March 29, 2024

Letter of Response from Dr. Azar

Posted

July 11, 2019

Dear Mr. Crandall:

Please consider this as a response to your recent Rehoboth Reporter letter where you choose to author an extremely disappointing and unfortunate attack which includes defaming the genuine efforts of many volunteer members of our community and my personal character in a very aggressive manner. This summer, in addition to my duties as superintendent of schools, while several of my central office administrators have been laid off and a business administrator in transition, I find myself compelled to defend against yet another untruthful attack that sets our community on a path towards division as opposed to consensus.

Firstly, in the fy2019 warrant article, the Finance Committee, under the auspices of the Board of Selectmen, clearly denotes that the town will benefit from the school district’s Proposition 2 ½ override. The following is taken directly from the fy2019 warrant article which is generally to inform the voters; “Therefore, in order to balance the budget, the Finance Committee’s difficult recommendation is to decrease the school department’s Above Required Net School Spending line item by the remaining deficit.” This amount as specified in the fy 2019 warrant was in excess of $800k.

Thus, I absolutely stand by my statement that if an override passed in fy 2019 that the school district would be in good shape for several years. The school district presented to the Rehoboth Finance Committee in April of 2018 that a $1.35 million override would be needed. Why did the finance committee in Rehoboth increase the school district’s $1.35 million override to $2.1 million? The answer: The Board of Selectmen felt that the municipality would never have been able to pass an override without the support of the school community. On paper, the Board of Selectmen have recently shown that the $2.1 million went to the schools in fy2019. However, since the Above Required Net School Spending in fy2018 was reduced by the Town of Rehoboth’s deficit of over $800k, this clearly impacted the budget process. Had the town not used the proposition 2 ½ initial override monies for their municipal deficit, our school district would have been in good shape for several years.

Secondly, I am very proud to have served in the Rhode Island State Senate. It was a privilege and an honor to have Senator Jack Reed as a mentor, and colleague, and was something that I cherish to this day. Senator Reed has served his country with distinction and honor, and is well respected by both political parties. His advice surrounding budgets, was simply that it was necessary to perform due diligence on the budget process, and to trust, but verify the numbers within. This advice is every bit as sound today as it was 30 years ago.

Thirdly, I want to clarify that I never called the residents of Rehoboth the ‘evil empire’. Any distractors who spend an inordinate amount of time creating videos disparaging people whose goals are student-centered were referenced within that statement.

In summary, Mr. Crandall, it is unfortunate that when you saw me in my capacity of school superintendent, as you did when I was proudly signing young Rehoboth students up for their own library cards this month at Blanding Library, you choose to not take that opportunity to have a discussion with me or see what was being accomplished. Moreover, my administration has put forth a lean 1.32% budget increase for fy 2020, and I challenge you to find a district in the commonwealth that will accomplish as much as we will with a similar meager increase.

As a regional school superintendent, I challenge our state lawmakers to creatively come up with much needed solutions to the inadequate reimbursement protocols for transportation, circuit breaker, and Chapter 70 monies which do not properly support the promises made to regional districts. Equally, I challenge our Rehoboth Board of Selectmen to work with our Economic Development Committee to explore and to support an Economic Development Plan for our town so that the taxpayer is not asked to dig deeper into their pockets to provide necessary school and town needs.

Despite the many attempts at distractions from what we aim to accomplish as a school district in Dighton-Rehoboth, I remain steadfast as I continue to focus efforts on the student-centered goals of our school district. I remain committed to work collaboratively, as working together as a T.E.A.M. (Together Everyone Achieves More) is how this will be resolved and it is what will most benefit our town and our children.

Sincerely,
Anthony C. Azar, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School District

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