Financial Town Referendum Proposal Rotton at its Core

To the Editor:

Tiverton voters. On Nov. 8, you have the chance to vote on whether or not we should change our longstanding method of deciding how we spend our local tax dollars. On Nov. 8, you get to vote on whether or not we should eliminate the Financial Town Meeting (FTM) and permanently replace it with the Financial Town Referendum (FTR) as proposed by the Caron Committee. On behalf of the Tiverton Democratic Town Committee, I urge you to vote NO!

Yes, our FTM is not perfect. Yes, sometimes it can get contentious and folks can get ornery. Yes, sometimes people's passions get the better of them. No one will say that our FTM's are pretty or easy. But democracy isn' t meant to be pretty or easy. No one expects everyone to agree with each other in a democracy and we do expect people to be passionate about their beliefs.

Don't be fooled by the rhetoric from those who support the Caron Committee's proposal to eliminate the FTM and permanently replace it with a poorly designed annual budget referendum. Contrary to what the Caron Committee states, at least in the past 10 years (I can only speak to my time in Tiverton), no legal authority has declared any FTM vote illegal and no single "special interest" has controlled our FTM. Contrary to the Caron Committee's explanation, their budget referendum proposal will not make our budget process more democratic, it will allow for minority budget proposals to become the final budget and it will not increase voter participation!

Allowing anyone who can get 50 signatures to put a budget proposal on the ballot is ludicrous – my Mom would say that whoever suggested doing that simply has no common sense! Contrary to what the Caron Committee suggests, it does mean you could have 5, 10, 100 or more budget proposals to choose from each year – and only one of those – the one put forth by the Budget Committee – has to be defended at their proposed public hearing! Yes, you could have a budget proposal that calls for eliminating all funding for schools and for town government – no roads, no snowplowing, and no library – and that proposal could be approved in the referendum. Is it legal? Well that doesn’t matter with the Caron Committee’s proposal!

So, now about how we vote on these various budget proposals. Let’s say there are 5 proposals on the ballot. In the first round of voting, two of those each get 22% (a minority) of the votes cast (meaning 56% of the votes cast were for the three other proposals). Those two minority proposals go to a runoff referendum.  So, yes, at that point, basic rules of math mean that one of those two minority proposals will get a majority of votes in the runoff. But these are still proposals that only received 22% of the votes in the first round!

What about increased voter participation? The research clearly shows that budget referenda in other towns has only increased voter participation when there was a contentious issue on the ballot – say requiring residents to pay for trash disposal. Then, if a runoff was required, voter participation in the runoff dropped significantly. 

Oh, and yes, I am a Democrat and there are folks writing letters who want to make it seem like Democrats are bad people. Well, I try to have a bit of a wider view of the world and recognize that we all have our viewpoints and we aren’t always going to agree but I don’t hold a grudge against anyone, or their ideas, simply because they are a Republican, Libertarian, Independent or carry some other label. So, if you simply don’t like Democrats, then disregard my advice. If you have an open mind, please make your decision based on as much good information you can get.

Now, you might be right that our current FTM needs to be revisited and changed to make it more effective, or that we should find a better alternative to the FTM. I simply ask you to look carefully at the details of the Caron Committee’s proposal. Peel away the layers of the onion and I think you will find it is rotten at its core. I urge you to vote NO on the Nov. 8 ballot question to eliminate the FTM and replace it with an annual budget referendum.

Mike Burk
Chairman, Tiverton Democratic Town Committee