The Bangor City Council decision to shelve a referendum on the municipal budget was right on the money. The 6-2 vote showed resolve on this issue and revealed a strong consensus on a very important matter of public policy.

The referendum petitioners had singled out the School Department to absorb the brunt of the cuts ($900,000 of a proposed $1.1 million reduction in the total $42.9 million budget), however, the initiative clearly was an assault on the City Council’s authority to establish a budget and allocate municipal resources.

The city solicitor’s opinion that budgetary authority rests by state law with the Council, and therefore is not subject to initiative, added legal emphasis to the Council’s obligation, in the interest of responsible government, to defend its budgetary prerogatives.

A municipality could not function if its budget process was exposed annually to the prolonged ordeal of trial by referendum. Town and city governments couldn’t plan or borrow. For elected officials, the budget process would become at best an empty exercise, or worse, a sincere effort to be picked apart by ax-grinding petitoners.

Although the City Council acted properly, the 750 people who signed the referendum petition did not waste their time. Local government is on notice that it is being watched, very closely.