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Hi GordianKnot,

I don't know how long ago I posted that we had 12000 students, but I am sure it must have been when I first got on the committee in 2008. I know the numbers are lower now than at that time. having less students does not mean less expenses. If we lost one or two students from every class in each school, we could lose several hundred students. Do we get to let any teachers go to see a savings? No, we do not and the expense to teach one less student per classroom remains exactly the same. It is only through consolidation of schools after student enrollment declines that a savings can be realized. The school committee voted to close schools to find the savings.

The surpluses the school had for the last 2 years were due to the Federal Stimulus funds. If it wasn't for the stimulus funds we would have been level or had a deficit. One thing is sure, prior to my arrival on the committee there were 2 years of deficit to the tune of $3.2 Million. I helped pay back all the money and we have had a surplus each year. We also closed several schools and have laid off or had retirements equal to near 20 teachers each year. WISE staff and administration has taken on additional responsibilities to cover people who have left or been laid off.

Stimulus and surplus money was also used to fix school buildings. Buildings owned by the city that the schools are required to maintain.

I will still not comment on Mr. Horoschak as it is a personnel issue. I am sure if there was a situation at your employer you would not want to details put in the newspaper or online. When everything is said and done, I would be happy to disclose any information as long as it does not break any Human Resources policies or RI or Federal laws. I would not want to create a situation that could put Warwick in a legal jeopardy.

Yuo are putting words in my mouth when you say that I like weighting. I am not in favor of weighting. I am in favor of making sure all of our students have a fair and reasonable chance at getting an education. Every city has additional services for special needs students. I did not create weighting it was here long before I was on the committee. I worked to reduce weighting at the middle school level and we did reduce the weighting. If we did get rid of weighting, we would have to do what every other city does, hire additional teachers for special education classes and/ or have additional classroom teacher assistants to help. Either way, it seems to me that we would have a similar cost. What is your solution for educating special education students that are in the same classrooms as non-special education students? Would you stick all special education students in their own classroom and hire additional teachers and aids?

And as far as you saying the maximum tax increase was not a full increase, that does not seem correct to me and here is why. We paid for a car tax without as high as an exemption. Our previous exemption was $5000 (I think). That was lowered to $500 and then raised. For the first time in years I had to pay taxes on my 18 Year old car. I paid the taxes that year and was so infuriated to have to pay taxes on it at all that I sold it. Taxes on our homes were set to be the max and when the car tax revenue came in they lowered the percentage of the taxes on your house. So if you want to tell yourself that your taxes were not the maximum they could be then that is fine. There was an article in the Beacon that said, Warwick lowered the property tax because the car tax made up the revenue. A tax is a tax. If you re-read what you wrote, you said they raised the taxes 2.5%, add in the Car tax and there you go.

Are you satisfied that they ONLY went up 2.5%? I DO NOT WANT THE TAXES TO GO UP AT ALL. As far as asking for the amounts that we ask for, I know we are not going to get an increase. I ask for what I believe is the correct amount. And here is where you are the one spinning the truth. When the school committee asked for an ADDITIONAL $6 million, it was really just the level funded amount from the year before. We asked for LEVEL funding because the city lowered our allocation $6.2 million. So if they give $6 million less and we ask for the same amount, this is where the Beacon twists the headline to read "School committee asks for an increase of $6 million".

You and I have gone back and forth several times over the years on the Warwick Beacon site. As always, you can email me to set up an appointment to discuss this further. I would welcome the opportunity. If you would instead like to continue to hide behind a screen name and spin lies to make me look bad, that is your prerogative.

As far as answering the question about why Warwick and Cranston have similar number of students and different amounts for education, I have answered this question multiple times online. Here are 2 reasons and there are more.

1) Warwick has an airport in the middle of the city. We do have more students and we have much more Sq miles than Cranston so we have to transport students around the airport. We require more busses too. Each bus is approximately $55,000 to have on the road. If we have 10 more busses, that is an additional $550,000 (a half million dollars).

2)In 2011, Cranston had 16% of their students enrolled in Special Education. Warwick has 21%. We have 5% more special education students than Cranston. Let's say just for this argument that both Warwick and Cranston each have 10,000 students. Warwick has 2100 Special education students. Cranston has 1600 Special education students. We have 500 more special education students than Cranston. The average cost to educate a special education student in RI is between $25000 and $75000 depending on the needs of the child. Let's take the average, $50,000 and I will even lower it to $40,000 since we have less severely disabled students. $40,000 times 500 is $20,000,000. This is a $25,500,000 difference. The argument I usually hear is that Warwick must be putting more students in Special education than really needs to be there. Warwick doesn't choose who is in Special education, State and federal laws determine this. I believe the reason we have more Special education students is because it is known throughout RI that we have a good education program for Special Education students.

The fact is people move to a city because of the good schools not because they have a great, but expensive sewer system in place. I was surprised last year when we spent $2 million to fix one sewer problem and used the rainy day fund to do it and no one screamed about it but when the roof at Pilgrim was pouring water through it and needed to be fixed for $2 million people commented on it. I want the best schools in the state and we are not there. We need them to be better so we can get more people to move here.

I love Warwick and I am working hard to make it a better place.

Patrick Maloney

maloneyp@warwickschools.org

From: City looks to finish fiscal year with $1.7M surplus

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