Dighton Boards Review FY27 Budgets as Debt Exclusion Deadline Looms

DIGHTON — March 5, 2026 — Dighton's joint Select Board and Finance Committee session surfaces pay equity dispute and creative library budget restructuring. Meeting on March 5 to review more than a dozen FY27 departmental budgets, the two bodies heard Library Director Mark propose absorbing $44,814.60 in employee benefits costs and cutting the library's overall appropriation by 20 percent rather than eliminate staff positions — a plan contingent on library trustee approval and state library certification that guarantees $15,000 to $20,000 in annual grant funding. Town Accountant Serena told the joint boards she was "disappointed" that non-union employees appeared to have submitted zero cost-of-living budgets, to which Select Board member Nicole Mello replied that the board "did not give a directive that it would be zero" and had taken no votes on the question. The four municipal unions — police, dispatch, fire, and highway — are locked in to contractual increases of 2 to 2.5 percent regardless of whether the debt exclusion passes. The accountant also flagged $750,000 in anticipated Dighton-Rehoboth excess funds as "just another one-year solution" with no plan for the deficit projected in FY28.