March 28, 2024

Rehoboth Finance Chairman Feared for Members’ Safety

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Michael Deignan, the chair of the Rehoboth Finance Committee, expressed concerns for the safety of his members who were invited to attend Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School Committee meetings about the 2020 budget.

In a June 20, 2019 e-mail sent to members of the school committee, Deignan wrote: “I am advising my Finance Committee members who decide to attend that, should they be subjected to insulting or demeaning behavior/language, if the chair is unable to control the meeting for orderly discussion, or if my members feel physically threatened in any way, they should either not attend or they should quietly and respectively leave the meeting.”

Voters rejected the finance committee’s recommended school budget at the May 2019 town meeting. Deignan expressed his frustrations with the school committee’s plans to deal with the budget crisis. “Personally, I do not see what members of my committee can add to the discussion,” Deignan wrote. “We are already recommending appropriations up to the town's levy limit, we've increased our discretionary revenue estimates as high as we feel comfortable, we will not support using the town's stabilization fund to support an operational budget, and the funds (Rehoboth) Selectmen (chairman Gerry) Schwall intended to target as part of his compromise discussion with you in early May have since been appropriated at town meeting and have already been committed and/or cannot be reversed.”

In another message, Deignan blasted school committee chairperson Katherine Cooper’s oversight of the meetings. “Based upon my cursory observation of the last few school committee meetings, they are nothing but bash Rehoboth sessions, and the chair does a piss-poor job of controlling the meeting,” Deignan wrote. “So unless there would be something accomplished, I see little point to subjecting either myself or members of my committee to the spectacle.”

Deignan didn’t sign his name to the message, instead referring to himself as “Grand Moff Tarkin” – a character from the movie “Star Wars.”

Deignan claimed Cooper allowed School Superintendent Anthony Azar to run her meetings and permitted (Azar), members of the public, and other members of her committee to “berate and insult the town of Rehoboth, its citizens and appointed and elected officials on numerous occasions.”

Cooper told the Reporter that Deignan’s allegations were “completely ridiculous.”

The state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) assumed fiscal oversight of the district’s budget on December 1 after both member towns were unable to approve a budget. DESE later established the Dighton-Rehoboth school budget at $45 million.

Schwall has since called last year’s budget process a “debacle” and said it was the school committee’s responsibility to “make a recommendation to voters.” “We were forced into that predicament because the finance committee never met with the school district to have a discussion of what amounts to the largest budget on the town side,” Azar said in an interview with the Reporter on January 9.

Deignan alleges that no one from the administration or the school committee contacted either the Rehoboth Board of Selectmen or the Finance Committee to request a review of their budget before April 2019. "As three town meetings illustrated, the District School Committee was completely tone-deaf to the desires of the electorate in Rehoboth," Deignan said. "If the administration or school committee felt a meeting was necessary during budget season, why did they not email or telephone me requesting one in March or April?"

“Mr. Deignan needs to move forward as the school committee and I have for fiscal year 2021,” Azar said Wednesday. “He is still upset that DESE gave us the compromise budget that should have been in place back in April. Thus, all of the budgetary angst created by a majority of the board of selectmen and finance folks could have been avoided.”

Deignan said he is willing to review the school department’s 2021 budget proposal. "If the District would like the Rehoboth Finance Committee to perform a comprehensive analysis of their budget during this budget cycle, I am sure the members of the Finance Committee and the Town residents would welcome that," Deignan said. "All the District needs to do is provide us with a complete chart of accounts, general journal for the past three years (showing all starting and ending balances as well as transfers in/out and all journal entries), a copy of their requested budget for this fiscal year, and copies of all the calculations and assumptions used to generate each line item in the budget.”

For Cooper and Azar, Deignan’s promise may be too little, too late. They believe Deignan and the finance committee contributed to the budget turmoil and want some changes made before the 2021 budget cycle kicks into high gear. “I think we need a Finance Committee that is able to understand multiple viewpoints and work toward solutions,” Cooper said. “Not this nonsense.” “Maybe it's time for the (Rehoboth) Board of Selectmen to replace Mr. Deignan with someone with an open mind and willing to work with all of us,” Azar added.

Deignan said he is not afraid of losing his position and vows to keep fighting for the taxpayers. “I am sure Dr. Azar would prefer to have someone else on Finance Committee who would quietly acquiesce to whatever demands for funding he has and dismantle town government to fund his out of control spending spree,” Deignan said. “If he, Ms. Cooper, or another member of the town has a complaint with my performance as Chairman of the town’s Finance Committee, then I encourage the party to file a formal complaint with my appointing authority, the Board of Selectmen, for their consideration.”

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