The Auburn voters’ repeated rejection of the school budget stands as an example of how the vote works in a democracy. It is the power of rejection. It is not, never has been, never will be a precision instrument for directing and controlling government. It’s a blunt bludgeon, not a scalpel.

In fairy tale democracy an educated, well-informed electorate studies the issues, learns about the candidate’s qualifications and ideas, then votes accordingly. This describes a dream world. It does not describe any election ever seen on the surface of our native planet. In the world we actually live in the voters’ power over the school budget goes little beyond saying yes or no. The fact that a small minority of voters elect the school board and a tiny minority show up a school board meetings doesn’t change this analysis in any significant way. It confirms it.

Jaime Thibodeau, quoted in Mark LaFlamme’s July 24 article, expressed the frustration of a conscientious parent about the lack of communication between the School Committee and the town. John Wyman, another citizen, expressed the same frustration. He finds no help in understanding the budget on the School Department’s website or Facebook page. Superintendent Katy Grondin seems to agree, pointing out that creating “extra avenues of communication” would require more money. School Committee Chairman Thomas Kendall doubts “that the community fully understands the impact (rejection of the school budget) will have.” The Maine Department of Education’s Essential Programs and Services funding model compounds the confusion. As Mr. Kendall points out “It’s not an easy process. It’s not an easy formula.”

Voters examining the budget at http://www.auburnschl.edu will find page after page of “budget lines” which tell them nothing. All they can know is that each line is supposed to represent education. They are left with the choice of voting for “education” and tax increases, or voting against “education” and tax increases.

Mr. Kendall explains why they must shut up and ante up. “Education is the cornerstone of any community. It’s absolutely an essential piece of the community’s growth. We are setting ourselves up for a much more difficult future” because refusal sets Auburn on a downward spiral. Auburn will find it difficult to attract new businesses and residents if it fails to spend money on education and this can lead to lower property values and higher taxes for everyone.”

So voters don’t understand the budget—can’t understand the budget—but they don’t really have to understand it. All they have to understand is that education is a good thing. According to the Vending Machine Theory of Education you put your money in and out comes education. This sounds like common sense. There’s that old adage, “you get what you pay for.”

Actually there is no conclusive empirical evidence to show this is so, but a good deal that puts it in doubt. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that expenditures on K-12 education have tripled since 1970 while educational output, measured in terms of math, science and reading scores, have remained almost flat. Auburn’s school board provides no way to see how the performance of the city’s schools relates to these trends. Some voters may have read about studies and articles criticizing the explosion of “special education” budgets across the nation and may wonder when they read that Auburn spends $12,799,556.14 on “Total Regular Instruction” and $6,624,440.32 on “Special Education,” but they have no way of determining whether or how the conclusions in those articles apply to the schools they pay for. If they ask the board whether that 32 cents was really necessary they can expect to hear assurances that it was.

All this adds up to one conclusion: the voters can’t know enough to compel specific cuts and economies. They can calculate how much the tax increases will cost them, but have no way to calculate how much, if any, actual education will result from the additional tax. Even their limited veto power is undermined by state and federal laws and regulations they have never heard about. All they can do is turn the budget down in the hope that they can force the High Lords of Auburn Education to find additional ways to trim their budget.

Professor John Frary of Farmington  is a former U.S. Congress candidate and retired history professor, a board member of Maine Taxpayers United and publisher of www.fraryhomecompanion.com and can be reached at: jfrary8070@aol.com

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