Leaving it to the voters

Thursday, February 9, 2012

On Wednesday night, the Wilton-Lyndeborough Cooperative School Board and its Budget Committee were scheduled to discuss the board’s decision to ask voters to decide how the Budget Committee should work.

Should it operate as an advisory budget committee, or should it actually develop the budget that ends up getting presented to voters in March?

It’s a good question. The towns of Lyndeborough and Wilton, for instance, operates under the Municipal Budget Act under which its Budget Committee prepares the town spending package. But other towns, including Milford, for instance, have a budget committee that is advisory only.

It’s hard to say which system works better; it probably depends upon the town and it certainly depends upon the people who are members of the Budget Committee, regardless of how it operates. And don’t take the term “advisory” with too much skepticism: In Milford, the “advice” of the Budget Committee carries a lot of clout – people pay attention. When that committee opposes a project, there’s a good chance that project won’t be approved.

So if voters in Wilton and Lyndeborough were to decide that the school district Budget Committee should only be advisory, it would still have a great deal of authority. But is it enough? Depends upon your point of view.

We think the School Board made the right decision in presenting this to voters because there seems to be some dispute over how the committee is to operate in the wake of the combining of the Wilton’s and Lyndeborough’s school districts. The individual districts had been included under each town’s method: the Budget Committee prepared the spending package. There were some who thought that would automatically continue when the two school districts were combined, others who are not so sure.

So, presenting it to the voters should clear up the issue.