The Deliberative Session

Back in November, both the School Board and the Town Council submitted their budgets to the Budget Committee. Over the past several weeks, the Budget Committee has been reviewing the budgets and asking questions of the administrators--either Steve Fournier, the Town Administrator or Jim Hayes, the Superintendent. 

On January 7th and 8th, (YES, that's tonight and tomorrow) the Budget Committee will conduct their final meetings with both the Town and the School, respectively. This is their chance to get answers to the questions that they asked during the other sessions and to go over the warrant articles. 

The next step is the public hearing which will be held on January 14th, so mark your calendars. This is the first time the public gets to ask questions or voice their concerns about the budgets and/or warrant articles. At some point after this meeting, the budget committee will vote on whether or not to recommend the budgets and warrant articles to the public. 

And that brings us to the Deliberative Session. Newmarket is an SB2 town and so our vote happens in two stages. I found this explanation on Wikipedia:

Under SB 2, a first session, called a "Deliberative Session", is held about a month prior to the town election. This session is similar in many ways to the traditional town meeting. However, unlike the town meeting, while the wording and dollar amounts of proposed ballot measures may be amended, no actual voting on the merits of the proposals takes place. The second session, held on a set election day, is when issues such as the town's budget and other measures, known as warrant articles, are voted upon.

This year the DS will be held on Saturday, February 2nd. This is kind of a big deal for our town--a lot of work went into having the Town and the School deliberate on the same day. My understanding of the reasoning for this is so that the community can get a full financial picture. (Or in other words, how can we possibly consider proposing a new school when we will be voting for a new waste water treatment plant?)

This is what I hope people understand---the deliberative session is more than just another town meeting. It is a vote. And it's not just a matter of ratifying what the budget committee has recommended. The people in the room can drastically change the outcome of our March vote. Here's how: 

Any person can get up and make a motion to change the dollar amount of any warrant article. That motion, if supported, then goes to a vote by a show of hands. That means that someone could make a motion to change the dollar amount of a warrant article to $0 and if that goes to a vote, and there aren't enough people in the room to vote against it, the article is, essentially, GONE. 

The system may seem a little cumbersome to some people, but this is each resident's opportunity to have a voice and a direct impact. 

Your vote matters.