On October 10, members of the Harwood Unified Union School District (HUUSD) Board and administrators learned that the way the weighted voting percentages were calculated was inaccurate.
This means that the population-based percentages assigned to each town and the weight of each board members’ vote may be wrong. Appropriately, the board referred the matter to its legal counsel.
We do understand that legal wheels may not turn as fast as desirable, but this issue is of critical importance and needs to be sorted sooner versus later.
What happened – apparently – is that the architects of the Act 46 articles of agreement incorrectly counted the population of Waterbury Village and Irasville twice when calculating the population totals of Waterbury and Waitsfield.
They used data from the 2010 federal census for the calculation. The net effect of that error is that under the current weighted voting system, Waterbury’s percentage was too high and Waitsfield’s was too low. Waterbury’s current voting weight is 46.0 points and it should be 39.5 points. Waitsfield’s is 12.8 under current system and, with the change to Waterbury’s weight, should be 13.4 points.
As tedious as this math is, it is critical because it hampers the board’s credibility and its ability to go forward. It will stain decision making until it is corrected.
The miscalculation was undoubtedly a simple mistake as the architects of the Act 46 articles of agreement simply misunderstood how to read the census. But that doesn’t obviate the need to correct this post-haste.
How the mistake is corrected remains to be seen. Perhaps the board has the authority to adjust the voting weights by a simple corrective vote. That would be ideal. Then the work of the board can continue without this hanging over it.
There’s a great deal of important work coming up for the board in the coming weeks and months. Budgeting season will be upon us in one minute. There’s important work to be done on a potential bond for Harwood Union High School. This work and those decisions require accuracy in our weighted voting system and require trust on the part of the public for the voting process.
We look forward to the response from the board’s counsel.
