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Michael, I think you question the numbers because they don't fit your narrative. i too follow things closely and your assessment of city raises/benefits vs. those of the schools are completely wrong. The previous municipal contracts had, I believe, no raise the first year and 1.5% raises every 6 months for the last wo years. That's a 6% total raise at the contract's end. Plus, some of what the police and fire gave up for that contract were to be given back in a different form when they retired. Simply put, the city benefits are much more lucrative than the schools benefits. Plus, look again at the total number of positions eliminated over the last ten years and youll see that the schools have eliminated more than the city. Your statement regarding the number of elderly with no children in the schools insinuates that somehow those people shoud not be as responsible for paying for schools. well, since im not eldrely and both my parents are dead, i dont feel that my property tax dollars should support any senior services or any senior based tax relief - its this kind of Darwinian thinkig that makes my blood boil. it's a "taxes a la cart" philosophy. i do agree that the results we get from our schools are not good enough relative to what we spend but to me, thats where leadership and accountability from admin and the school committee comes in and weve seen little of that over the years.As to tax rates, yes, Warwick's tax rate is very reasonable when compared to comparably sized cities. The biggest expense of every city and town is the schools. You read the Beacon so I'm sure you saw Mark Caruolo's comment that the 3.8 million the schools asked for would amount to .40c per 1000 of the current tax rate of $18 and change. The average median home value before the latest revaluation was $200k so if you gave them all $3.8 million( and I'm not suggesting that they should get that), it would cost $80.00 more in taxes for the average house. Now that the new tax rate is $19.90, to get that same 3.8 mill, it would be less than .40c per 1000. Lastly, our teachers are all paid well as are just about all of them in the state, but so are our police and fire personnel, so I'm not sure what your point is there.

From: Now the hard school choices

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