KINGSTON – The state’s proposal to conduct school budget votes on June 9 by absentee ballot is not a good idea on a number of levels, Kingston City School District Superintendent Dr. Paul Padalino said Tuesday.
Instead, he is proposing that school districts with proposed budgets that are at or below the tax levy limit be automatically approved without a public vote, just this year.
Padalino said the process of identifying qualified voters is vague in terms of identifying who could vote. He said it would be difficult to find, train and pay people to determine who is qualified, mail out ballots and then count them upon return. In Kingston, he estimates the district would need close to 40 vote counters.
“With the ambiguity about the definition of a ‘qualified voter,’ the rush to get ballots in the mail, and the likely necessity to use inexperienced vote counters, the potential exists for mistakes, or outright fraud,” the superintendent said. He questioned if the state would provide “some level of legal protection and financial help to death with election fraud claims and challenges to election outcomes.”
Padalino also said the costs associated with paper ballots and labor could cost Kingston $100,000, 10 times an election by voting machines.
The timeline for the process is “severely compressed” and if a budget fails on June 9, nine days after the end of the school year, “This means that school districts will not be authorized to spend funds while they await budget approval – no payroll, no health insurance premiums, no bills. We could not cover costs in those two weeks,” Padalino said.
He also questioned the legitimacy of budgets being placed before voters since the governor has said there will be several “lookback” points throughout the year during which school aid may be reduced to accommodate revenue shortfalls. “This means that our communities will be voting on very uncertain estimates; the level at which we hope our program can be funded.”
The way “out of this mess” for this year only is to allow districts that propose budgets at or below the tax levy limit to put them into effect without a public vote.
“The governor’s proposal asks the impossible and further stresses our districts. Desperate times call for desperate measures. These are desperate times,” Padalino said.
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