Taxpayers are fighting back!   They are rejecting municipal budgets throughout the State.  Here is how one newspaper defines this growing movement among concerned taxpayers..….

 

Why are they saying no?

 

Journal Inquirer (Manchester, CT) 

Editorial

May 20, 2005

 

A number of Connecticut towns east of the river are locked in a budgetary holding pattern right now.  Tolland, Bolton, Somers, Ellington, and Vernon have all turned down their budgets in public referendums.  Vernon is getting ready to vote again in a few days.

Many people involved in local politics, and many who regard themselves as enlightened, see this trend as a sign of neurosis and dysfunction in local politics.  The people, they think, just don’t get it.  The people are not generous.  The people just don’t care enough about kids and good schools.
But, actually, the impulse toward “no” is a healthy sign.  And until public officials get it, the budgetary impasse may last for a while in several towns.

 

The people are actually wiser and more rational than their leaders in this instance. For they are not voting “nay” to all that is good and wholesome and pure in local government. They are not even voting “no” to reasonable improvements and the costs of same in local government. They are voting “no” because it is the only way they have to slow the progressive, automatic, unthinking inflation of costs in local government.

They are voting “no” because their leaders cannot say no.  They are voting “no” because they have no other tool at their disposal for setting priorities or forcing local officials to do so.  People vote “no” on the first and even second budgets proposed for their towns because it is the only way they can slow down a seemingly inexorable growth in costs. 

Only the costs are NOT inexorable or inevitable. All most town officials need to do, as a start, is tell their board of education, “Not this year, guys. Good and well-paid teachers are important. But this year we have to take care of some other things.”  But local officials cannot bring themselves to say anything even that modest. 

Voters can.  Most voters understand finite resources.  Few of them get 5-, or 6-, or even 3-percent raises every year.  All of them have to make tough choices because they know at some point even the credit line ends. So, a new car or a nice vacation may have to wait for yet another year, because the driveway needs to be paved and some trees need to come down and college tuition went up again.

Town officials in our state act as though they can always go to the well again. It’s just a normal thing. One must expect that every year, costs and salaries will go up significantly. And another 3 or 4 percent on top of last year’s tax hike, and the new town bond, is just the nature of things. The way things are. The implication of this is: No ultimate or inherent limits.

The argument is always that if we don’t pay top dollars for teachers in our town, and hike that pay each year, we will lose top teachers. Unless all towns get sane at once.`Well, all towns should get sane at once. But since they can’t and won’t, one or two or three towns need to start the ball rolling, and then other towns will find the courage to occasionally say “no.”``Actually, three or four towns have started it with these “no” votes.

The thing now is to get beyond “no” to actual fiscal discipline and political courage — to setting priorities.  Second, teachers are not that shallow. They care about working in good schools with good working conditions.   Who wouldn’t like a substantial raise every year? But teachers want their schools to have decent books and decent physical plants too. And they want to work for real leaders who trust them and give them freedom to do their best.  

Isn’t it interesting that voters in Vernon, the same town that overwhelmingly embraced an investment in school infrastructure in a recent bond issue, also overwhelmingly said no to government on automatic pilot — more for education salaries, we’ll pay for it somehow — in the last budget?

This is not a liberal/conservative issue.  This is not a “caring-about-kids” issue. This is not a “caring-about-the-town” issue.  This is not a matter of progressive versus regressive. It is not progressive to tax the working class to shreds. It is regressive to place no limits on the cost of local government.  No, this is a matter of making choices, setting priorities, and occasionally telling some person, or pressure group, “no.”

The voters want their leaders to do this, as a matter of due diligence, and respect for them, and their financial constraints.  Local leaders aren’t quite there yet.  In Vernon they took a poll at the last referendum — outside the polling place. If the budget fails, why did it fail and what should we do? One lady who declined to fill out a form after voting told a poll taker: It’s simple. That’s too much of an increase. Cut expenses.  Maybe after a few more “no” votes they will listen.

 

 

Representatives of the Journal Inquirer of Manchester, CT  can be reached at 860-646-0500.