Stonington — Residents at the Charter Revision Commission's first public hearing Wednesday urged members to focus on the proposal that resulted in its formation - ensuring that Board of Finance elections are contested.

"If you tackle too many issues, nothing will get done," said resident Harriet Statchen, who recommended the 11 members focus on the finance board election issue.

"You need to focus on the Board of Finance, a lot of effort went into getting this commission formed," added resident Pat Hambly.

Other residents suggested increasing the size of the Board of Selectmen from three to five members, letting residents vote on the school and general government budgets separately and voting on the budget by line item or department.

Some suggested shortening the term of finance board members from the current six years, possibly implementing term limits and increasing the term for selectmen from two to four years.

Commission members now will consider these suggestions and others as they begin discussing what items to pursue when they meet again on Sept. 25. Any of the changes the commission eventually recommends would have to be approved by voters.

The commission is required to consider changing the election process for the Board of Finance because the citizen's group Change the Charter collected in excess of 1,500 signatures to force the creation of the commission to examine that question.

Currently, every two years, two members - each with six-year terms - come up for election. The current procedure calls for the Democratic and Republican town committees to nominate one candidate each for the two positions. This means that if there is not a third party, petitioning or independent candidate, the two party-endorsed candidates run unopposed and are elected. Voters are asked to select one of two candidates on their ballots, but both are elected.

Former school board member Kevin Bornstein, who was one of the leaders of the petition effort, called the current process "a complete non-election election."

But finance board member Glenn Frishman pointed out that in 2009, there were two petitioning candidates on the ballot, and they only had to collect 39 signatures to do that.

The petition effort began this spring when some residents became upset after more than 500 people attended a public hearing on the proposed 2014-15 budget and called on the finance board to restore the money it had cut from the school budget and let the voters decide. The finance board refused to do so. Some of those residents felt the finance board had ignored them, and they then discovered the finance board members had run unopposed.

"We feel like they're insulated from the Democratic process," said resident Bruce Yarnell.

Town Clerk Cindy Ladwig told the commission that she and Tax Collector Linda Camelio are recommending it look at making their positions hired instead of elected, which also would allow them to join the union that represents the town's professional administrators. If the commission does not agree with that, they suggested increasing their terms to four or six years from the current two.

They said the people in these positions should be chosen based upon qualifications and experience because of the knowledge, certification and education that is required for the jobs.

j.wojtas@theday.comTwitter: @joewojtas