March 28, 2024

State Relinquishes Oversight of Dighton-Rehoboth School District

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The state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has relinquished fiscal oversight of the Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School District as of July 1. Voters in Dighton and Rehoboth approved the 2022 fiscal year budget at their spring town meetings. “It was certainly gratifying to know that for FY ‘21-‘22 that both towns approved of the administration’s budget and the regional school districts assessment without DESE stepping in,” said Dighton-Rehoboth Superintendent Anthony Azar. “The district continues to provide academic and athletic opportunities to our students and I am personally proud of the students, families and staff for all of their extraordinary efforts especially during a pandemic.”

DESE assumed control over the district’s finances in December 2019 when the two member towns were unable to approve a budget for the 2020 fiscal year. At the time, the school committee alleged the Rehoboth Board of Selectmen and the Finance Committee had underfunded the 2020 budget. “The Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee are not being realistic to attempt to force the School Committee's acceptance of a negative one percent budget and $690,000 in cuts from the current 1/12 budget,” chairperson Katherine Cooper wrote in a letter to DESE.

“As they know, we have always gone into town meeting with a united front,” Azar told the Reporter in 2019. “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 another override.  This wording of the town warrant absolutely scared voters into thinking taxes would be increased.”

In a letter to DESE, Rehoboth Selectmen Chairman Gerry Schwall had cited “the ever-increasing and unsustainable financial demands” from the school district.

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