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@Michael - Schools need to continue to cut costs. But attributing the annual tax increases to schools is wrong and not holding the mayor and city council to the same standards to cut costs and level funding the city budget is being a hypocrite.

The facts that I posted back in February predicting this tax increase.

[Fact: Examining financial statements over the last 5 years it shows that city liabilities continue to increase while overall assets decrease.

Fact: From 2007 to the 2013, local tax dollars allocated to the city budget have increased 52.8 percent (from $63.9 million to $97.7). Warwick school budget has increased only $5.5 million or 4.9 percent overall.

Fact: In 2007 63.9 percent of the budget was allocated to schools and 36.1 to city budget. Today the ratio is 55 percent to schools, 45% to city.

Conclusion: Continued property tax increases in the City of Warwick can be directly attribute to city spending, not schools.

Fact: Since 2007 - $27.8 million in new spending has occurred in the city budget. In the same time period the state has cut aid to the City of Warwick. The city has substituted the money cut from that state by increasing local taxes and allocating most of it to the city budget. So while total new spending incresed $27.8 million the total new tax dollars allocated to the city budget equal $33.8 million. Here is the breakdown of where that money has been spent:

Employee Benefits $21.6 million or 77.7%.

Physical Resources(DPW), $2.6 million or 9.3%.

Public Safety $6.4 million or 23%.

Executive & Administrative -1.7 million or -6.1%.

Social Service -1.1 million or -3.9%.

Conclusion: Almost 80 cents of every new tax dollar collected pays for employee legacy costs.

Fact: Actuarial Accrued Liability for all pension plans is $628,776,187. For OPEB(Healthcare) it is $283,220,644 for a combined total of $911,996,831. Factoring outstanding bonds puts the figure over $1 BILLION.

Fact: According to projections in the most available published actuarial reports, taxpayer contributions to just the pension plans will increase from approximately $23 million in 2012 to $27 million in 2014. Retiree healthcare costs are predicted to increase over 75% over that same time period.

Conclusion: In order to fund these liabilities more and more areas of the budget will either be level funded or cut. Property taxes will continue to rise with a majority of the money allocated to pay for these liabilities. This is already occurring and is an undisputed fact.

What does that mean to the city and school employees? Consider this. In the past year the school budget was level funded yet property taxes increased. Police, fire and municipal employees did not receive a raise and pay more for healthcare. So what areas of the budget was the new tax dollars spent? That question was answered above.

For the next two years city employees will not receive a raise. Does anyone believe we will not receive a tax increase this year? Why, to pay annual required contributions associated with pension and healthcare liabilities. ]

This is exactly what was proposed in the Mayor 2014 budget. Over $2 million of the new tax dollars going to the city will be allocated to pensions.

Wait until the next two to three years when it gets even worse.

From: Now the hard school choices

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