by Thaddeus Flint
The vote for the Berlin Central School District will be held at the Berlin Elementary School on May 17. On the ballot will be three items – the District’s budget for the 2011 – 2012 fiscal year, the way future elections are held in regard to School Board seats and the election of new School Board members.
Budget
The District’s budget is set to be $17,374,400. That would be $907,316 less than last year’s budget. It’s actually lower than every other budget since the 2007 – 2008 year. There would be no increase in the tax levy despite a two year decrease in State aid to the District of $1,163,300. There was budget hearing on May 10 for members of the public to come and voice their opinions on the budget to the School Board. Either it was too nice a night out or nobody had an opinion to voice, as only six people attended and nobody got up to say anything. The hearing was adjourned after 15 minutes. Curious residents can see a complete copy of the proposed budget online at www.berlincentral.org under the section titled “2011 – 2012 BUDGET INFORMATION.”
Election Procedures
Also on the ballot will be a choice on how future voting for School Board members will work. The current system uses seats. Typically, a seat has a three year term. A resident who decides to run for a position on the School Board must choose which seat she or he is running for. The proposed system would be an at-large system. Using this system, a resident would simply vote for the candidate of his or her choice. If three seats were available the three candidates with the most votes would win a seat.
Why is this important? In some cases, such as the upcoming vote, some candidates might run unopposed. The voter then really has no say as to whether or not this candidate is one they would have chosen. It might even keep some voters from voting if they feel that there is almost no real choice. Voters do have the option of writing in a name. Since a write-in almost never wins, it’s more of a way of showing opposition to a candidate than anything else. It would make for an interesting election if all the voters decided to write-in names on their votes against candidates they were opposed to.
In the upcoming election there are three seats up for vote. One seat is held by Frank Zwack, who is running again. There are no candidates running against Zwack so Zwack wins no matter what. A second seat is held now by Liz Miller. Miller is not seeking re-election. Jim Willis of Stephentown decided to run for this seat. He has won it, as nobody is running against him. The third seat was a vacant one held by Board President John Green, who stepped down in November 2010. Two candidates, Andrew Zlotnick of Petersburgh and Rachel Finney of Stephentown, will run for this seat.
The School Board candidate profiles have been posted on this site.