Everyone seems to be talking about Ballot Question #2 these days, to the exclusion of most of the other issues that would be talked about in this election. In many cases, voters have been presented with a question that leaves them wondering if they understand all the details. I’ve been spending much of my time in recent weeks and months puzzling over those details. I’ve been asking people about this ballot question and I’ve had people ask me about it.
Today, I want to summarize some of my discussions and thoughts. This is not meant to be a definitive voter guide on the subject. There are others out there advocating for one position or the other and I will try to stay away from that here. What I want to do instead, in the following paragraphs, is clear up some of what I’ve heard floating around.
Q: So why is this even a thing? How is this any different than just showing up and voting “no” on the budget? Doesn’t it then fall back to the prior year’s budget – essentially providing a cap on spending and taxes?
The process that is described above, for “voting down” a budget and falling back on a default budget, does not happen in Pembroke.
What is being described here is a process that only occurs when a school district has adopted what people frequently call the SB2 style of voting. If adopted (and Pembroke has rejected it), then budgets are put on the Tuesday paper ballot for an up-or-down vote. If the voters reject, then the school district budget will be determined based upon the prior year’s budget.
Pembroke has, in recent years, considered moving to this style of town voting several times. Each time it was voted down by a large margin.
Instead, in Pembroke we set our budget during the meeting portion of our School District Meeting. During that meeting, on Saturday morning, we must always vote FOR a budget. If the voters find that the initial version of the budget is unacceptable, then amendments are proposed until a majority will vote for the budget.
In practice, the process of amending the budget is generally kept simple. Especially if we vote by ballot, it can be a time consuming and frustrating process to propose and defend a change to the budget and then conduct the vote. Critically, after all proposed amendments have passed or failed, the Meeting must then vote one last time to pass the budget as amended. Again, this can be time consuming and frustrating, especially if we’ve already just debated and voted on the very same number.
In my experience, this usually means at most one, maybe two, proposed amendments. As a result, while an intention to go to the meeting and “vote no on the budget” is still possible, it becomes hard to say where it all will end up. Sometimes the budget grows and sometimes it shrinks during the meeting.
The bottom line is that in no case does the baseline currently fall back on a prior adopted budget. Not in Pembroke. The baseline is whatever the Budget Committee recommends. For what it’s worth, in recent years that baseline has translated to double-digit tax increases.
Q: If Pembroke adopts the tax cap in November and then enforces it in March, might that turn out to be a problem for the schools?
It might and the District has done a good job of describing how this might be so. Instead, let me offer a different perspective.
First, I don’t think it will pass.
I think the majority of voters on Tuesday will vote no. I could be wrong but I have a sense of how votes break down in our district. Others may disagree but that’s my prediction.
If I am wrong, I am pretty sure that at annual School District Meeting the School Board can convince the attendees to override the cap.
If I am really, really wrong and the desire to put a hard limit on tax increases is overwhelming, then who am I to tell you that I am right and you are wrong?
In my experience, our Town Meetings tend to pass things by a wide margin, not by a handful of votes. We already require a supermajority to pass bonds, and regularly do so without an issue. Most votes are decided by a show of voting cards because they are rarely close.
It is therefore my belief that, tax cap or no tax cap, the Town Meeting will look much as it always has. A budget will be proposed and then there will be one, maybe two, proposed amendments. Then the meeting will vote on the budget. If 60% are a yes, then the tax cap, even if adopted, gets overridden.
Q: So are you telling me not to worry about the school? That I should just vote yes on Question 2?
I’m not saying that. I think most voters already know whether they are for or against this measure and I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong. What I am saying is that I think it is all a little less world altering than many, both for and against, are telling you it is.
If Question 2 passes in Pembroke, it would make it a little harder to raise school property taxes, but not impossible.
Some people reading this feel that it is already too hard to get enough money to fund the schools. You are going to want to vote against the cap next Tuesday. Some people think that taxes go up way too much from year-to-year. You are almost certainly going to want to vote for the cap.
I can’t tell you how to vote. What I’ll tell you instead is why I think it is good that the cap is on the ballot and what positive effects that, if it passes, it might have on the process.
Q: You voted to put this question on the ballot. Why did you do that?
To understand the reason I supported putting this measure on the budget, you might want to refer back to my first question.
There are many voters in Pembroke that are upset that the tax rate is determined by just 100-200 people. They don’t understand why they’d have to sit through hours and hours of meeting on a Saturday just to have a say. “Can’t we vote by paper ballot”, they ask? “Can’t we vote absentee?”
To some extent, their concerns would be answered if the Pembroke school district adopted SB2. That doesn’t seem likely to happen. This too seems unfair to them. Those same 100-200 people whom they don’t trust to set the budget also get to decide how the others vote.
These budget hawks, rightly or wrongly, believe that if ever given a fair opportunity to express their will – they would be shown to be in the majority. Question 2 puts that theory to the test. It’s now on a ballot in an election that generally has a pretty good turnout (and this year is projected to have a really, really good turnout). You can vote anytime from 7AM to 7PM and you can vote absentee. Anyone who wants to vote will have the opportunity.
As I say, I still don’t think it will pass, but that failure, too, tells us something important.
I go to the Town and School District meetings. Afterward, I am satisfied that we’ve come to a community decision when we pass the budget. I won’t complain that I was someone cheated or I didn’t get the opportunity to be heard.
That said, I do understand the perspective of the people who feel exactly that way. A November vote is one way to resolve that issue. It is a way for us to see, in the most definitive way we have in our democracy, what the will of the people is.. and a supermajority of the people at that.
It is not my place to tell you whether or not you are allowed to vote. It is your place to tell the rest of us what you think.
Q: What good could possibly come out of any of this?!?
Over the past couple of years, there have been proposals from Budget Committee members that we should manage the budgets (both town and school) the way many businesses do (and, by the way, the way we do the State of NH budget). After seeing the initial proposal from a department, management might say “now give me a budget that comes in at 90% of that.”
For municipal budgets, instead, we make changes the hard way. We start proposing functional changes and then try to figure out what that would do to the tax rate. It becomes almost impossible to meet some kind of a target – such as matching inflation.
I fully understand why the School doesn’t want to do, essentially, two budgets – one based on what they need and another to show the impact of restricting the growth in tax rates.
On the other hand, if you’re not in the School administration or on the Board, you might see value in being shown an alternate budget that says – this is the sort of thing we’d have to do to match inflation. As the SB says, limiting growth to inflation probably means staff reductions. That’s why I’ve said above that an override wouldn’t be such a big lift when the caps effect creates too much pain for the School District Meeting to swallow.
But is there value in being clearly shown the impact when you are making your choice? I think there could be.
From this standpoint, one might vote for the tax cap knowing full well that it is going to have to be overridden come March meeting. Someone else might vote against it for the exact same reason. A tax cap and then an override could be seen as simply counterproductive, causing unnecessary stress and fear. At the same time others see cap-and-override as evidence that the town’s voting body is working that much harder to demonstrate that the larger tax increase we ultimately approve is, in fact, needed and justified.
Q: Isn’t this just all too complicated? Question 2 applies pages of new law and still requires Department of Revenue Administration rulemaking. Shouldn’t that make it an easy no?
Yes, there are a lot of what ifs, particularly if the sense of the School District Meeting is very closely split. This makes it all seem complicated and, as I see it, seem more complicated than it needs to be.
On Tuesday November 3rd, we have two choices. With a tax cap, the School can raise only so much with just a simple, 50% majority. If they need more money, then that requires 60%.
Reject the tax cap and it’s 50% across the board.
Which way works for you? We’ll find out what everyone thinks next Tuesday night.
Q: So you’re telling me to vote… how again?
I’m not telling you how to vote. I suspect you already know how you will vote.
What’s important to me is that people do vote next Tuesday, if for no other reason than to give an accurate picture of how we feel about Question 2. I’d really like to know the real answer of how ALL the town’s voters feel about this. Don’t you?