With two proposed budgets wadded up and tossed in the trash bin by voters so far this year, Newtown’s budgetmakers on the Legislative Council are now facing the unenviable task of working out an amenable solution with an unhappy electorate. That negotiation has turned into a bizarre process, which, in effect, has the council bargaining with two parties who hold diametrically opposed points of view. And in a surreal twist, these two contentious parties cannot speak to explain themselves… just alternatively shake their heads indicating No, once every two or three weeks until one day they finally nod Yes. Now ask yourself: would disinterested observers be likely to confer their highest level of trust, not to mention their resources, to such a financial process?

Unfortunately, that is the where this year’s budget process has left us. Budget cuts made so far in response to the first two budget rejections do not go far enough for many of the original budget opponents. The funds removed from the budget to placate them — particularly $1 million cut from planned school expenditures — have so alarmed another bloc of voters that they now are also unhappy with the council’s third budget proposal. Lots of people will be driven to the polls on Tuesday next week by the word No. And because the town failed last year to revise its charter to allow advisory budget questions or separate votes on town and school budgets, no one will really know what No means.

So who are these disinterested observers in this narrative? That would be the S&P and Moody’s bond rating agencies, which have a big say in how much Newtown’s local government costs its taxpayers. These rating agencies like to see conservative budgeting practices and a stable political process. There is less risk lending money to municipalities with these traits, and such towns are rewarded with lower interest rates in their bonded debt. Newtown’s finance officials have expended a lot of time and effort in recent years trying to impress the rating agencies by increasing the size of the town’s fund balance and by approving budgets either on the first vote, or as we have seen in the past two years, on the second vote after minor adjustments. These efforts have been rewarded with more favorable lending rates for major capital projects. By refinancing existing bonds last winter at new, lower rates, Newtown netted $1.6 million in savings to be realized in reduced capital costs and tax reductions through 2015.

The irony is that the word Yes is worth more to both our contentious, nay-saying parties pleading for the Legislative Council’s favor than the sagging value of the word No. A Yes vote in the first referendum on April 24 would have left open the door for further credit rating upgrades, quite possibly saving more millions than the original budget opponents can hope to realize from this increasingly confused process. It would also have given the current cohort of aggrieved education advocates a million dollars more in the 1212-13 budget. The benefits of a Yes vote on June 5 may not be as great as they were on April 24, but they still outweigh the fast-dissipating value of No, which could even lead to a credit rating downgrade and millions more in borrowing costs in the future.

Another budget rejection won’t bring direction to Newtown’s fiscal process; it will increase political polarization, increase skepticism about Newtown in financial markets, and, in the end, greatly increase the cost of greatly reduced services.