anything off the table? One reason given for needing a binding vote is that it will prevent voters who vote on the passed budget from feeling disenfranchised if the budget is revisited. I prefer to think that our vote is too important for us not to be able to vote again on all parts when any part of the overall budget has changed. I feel that we would be doing a great disservice to this town, and its taxpayers, if we were to allow this to pass.

Karen Kugler

Brookwood Drive, Newtown                                    October 24, 2012