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Budget referendums are a cost-containment tool needed to keep school districts honest.

November 15, 2009

Just this month, voters overwhelmingly supported the state school district consolidation law.

So why are lawmakers trying to change it?

A proposal now making the rounds would strip away the provision in the law that calls for a district-wide elections to approve every school budget. These elections have created problems for some school districts, requiring them to try more than once before finding a budget that the community supports, and have drawn light voter turnout in other places, where the budgets were not controversial.

So, the argument goes, the law should be stripped of the election requirement and regional school boards should be left to figure out how best to spend the money on their own.

That's a bad idea.

The reason for school district consolidation was escalating school budgets that were driving high property taxes. The law had two prongs: consolidating administrative functions and using the efficiencies to direct money to the classroom. The district vote was a way to make the second prong work.

As superintendents and school committees put budgets together, they know that they will have to go before the voters. The discipline that knowledge builds in to the process forces them to look for efficiencies.

They know that if they try to spend too much, they are likely to see the budget rejected. And if they shortchange classroom education, they are also likely to be sent back to try again by the voters.

That's why it doesn't matter that turnout at some of these elections is low. Not voting is another way of assenting to the budget as drafted. Just because residents are happy with the proposed levels of spending this year shouldn't mean that they forfeit the right to have a say next time.

And, as it exists, the law gives voters a chance to end their district's elections for a while if they want to. In the third year after consolidation, which will be next year for some districts, voters will be asked if they want to continue holding elections. If a majority says "no," the next three budgets are off the ballot.

Lawmakers would do better to focus on the districts that are having trouble finding partners for consolidation rather than on looking to fix parts of the new system that are working as intended. Just weeks after voters supported the law the way it is, changing it dramatically doesn't make a lot of sense.