Report Inappropriate Comments

Another tidbit about the level to which the city supports our schools. If you look at the current residential property tax rates of many cities & towns, many devote 60% and more of their property taxes to schools. But what does that mean in actual dollars, since no one can spend a percentage? Warwick's current residential rate is $18.14 per thousand dollars of assessed value. Of that 55% ($9.98) goes to schools. Here's how much some other districts devote to schools in actual dollars: Coventry $14.09 (78%); Pawtucket $13.94 (60.8%); Barrington $12.69 (70.5%); EG $12.37 (61.4%) Cranston, who many like to compare us to, $12.22 (53.5%); North Prov $11.45 (47.4%); East Prov $9.96 (48%); I admit that this is a very rough measure and that I haven't taken into account commercial property or car taxes, but it does give a rough picture of the commitment, or lack thereof. The Mayors proposed Fy14 budget has now, I believe, "crossed the Rubicon" so that we're now going to devote more property tax revenue to the city side than to the schools. (and, yes, i know that i haven't included the State aid to the schools in this analysis) I wonder if the plan is to keep starving the schools of funding and when the schools run a deficit, they'll swoop in and tell us that we need to have the an appointed school committee. Oh yes, that's right, I believe there was support by some of the City Council and, i think, the Mayor for the recent Charter Review Commission's recommendation to appoint the school committee. Fortunately, that silly idea was tabled by the Council.

From: Council needs to educate themselves on school budget

Please explain the inappropriate content below.