For some unknown reason, RSD 9 residents have allowed weighted voting. Weighted voting is described as a system where one vote carries the “weight” of many votes.
There are a total of 16 School Board members for RSD 9 — five from Farmington, three from Wilton and the rest of the towns get one apiece. Each vote from a School Board member representing Farmington is equal to (weighted) 84 votes. A vote from each of the three members from Wilton is weighted as 74 votes. That is because each member on the board from Farmington and Wilton represents a higher ratio of the population.
The other towns represented on the School Board get one vote each. There is no weighting.
Many people in those other towns, which are mostly rural, are farmers or low-wage earners — people who are struggling to pay their mortgage, school and town taxes. But no matter how the representatives from those other towns might try to control the ever-increasing costs of the school budget, they can never do it. Their votes just don’t add up.
I see the Farmington members as big spenders and, along with the representatives from Wilton, they control the whole School Board. Members from the smaller towns, who might oppose spending $100,000 for administrators, or any other outrageous spending, have their hands tied.
Is America still a democracy? How did the weighted vote system ever get approved?
There should not be any negotiations on a new RSD 9 budget until and unless this issue is addressed.
Elaine Graham, Farmington
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