To the Editor:

Your brief editorial about school budget voting procedures in Regional School Unit 1 (“Undemocratic move in RSU 1,” May 30, Page A6) misses some important points.

You state that eliminating the second part of the process, the validation referendum, would be undemocratic. Your assumption is that the first part — the district budget meeting — is done at the district level while the referendum is done at the town level. Actually, both are districtwide events.

While the referendum is done via ballots cast in each town’s polling place, the vote is aggregated for the whole district. It’s the same voting populace, simply voting on a question twice, but in different formats.

The first part of the process, the district budget meeting, is essentially a form of the New England town meeting, commonly thought to be one of the most pure forms of democracy. New Englanders love it dearly and will defend it to the end.

I agree that it’s a good system. Elected officials present their recommendations, and defend them through direct questioning of the townspeople — or district people, in this case. Then each item is voted on.

What works well for each town should work well for the RSU, and it does. It’s hard to make the process more democratic, and simply having more votes on it won’t improve it.

The current system is essentially voting twice on the budget. It’s the only time in our democratic system where this happens. Officials, bonds, referendum questions etc., are only subjected to a single vote.

What is to be gained by multiple votes? In addition, with the school budget vote coming in June, it is frequently a standalone ballot. As such, it costs the district and towns $5,000 to $10,000 to hold. That alone should give one pause.

The school budget referendum, coming on top of the district budget meeting, is a duplication of effort and does not add to the democratic process. It’s costly and unnecessary. I recommend a “no” vote on Question 2 on Tuesday, June 4.

Charles Durfee
Woolwich