March 28, 2024

Police and Highway Departments Could Face Cuts

Posted

Voters at the October 29 Town Meeting will be asked to authorize $214,000 in cuts to several town departments, including the police and highway department.

The Finance Committee voted last week to recommend approval of Article One on the warrant for the October 29 town meeting. The article asks voters to authorize an $85,000 reduction in facilities maintenance, a $50,000 reduction in the highway department’s snow and ice removal account, a $30,000 reduction in police wages, a $25,000 in the comp buyout, a $17,000 reduction in Bristol County Agricultural School tuition, and a $5000 reduction in the selectmen’s office budget.

The committee voted four to one to recommend disapproval of Article 2 which is the article the selectmen put forward to fund the Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School district at $19.3 million.

Finance committee chairman Michael Deignan said even if the voters at Town Meeting approved the article, “the vote would still constitute a ‘no’ vote in terms of approving the Regional School District budget, because the assessment from the regional school committee is different than that which was printed in the warrant per the compromise reached back in August."

Selectmen agreed to the cuts from the town budget as part of a compromise agreement with the Dighton-Rehoboth school committee, which had agreed to make $204,000 in reductions to their 2020 budget. As a result, the FY19 to FY20 budget increase is now $330,000 which is a 0.86% budget increase, rather than 1.32%. The total budget is now $45, 096, 223 for the Dighton Rehoboth School District.

Selectmen chairman Gerry Schwall said the board is standing “unanimously” behind the agreement. “We spent a lot of time looking at where we could come up with this money,” Schwall explained. “It takes care of the immediate needs, brings a stable environment (to students), we don’t want them being used as pawns in discussions. It takes care of this year. We are confident we found a way not to have it impact the town services in a negative way.”

The school committee voted last month to reset the 2020 district assessments for the two towns. As a result, Rehoboth will be paying an additional $60,000 while Dighton will see its assessment reduced by the same amount.

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