PLAINFIELD — Voters soundly rejected switching to deciding all warning articles via Australian ballot during school and town meetings Saturday at Plainfield Elementary School.
During the school meeting, which began at 9 a.m. and concluded around 1:30 p.m., voters rejected the measure, known as SB2, by a vote of 215 to 64.
At Town Meeting, which was delayed an hour and a half due to the school meeting, voters rejected SB2, 190 to 32.
Boone Rondeau said people who want to be at Town Meeting find a way to do so.
“The bottom line is we all make choices in life,” he said. “This is one day out of the year.”
He also spoke in favor of the Town Meeting style of governance.
“I kind of like coming here and telling people what I think,” Rondeau said to some laughter. “This is our chance to do that.”
Resident Maria Guzman, the lead petitioner for SB2 on both the school and town warrants, argued that SB2 would give the town’s more than 1,700 voters an opportunity to weigh in on articles, including budgetary votes.
Diane Rogers agreed.
“They are just as important as the people who are here,” Rogers said, noting that some people have to work Saturdays and are unable to attend the in-person meetings.
Voters brought up similar points again during the SB2 discussion at Town Meeting.
“If they don’t get a chance to vote, that’s taxation without representation,” Jesse Medeiros said in support of SB2. “We fought a war about that.”
But Joe Crate advocated for keeping the tradition alive.
“What we’re doing right now is pure democracy,” he said. “This is as good as it gets.”
Voters approved both the school and town operating budgets after rejecting proposed amendments to change them.
Cori Tebbetts, who has a child in kindergarten at Plainfield Elementary School, proposed adding $130,779 to the proposed $8.76 million school budget to support a second first-grade teacher next school year.
“I don’t enjoy asking anyone to contribute more of (their) taxes,” Tebbetts said, adding that she wanted to keep the student-to-teacher ratio low.
School Board Chairwoman Jenny Ramsey said the proposed budget for next year includes one first-grade teacher for a class of 22 students instead of splitting those students into two separate classes. Currently, there is one first-grade teacher.
Rather than adding teachers, the budget the School Board proposed included cutting one classroom teacher position. Currently there are two fifth-grade classrooms and plans call for reducing that to one, according to the school report.
Earlier in the meeting, Ramsey noted that the district is projected to have 169 students in the next school year, which is 54 fewer than the district had in 2020.
Tebbetts’ proposed amendment failed, 163 to 104, in a paper ballot vote.
Next, parent Meggan Schmidt proposed adding $108,337 to restore the board’s elimination of a front office staff position.
One of the School Board’s goals “is to keep the budget down,” School Board member Jordan Green said. Usually, the board hears requests to further reduce the budget. “I think what we’re seeing today is there is also a very strong voice” in favor of educational quality and standards. He said that he was “very confident” that the proposed budget would allow educators to meet students’ needs.
“We’re crafty people. We will do more with less,” Green said. “I’m amazed we’re being asked to increase the budget.”
Schmidt’s amendment failed, 184 to 95, in a paper ballot vote. Voters approved the $8.76 million school budget, a 0.08% increase over the previous year’s budget of $8.74 million, 209 to 66.
During the school meeting, voters also approved via paper ballot an article that designated Plainfield as an open enrollment school and prevents district residents from attending other schools that have open enrollment.
They also approved via paper ballot allocating $50,000 for the Benefits Payable Trust Fund; $35,000 for the Special Education and Tuition Trust Fund; and $15,000 for the Building Maintenance Trust Fund.
On the town side, Guzman proposed cutting $230,000 from the proposed $3.26 million operating budget. Guzman’s amendment failed, 108 to 17, and voters approved the town operating budget, 193 to 9.
The approved budget is about $132,000, or roughly 4%, higher than the $3.13 million budget voters approved during last year’s Town Meeting
Voters also approved, by paper ballot, adding $355,000 to the town’s capital reserve funds and using $100,000 from the unassigned fund balance to repair the highway garage’s roof.
Of the town’s 1,787 registered voters, 279, or more than 15%, cast ballots for the SB2 article at the school meeting, according to town officials.
During Australian ballot voting Tuesday, Kent Webber won a three-year term on the Selectboard and Jennifer Rybeck Houde won a three-year term on the School Board in uncontested races.