March 29, 2024

Selectmen Slam School Committee in DESE Letter

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The Rehoboth Board of Selectmen are holding the Dighton-Rehoboth School Committee responsible for the impending state takeover of the school district on December 1.

In a November 13 letter to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), selectmen chairman Gerry Schwall cites “the ever-increasing and unsustainable financial demands” from the school district.

School committee chairperson Katherine Cooper disputes Schwall’s allegation: “the School Committee cannot accept a negative one percent budget, making an additional $690,000 in cuts from the 1/12 budget, and keep sports and activities as the Selectmen and Fincom claim.”

“I challenge you to find any school district with a lower percent increase,” School Superintendent Anthony Azar said. “Also, since (I became Superintendent) there have been no layoffs to the Town of Rehoboth's municipal workers and the town has been in better financial shape over the past five years then they portend to be.”
In a November 4 letter to Azar, Cooper, Schwall, and Dighton selectmen chairman Kenneth Pacheco, DESE’s associate commissioner Jay Sullivan explained if a budget is not accepted before December 1, DESE “shall establish a budget for the year and shall assume fiscal oversight of the district.”

Cooper said voters at the May 28 town meeting were “never presented” with the school committee’s assessment for Rehoboth, instead approving the finance committee’s recommendation of $18.9 million. The school department had been seeking an additional $558, 797 for their 2020 budget. The school committee opted to re-vote the assessments for the town meeting vote and continued to request their assessment number to be voted on, which prompted officials to hold a special town meeting in July. A special election to decide whether or not to override Proposition 2 and a ½ in order to fund the requested increase was approved by voters.

Last August, selectmen had reached a compromise with the school committee. In exchange for giving the school department an additional $330,000 for the 2020 budget, selectmen had proposed $214,000 in cuts to town departments. Voters rejected the revised FY20 budget at the October 29 town meeting and the district-wide meeting scheduled for November 2 was cancelled. The Rehoboth and Dighton boards of selectmen had met on October 30 for the purpose of selecting a moderator for the tent meeting. When they reviewed the warrant drafted by the school committee, Schwall realized the budget figure was inaccurate. The warrant article for the “tent” meeting called for the appropriation of $29 million for the school budget. Dighton was responsible for $10. 5 million and Rehoboth was responsible for $19.3 million. The total school budget was $45 million. Cooper noted that Peter Hoogerzeil, Schwall’s choice for moderator, would not allow an amendment to include the full budget number at the district-wide meeting.

“In each such case, the District could have chosen to accept such appropriation and avoid losing control over the schools’ management, and, in each such case, the District refused to do so, opting instead for expensive and adversarial mechanisms that, at best would have netted a purely incremental increase in funding,” Schwall continued.

Cooper explained “that accepting a negative one percent budget is not feasible without a significant impact to the students’ education. We currently have a 0.66 percent budget increase request.”

Schwall also criticized the school committee for conducting their budget discussions in private and for not answering questions about the budget at their meetings.

“This approach has led to frustration and a crisis of confidence of both the School Committee and the Superintendent,” Schwall noted. “It has also led to massive mistrust of the process.”

Cooper calls Schwall’s accusation false.

“The School Committee has publicly discussed the budget at every meeting this year, and answered questions for hundreds of people,” Cooper added. “There are videos to prove this fact.”

Azar noted the Rehoboth finance committee failed to include school committee members in their discussions, which resulted in the budget turmoil.
“As they know, we have always gone into town meeting with a united front,” Azar said. “That unfortunately crumbled pretty quickly due to the town warrant being written by the Rehoboth (board of selectmen) and the Finance Committee not providing the town voters a chance to vote on our assessment number to the district. More importantly the wording of the town warrant was disingenuous in that it painted the school district as one that was seeking an another override.

This wording of the town warrant absolutely scared voters into thinking taxes would be increased.”

Azar also notes the school district has been underfunded compared to past years, contrary to what Schwall and finance committee chairman Michael Deignan have claimed.

Azar notes “the school budget was reduced (over the previous fiscal year) by $850,000”, and the majority of the $1 million (appropriated at a town meeting) was the debt exclusions for the Palmer River roof and windows and the Beckwith Middle School window replacement project and not for the operational budget.”

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