Much talk went into how much to cut at the recent Board of Finance and Legislative Council meetings, with town officials spending nearly four hours between the new meetings discussing cuts and the bottom line.

This came after voters rejected both the town and school budgets for the first time in 13 years (though only the first time in two years for just the school budget).

Board of Finance member Steve Goodridge said the rejection was voters telling officials that they didn't do their job "quite as well" as they thought they did. But while a rejection of a budget is certainly a rejection of the bottom line, is it necessarily a rejection of the process that brought that amount to them? Is it automatically a bad thing to give voters a choice on a higher budget price point, even if they ultimately decide its not what they want?

It seems that being given the choice at all is a valuable part of the democratic process. Last year, after all, voters were energized enough to vote for a much larger increase, over six percent, as groups rallied voters to get out and place "yes" votes in spite of a large increase in the town's and schools’ self-insurance line items due to catastrophic claims that threatened the town's and schools' ability to afford their normal budget items.

If this budget cut is too large or too small, voters will again have the opportunity to weigh in on their feelings. Maybe it will be too small and another rejection will force the boards to hone their cutting knives even sharper. Or maybe there will be a groundswell of support, and this will be their opportunity to pass it at the current level before there are more cuts.

BOF Vice-Chair Jim Gaston at the May 5 meeting of that body said that an 18% turnout indicated ten percent of the voting populace rejected the budget and only eight percent voted for it. He said it was "difficult to gauge" voter sentiment on only ten percent of the voting population.

However, with turnout dipping from 25.4% last year to just 18% this year, that level of support didn't materialize this year. There is 7.4% of voters that decided this budget was not something they wanted to come out for when they did last year, and, in doing so, gave a strongly implied "no" vote. That increases it from ten percent to 17.4%, as the percentage of that group that voted "no" last year likely would have voted "no" this year, and those that voted "yes" showed their lack of support by not voting again.

While it would be nice to see referendum votes hit 50% or more, it is clear that no matter just how directly town budgets impact the lives of individual residents, many of them just aren't interested enough to cast a vote one way or another. It's a shame, but it is what it is. The Newtown Bee, for its part, will continue to try and convince more people to get out and vote; even if we only get a few extra people to turn out each time, it is still worth it to get more people to exercise their civic duty and privilege.