Officials Offer A Reminder And Info On Ballot Charter Question

By John Voket

Candidates will not be the only subjects of votes cast in Newtown this Election Day; a budget-oriented Charter Revision question is also on the ballot. And local officials are using myriad avenues to inform residents and voters about potential changes to the municipality’s constitutional document.

Legislative Council members Jeff Capeci, Mary Ann Jacob, Paul Lundquist and past Charter Revision Commission Chairman John Godin participated in a videotaped, three-part video at The Newtown Bee offices this week to explain this year’s multipart charter revision proposal.

Council Chairman Capeci said he is additionally issuing direct mailers to Newtown homes reminding them about the proposed revisions, and members of the council hope to promote their informational video series across popular social networking websites linking to The Bee’s YouTube page.

If it can be arranged, the officials hope there is a possibility that charter revision explanations will be circulated through school-based networks as well.

Newtowners who may have missed the coverage in print and online will have explanatory information available to them at the local polling sites on November 6, and available for review inside each polling station, Mr Capeci said.

And while the information cannot advocate for the changes, all the officials who participated in the video aimed to address most if not all of the concerns or questions they have heard about or anticipate about the proposed revisions.

Besides casting ballots for political candidates from the President on down to a trio of state representatives, voters on November 6 will be asked if the Newtown charter should split binding operating budgets between the school district and the municipality; add nonbinding advisory questions to help inform deliberations in the event one or both sides of the split budget fails; and eliminate a rarely used provision that could move the local budget to a public town meeting after a second referendum failure.

During introductory remarks, Mr Capeci said the four officials were speaking as individuals and not representing the council or presenting revision information on behalf of the legislative panel. Mr Godin then thanked the council, including Mr Lundquist who chaired a committee that qualified a diverse range of volunteers for the fast-paced but far-reaching commission.

“We had four Republicans, three Democrats, and two Independents look at a question that I think was on everyone’s mind at the time given the five budget referenda we went through in the spring,” Mr Godin said, adding that the process was compressed into six or seven meetings over a five-week time frame. “We had some attorneys, an individual who was a former school superintendent, a former acting commissioner of the state Department of Education, and a college professor in our group, along with a former town attorney.”

Mr Godin said in the end, the group delivered a unanimous 9-0 vote to recommend the revisions on the ballot.

Mr Capeci said once the recommendations were delivered to the council, there was even less time to process the information, and that the council decided to put a single question on the ballot.

“The way this thing was envisioned was an all or nothing change. We didn’t want to put it out in multiple questions where maybe the bifurcation would pass and the advisory questions wouldn’t,” he said. “We thought this was a package deal and that everything would work together.”

Although an initially proposed ballot question attempted to touch upon all four points of the revision, Mr Capeci said the Secretary of the State’s Office, which has final say on charter referendum language, required the ballot question to be simplified.

This requirement for the ballot to simply ask if charter changes are accepted or not precipitated an effort on the part of officials to try and utilize as many avenues as possible to ensure voters know about the ballot question, they understand the implications if approved, and how an approval would affect local budget voting beginning next April.

Mr Lundquist said that although many see the revision as a bifurcation, or budget vote splitting initiative, there are four distinct actions tied to the proposal.

“We have seen…there is certainly a tendency for certain groups of voters to have greater interest, concern and awareness of the town budget versus the education budget,” Mr Lundquist said. So by approving the revision, he said there is an opportunity for taxpayers to focus on “two pretty unique buckets, and they represent significantly different values and costs in the budget itself.”

Ms Jacob said, if approved, the education budget ballot would represent the exclusive cost related to the school district for that fiscal cycle, while the municipal side represents all municipal operations costs and all the debt service.

Mr Lundquist and Mr Capeci clarified that all the debt service is applied to the municipal side, even if it is being applied to cover bonding for an educational project.

The group then explained why the results of any approved budget would be binding, and how the charter panel and council arrived at that decision. Ms Jacob also clarified if the education side of the budget does not pass when the municipal side passes, and advisory questions indicate that the education side did not pass because it was too low, the result could be increasing the district allocation with a corresponding increase in the budget request.

Mr Godin explained how his panel handled research among towns with split budgets and ballot questions, which Mr Capeci said impressed the council.

Regarding the binding vote provision, the council chairman said, “If one side passes and the other side doesn’t, to not accept that, it certainly isn’t very Democratic.”

“That provides very clear direction for us,” Mr Lundquist said. “It ensures that someone’s vote — if one part of the budget passes — isn’t reconsidered or discounted in any way.”

Mr Lundquist and Ms Jacob also said that if late revenue, surpluses, or expenses surface on the side of a passed budget, there will be avenues for the town or district to deal with them under a process that may include the checks and balances of the Boards of Selectmen, Finance, Education or some combination of the three.

Ms Jacob then reviewed the advisory questions.

“What really compelled me to support this, is how simple it was in advising what happens if the budget fails because every voter gets to answer that question whether they voted Yes or No,” Ms Jacob said. “And it gives some direction what to do if [a budget] fails.”

“This does not answer the question ‘Why did it fail?’; it answers an overall question about whether [a budget] is too low or not,” Mr Lundquist added. “It’s imperfect, but it is better guidance than we ever had.”

The panel also took a moment to explain why the rarely used provision permitting a town meeting on the budget following two failed referenda is being proposed for removal from the charter.

“We already have concerns about the low number of people who show up for the referenda,” Ms Jacob said. “But it’s a much smaller group that would show up for a town meeting. That really isn’t a true representative forum of deciding what the budget will be.”