Rehoboth Selectmen Warn of Budget Cuts

The Rehoboth Board of Selectmen are warning residents about what will happen if funding for the Bristol-Plymouth Regional Technical School building project is rejected.

The board voted Monday to place a debt exclusion question on the April 4 election ballot. Last November, voters rejected a debt exclusion, which is a temporary tax increase, to pay for the town’s share of the $305 million project.

Selectman Michael Deignan explained the town would have to pay between $550,000 and $600,000 annually.

“There really is no way for us to absorb that in the town budget without making significant cuts to town services,” Deignan said. “We are obligated to pay that debt service to Bristol/Plymouth. If we don’t pass (the debt exclusion), we’re going to be in a world of hurt financially.”

The building project was approved in March 2022.

Although the project was rejected in Rehoboth, there were enough votes for passage in the member communities which included Berkley, Bridgewater, Dighton, Middleborough, Raynham, and Taunton.

Chairman Skip Vadnais said a rejection of the debt exclusion would have a far reaching impact.

“(Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School District) is going to lose revenues,” Vadnais noted. “(The town of Rehoboth) pays (the school district) over three million dollars a year in monies over and above what our requirement is by the state. We hope to be able to continue to do that but before we start dismantling the highway department and the police department and our safety network that we’ve put together here, there’s going to be reductions also to the schools.”

The Massachusetts School Building Authority provided authorization for a Project Funding Agreement for the Bristol-Plymouth project in September 2021. The agreement includes reimbursement of 62.25 percent of eligible project costs up to a maximum reimbursement amount of $125, 569, 759 toward construction of a modern Bristol-Plymouth school facility.