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If Councilwoman Donna Travis is going to examine who is accountable for the current state of affairs in the Warwick School system she also needs to also examine her actions as Council President over the past four years and her record over two decades on the council that have contributed to these problems.

Councilwoman Travis as President welds great power to determine the allocation of new property tax dollars between the city and school budget.

Over the last four years, not once did Travis attempt to work with school leaders to examine school related issues and infrastructure conditions in the schools. Rather she injected herself into the school consolidation process to grandstand, all to enhance her political capital on this emotional issue. Instead of demonizing school leaders, she should have been using her authority to work with administrators, the teachers union and the WISE union leaders to craft a long term educational plan as a foundation in which school special education and infrastructure needs would be met and the required funding could be provided.

We all know when it comes to education, Councilwoman Travis talks the talk but her actions demonstrate that she doesn’t care about Warwick children’s educational needs.

How else can Ward 6 voters reconcile the fact that over the last 4 years Travis as Council President raised your property taxes every year and allocated $14,583,733 million to the city budget while she gave only, $837,832 to the schools? That amounts to 95 cents of every new tax dollar to the city and only 5 cents to schools.

How else can Ward 6 voters reconcile Travis giving practically every new tax dollars to the city to pay for increased benefits to active and retired city employees? Much of school cost savings over the last years has resulted in the reduction of personnel costs. Under Travis’s leadership city personnel expenses continue to explode to unsustainable levels requiring more and more new tax dollars each year. Where are the proposed reforms from Council President Travis to control these costs so saving can be re-allocated to educational priorities?

Why did she ratify a new contract with Warwick firefighters increasing sick time buy back benefits by 50% resulting in the cost increasing from the budgeted $345,000 to almost a million dollars? Where did she find the $600,000 in extra tax dollars to pay for this benefit? What kind of additional repairs could have been made to schools with $600,000 more dollars?

How can Ward 6 voters reconcile the fact that Travis led the charge to borrow millions of dollars in bond money a few years ago to build a new fire station in Potowomut, that wasn’t needed while our children, teachers and administrators were left in crumbling school buildings because she didn’t support the same kind of bond borrowing to fix the schools? And now she has the gall to go to school committee meetings complaining about the condition of these school buildings.

By the way, when was the last time a school was built in Warwick and Travis supported doing that?

How can anyone in Ward 6 support Donna Travis with a track record like this?

If Ward 6 voters are truly interested in accountable, I suggest they ask Councilwoman Travis to answer to these charges before they step into the voter booth on Tuesday and give her another two more years to continue to destroy the city and the school system.