Looks like the WHTA carried the day. Unofficial numbers so far are:
Yes: 2939
No: 7893
Voter turnout was 29.4%, which seems respectable for a ballot initiative like this.
It’s unsurprising considering the amount of money the WHTA poured into the campaign. While supporters of the budget (if you can call us that) were relegated to making hand-made signs and carrying them around, the WHTA had nicely printed lawn signs all over town and took out a full page ad on the front page of the local penny paper (you know, the free paper that everyone in your town gets that’s mostly full of ads… our’s is called Trade Winds). They were well organized and mobilized and that earned them a ballot victory today amidst light turnout.
I stand by what I wrote and do believe that this referendum was proposed and asked in a misleading way. On top of that, the WHTA has been amazingly dishonest in their advertising, including that front page ad that hit every house in WH. Even basic factual information, like what the copays are for teacher’s health insurance, were wildly misrepresented in the ads. That’s reprehensible. The town manager, who has been very straightforward with both the WHTA and the town’s budget priorities, had to go so far as to specifically correct the ad (pdf) in a 3 page memo that’s just bullet points of what they got wrong in the ad. Some are serious, some are trivial interpretation issues, but the serious ones are the ones that probably had the most impact when reading the ad. I know I was surprised at the $3.00 copay and the claim that my taxes will go up 125% after 2007. I went and looked up the info, and I wonder how many citizens did the same.
Oh well. My taxes might go down, and the schools will lose another program or two. I guess that makes the homeschoolers that are leading the West Hartford Taxpayers Association happy.
On a serious note, though, this seems like a sign to get more organized. I’m not sure how the WHTA financed their ads, but I suspect enough parents in town will care about programs that matter so if we can figure out how to separate the mill rate questions from the education budget, we’ll be in better shape for the next referendum. For a town that has won the Democracy Challenge Cup (pdf), we can boost turnout and help the voter base get better information.
For those of my readers who read the more nationally focused news, please bear with the local coverage. These issues are important to me and I’ll be writing about them as often as I feel I have something to add. For those West Hartford residents who would rather only read the West Hartford news, click this link and bookmark that page. That will only show stories that fall in the West Hartford category.
Update: I updated the numbers to the latest official count I could find.
June 13th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Sujal -
As someone who DOES have kids in the WHPS, and as someone who deeply believes in the covenant that we as a society have to provide a comprehensive public education, I want to thank you for your words and support here and over on the WH blog.
The issue of taxes in general is highly emotionalized to begin with, and add to those emotions a whole litany of sound bites of questionable veracity, and you get what we got in the budget referendum.
The WHTA (which I believe is largely funded by a $10 membership fee if their website can be believed) has done a remarkable job of developing an organization that successfully exploited the emotions and the sound bites, and while I hate the outcome, we need to salute them - and take a lessen from them as well.
We saw it in action over on the WH blog - I posted the link to the benchmarking of teachers’ salaries on the State Department of Ed website, and you further tried to engage the “No” voters in conversation about it. They weren’t interested in that type of conversation because their purposes (motivate No votes) are perfectly served by the sound bite campaign.
So I guess what I’m saying is I agree with you - we do need to become more proactive about our support. We also need to reframe the way we express that support - simpler and more straightforward. In addition, as someone who has tried to pay attention to both the Town and BoE budgets (the BoE being 60% of the overall total) I think that part of becoming proactive also means that we have a responsibility to make absolutely certain, through our elected officials, that the Town and WHPS administrations are being efficient stewards of the public’s funds, and then to effectively demonstrate that stewardship. Frankly though, I’m not yet comfortable myself that that stewardship is completely present - I still sense a degree of bureaupathic behavior (for example, the budget presentation by the School Administration is at the least confusing, and at worst intentionally obfuscatory).
But anyway - I’m not sure yet how to go about creating this sort of non-PTO/PTA advocacy group, but I agree it’s needed.
June 13th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Thanks John. I’d be interested in working with any group like this, too. I’ll see what I can find out. I wish I could think of a way that people could talk about these things intelligently rather than through ads and one way media. The salary document you posted was the first time I’d seen someone inject actual raw data into the conversation. Maybe that’s part of the problem. The raw data needs to be easier to access and needs to be publicized better.
Anyway, let’s see what we can do. If you know other folks who would be interested, I see a reason to rent/borrow a meeting room somewhere and organizing something. I may even go to the next WHTA meeting… depends on whether I know what I want to get out of attending.
Sujal