By Ginger Kozlowski
Staff Writer

At the deliberative session of School District Meeting in Weare last year, the gym was fairly full. (File Photo)

Chances are good that you've never attended a Town Meeting. Only 2 percent of the population of the average New Hampshire town attends Town Meeting, School District Meeting, or the SB2 version of them, according to a 2000 study done by the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies.

Nevertheless, this is the form of government most towns and school districts in New Hampshire use to decide how to spend money and make other decisions.

SB2 – just vote, no meeting? In 1995, Senate Bill 2 was passed, becoming the Official Ballot Law. By 2003, 50 municipalities and 66 school districts had adopted the law, commonly referred to as SB2.

The change was both negligible and enormous. What SB2 did was allow Town Meeting to continue as usual, but voting was delayed a month. A small change, but one that allowed far more people to participate in the process.

Had attendance levels continued at what is now termed the “deliberative session” of Town Meeting or School District Meeting, the only difference would have been more people voting on warrant articles on election day. However, attendance at those meetings dropped considerably in SB2 towns and school districts.

Virginia Drew, a former Epsom School Board Chairman, said attendance dropped significantly after SB2 was passed in Epsom.

“Even those who used to attend regularly no longer see the necessity of attending and don't understand that this is often used as an opportunity to give reports and recognize community members in the once-a-year gathering,” she said.

Marie Boyle of Goffstown agrees.

“When I first came to Goffstown 45 years ago, Town Meeting was the place to go every March. People were willing to give up a few hours to have a chance to govern themselves. Now unfortunately, they're too busy.”

Gerard Fleury, a member of the Pembroke School Board and trustee of the town's trust funds, hopes to keep that town from moving to SB2.

“I believe that the risk of casting one's vote in an SB2 town based upon disinformation is greater since false rumors aimed at minimizing the tax rate at the expense of everything else cannot be refuted effectively in the SB2 environment,” said Fleury.

“In Pembroke's traditional setting, attending meetings does cost you a Saturday morning or two, but it also provides you with an opportunity to stand up, ask a question, get an answer and then cast an informed vote. Given a choice, I'll take quality votes over a quantity of votes any day.”

While attendance at meetings in SB2 jurisdictions dropped from 9.1 percent at Town Meetings to 2.3 percent, and from 6.1 percent to 2 percent at School District Meetings in 1998, according to that New Hampshire Center for Public Policy study, far more people actually participated by voting. That study found 28.7 percent of the registered voters voting in towns with SB2, and 29.1 percent voting in school districts with SB2.

That increased participation is what convinces Hooksett Town Councilor George Longfellow that SB2 is a benefit.

“Having sat through many Town Meetings prior to Senate Bill 2 and after Senate Bill 2, I still prefer the latter,” he said. “In the past, with only 50 to 100 people at a meeting, it was a simple thing for any special interest group to control the agenda and slide through their special projects. In the past, I've seen them drag out meetings until a lot of people left and then bring forward late-night agendas. At present, it is not perfect, but there are 1,500 to 2,000 people participating in the process.”

Growth pushes the change Pembroke is still small enough to make the Town Meeting process work, but larger towns can be pushed to the official ballot form of voting, as was the case in Bedford.

Roy Stewart, who helped write Senate Bill 2, and is president of the Bedford Taxpayers Group, pointed to the School District Meeting in 1994, which nearly 5,000 people tried attend due to a controversial vote on a high school.

“The gym was full, people were lined up outside,” said Stewart.

The meeting had to be rescheduled with satellite locations around town to allow the vote to take place. The high school failed at that time, but SB2 was adopted by Bedford's school district the next year.

“After a while, the numbers became right and the people passed it by 68 percent,” said Stewart.

It pays to participate Whether traditional or SB2, Town Meeting and School District Meeting still take place. There is a misunderstanding among some residents that the meeting has disappeared or is not worth attending.

“Many people think that because there's no Town Meeting you can't change anything,” said Allenstown Selectman Sandra McKenney.

In fact, the Town Meeting does continue under SB2, and people have the same oppportunities to change the wording or dollar amounts of the warrant articles presented at the meeting.

With fewer people attending those meetings, a tiny number of people can become the majority, overruling selectmen, school board members or budget committee members who have labored to craft a particular warrant article. In fact, articles with dollar amounts are commonly amended to a zero-dollar amount, effectively nullifying the article and giving the voters a meaningless article to vote on at the polls.

Whether an SB2 meeting or not, voters can question and change budget line items, bottom line budgets and requests for equipment. The Town Meeting or School District Meeting is the final and best chance for voters to ask questions of department heads to clarify what they are voting on. The only difference between traditional and SB2 meetings is when the final vote is taken.

“I really wish people would take more interest in their local government,” said Boyle. “We have so many empty slots for people on town boards and committees, and the same people keep filling them because nobody else will. And then people complain because these folks ?always seem to be in office and telling us what to do.'”

The process

The budgeting process starts well before the Town Meeting or School District Meeting, with a series of workshops and public hearings regarding a town or school district's budget.

While these meetings are always open to the public, it is rare for anyone other than officials to attend such hearings and meetings.

When a town or school district has an official budget committee, that committee is required to have a hearing on the budget at least 25 days before the annual meeting. After that time, no changes can be made until the big meeting.

One doesn't have to be a public official to present a warrant article to a town or school district. Any resident can initiate a warrant article through a petition. It takes only 25 signatures from registered voters, or 2 percent, but not fewer than 10 names, submitted no later than the fifth Tuesday before a Town Meeting, and no later than 30 days before a School District Meeting.

In larger towns like Bedford, operating under a charter, petitioners must gather 20 percent of the number who voted at the last annual meeting.