Heidi has posted her thoughts about the West Hartford referendum on her blog. She has a different take than I.

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.

I’m late to writing about this and for that I apologize. Tomorrow, June 12th, the town is holding a public referendum on the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. This vote is extraordinarily important. I want to let everyone know I’m voting yes tomorrow because Heidi and I believe in strong public education, small class sizes, and programs like Quest. I’ve also been paying attention to the debate around the issue and, while both sides have been virulent, the sheer disdain for public schools and public school systems is evident from West Hartford Taxpayer Association (WHTA) members.

I recommend people taking a look at this post on The West Hartford Blog to get a rundown on the issue. I also want to thank WHDad, who runs the West Hartford Blog, for creating a place for people to chat about this issue. It’s been an invaluable resource for me to make heads or tails of the whole budget issue.

If you’re a West Hartford resident and you’re reading this on Tuesday (as I know some of my former coworkers will be), please get to the polls and vote yes after work!. Please get your voice heard so the referendum is as accurate as possible.

I have some meta thoughts on the budget, by the way. This whole process, and the act of cutting funds from the school budget seems to be a weird frankenstein of the original issue.

See, the initial uproar was caused by the release of the new assessments for property in the town. For example, my home’s assessed value went up by $100,000 from the last assessment done by the town many years ago. Obviously, with no changes to the mill rate, my taxes would’ve gone up dramatically. So, the obvious remedy to this is to reduce the mill rate to something that leaves taxes more or less the same as before. Sounds simple, right?

Not so. Using the mill rate as a wedge, it seems some citizens who are upset with the general tax level in West Hartford (we have one of the highest tax rates in the state) started asking for cuts in the general budget, focusing on education and the schools as their primary targets. So, instead of having two conversations about the overall mill rate and whether there’s fat in the school and town budgets, the WHTA has instead clouded both issues in an attempt to drive budget cuts that they feel are necessary.

That’s unfortunate, and it seems unfair to me as many seniors and middle class residents of the town have legitimate concerns about the mill rate. By scaring those folks (or leveraging their existing concerns), the WHTA will be able to achieve something that during any other year they would be unable to pass.

That’s not to say that the WHTA agenda is illegitimate or without merit. I love the fact that they’re taking a close look at the budget and asking hard questions of the schools. In fact, I’ve learned a lot about the budget process and how our town leaders respond to this kind of pressure. What I don’t like is the timing and the way they’ve conflated two completely independent issues.

For that reason alone, I’m voting Yes tomorrow because I’d like to see us get past the mill rate discussion and address the education funding separately and openly without the fear of people losing their homes. Ultimately, these issues are separate and should be treated as such.

Update: The town has laid out their budget cuts in the proposed budget here:

2007-2008 Adopted Budget Summary

You can find your polling place by going here:

West Hartford Voting District Info

By way of a random Technorati click, I found the blog of a Georgia high school paper which made me search for an article about (phew!) how the Hartford Public Schools are now fining students for using profanity at school:

Students in Hartford, Conn., now have to pay for what they say - literally.

Under a new plan, 2,800 students at two high schools in the district could be subject to $103 fines for uttering profanity on school premises.

Officials there call it a last-ditch effort to create a learning space free from the linguistic irreverence so commonplace in society today.

“We have had kids that just curse out their teachers in the hallways,” says Zandralyn Gordon, the acting principal at Hartford Public High School. “That cannot continue.”

…

Experts say some schools are cesspools for swearing because disciplinary action is not strictly enforced. That was not the case in Hartford. Suspensions were handed down for obscenities, but administrators say they were seen as vacations and did nothing to improve unruly behavior. Now, says Ms. Gordon, “they are not going to curse, because it is going to cost.”

The fines, issued by police officers in the schools on a case-by-case basis, must be paid or students must appear in court as they would for a speeding ticket.

A main impetus behind the program was to reduce violence - and the suspensions and expulsions that were byproducts of that violence. “We find one kid swearing at another kid, the other kid responds,” says Cathy Carpino, the president of the Hartford Federation of Teachers, “and it goes from being a verbal altercation to a physical one. It needs to be stopped.”

Not sure what to say except that I’m curious what happens to students that can’t pay. It seems to me, but perhaps I’m wrong, that by the time the students enter high school, at least some of their swearing is already learned. I also wonder what happens if you stub your toe and yell out something like “shit” or “damn”? Seems like a steep fine when it’s not directed at anyone, especially if a “main impetus” is to reduce violence.

It’ll be interesting to see how it gets enforced. Heidi may have more on this at her blog later.

By the way, students at Pebblebrook (the school in Georgia), um, teachers and students are actually allowed to talk about religion in school. It would be impossible to teach large chunks of western history without talking about religion. What is not allowed is teaching students how to be good Christians. There’s a difference that ought to be obvious.

Phil Carter points us to an article that quotes an auto industry insider’s explanation that Toyota opened a new plant in Canada instead of the U.S. because they found that training costs were lower in Canada.

He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use “pictorials” to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.

“The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario,” Fedchun said.

Phil makes some good points, so you should go read. Then wonder whether education is worth funding.

There are few reasons, if any, that one can think education is only an issue for those with kids in the schools. The rest of us rely on the ancillary benefits of good education. Whether we want better/cheaper cars or more jobs for everyone so that crime and overall tax rates can go down, having a better educated populace makes all of that easier to achieve.