Remember the good old days, say 2004, when taxpayers could go to a single town meeting, hash and rehash the issues on the floor and settle everything one way or the other with a deciding vote before the gavel came down?
Watching the conniption fits the current residents of RSU 12 are enduring on their way to adopting a budget, we have to say it makes us long for the golden days of yesteryear when a vote really meant something.
Next week, if budget opponents have their way, this third time won’t prove the charm; this latest budget will go down in flames, and the RSU 12 board will have to revisit the numbers again.
The board will chop a little here and chip a little there and move some of the dollars back and forth but, based on the three budgets already presented, it is likely they will come back with something between the $24-27 million totals that have already been discussed.
Then, instead of whittling down the numbers and coming out with a final budget on the spot, there will be one more meeting to discuss the numbers, followed later by another referendum vote. It’s ridiculous.
Since all the factors affecting the previous budget proposals are still in place, declining state support for example, it figures that no amount of hard work is going to change the fact that it is going to take about $25 million or so to fund RSU 12 this year, whether the money is approved or not. Until a budget is approved, school officials will just keep working with the figures from the last adopted budget.
Still, we agree with Westport Island resident Dennis Dunbar when he urges his fellow voters to hold the line in his letter to the editor this week. If people in RSU 12 truly oppose the budget they are presented with, then we encourage them to hold fast, consequences be damned.
The buck has to stop somewhere and it might as well be here. Dunbar is right when he says the system is rigged to wear down the voters and we shudder to think of all the extra work, time and money that has been spent for the sole purpose of forcing an unpopular budget through.
By the same token, we encourage budget supporters to get to the polls and vote their conscience. People who want to put this issue to bed for the year have to get to the polls and settle this issue in the school’s board favor once and for all.
The bottom line is this is what happens when a half-baked plan is adopted as the rules we need to play by. It is ludicrous to call for essentially two separate votes on the same issue and, as the RSU 12 mess shows, it is a recipe for drawing out the pain.
