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John, my comments from May 16th are still relevant.

There was a comment that the School Committee is passing the buck the the City Council. Here is my response:

Some are quick to condemn the SC and say they are passing the buck to the city council but I can tell you the City Council and Mayor has the media wrapped around their finger. You need to know the history of the schools over the last 5 years to begin to understand the budget.

Do you know what the total budget is for the schools? Do you know what non-discretionary vs discretionary amounts are? When I started in 2008, only 10% of the local appropriations budget was discretionary, that means not already allocated to a pay a bill. At the time, the non-discretionary items included gas, heat, electricity too. The reason it was considered non-discretionary is because the amount wasn't set in stone and could go up or down (usually up). So , out of the 16.5 Million not set in stone, they had to pay utilities and other "non-essentials". That left about $12 Million. That 12 Million was what could be manipulated to in the classroom. With this you could buy books, provide Sports, Music, ALAP, Marine Science, paper, toner, science tools. The city cut the budget by $6.2 Million. the $6.2 Million can not come out of the non-discretionary portion, it had to come from the discretionary area. This leaves $6-7 Million for discretionary funding, this is not enough to educate.

To off set the cut, the School committee made an immediate change to co-pay and instituted a 20% co-share across the board for all employees. The teachers threatened to sue the schools because they were still under a contract. The school would be forced to go back to $11 per pay period for teachers. The teachers agreed to meet and agree to a temporary 20% co-pay. SO the schools implemented the first sizable co-share in the city. A year later the 20% co-share was permanently instituted. During a 5 year period the maximum number of teachers were laid off each year. The number is 20 teachers per year. This is accomplished through teacher retirements and not filling the position. The city meanwhile has employees stealing materials to use on their own house and then is forced to rehire them and pay them back pay because procedure is not followed.

Several schools were closed and returned to the city and re-purposed. One school was rented out to the RI school for the blind and this brought in money for the schools. A portion of another school is currently being rented out for education creating revenue for the schools.

The transportation department was outsourced. Unfortunately, some programs were cut, Family and Consumer sciences at the middle school and more recently Marine Science.

Many administration position have been combined. I believe one administrator now hold what used to be 3 positions, that is Dr Siesel. Rosemary Healey is the Director of HR and Lawyer for the school, this used to be 2 separate positions. The schools went without a director of secondary Ed for 2-3 years and had a lower paid assistant to the superintendent instead. The current superintendent is also doing the special education position. During 4 years I saw many positions cut and it was in all areas to include administration, teaching and support staff. I can tell you they were cut because I was one of the 5 who cut them and it hurt me every time I had to vote to eliminate a position of a real person sitting in front of me. Please do not say there were not cuts because I was one of the few who had the guts to make them.

The city council/ Mayor is already asking the state to allow them to reduce the local appropriation again because the number of students has declined and with the new state funding formula, Warwick is getting less than it should. Providence gets more of the State's tax money than any one. Warwick has to do without while they build new buildings and have state of the art Technology. They get more because they are a lower income bracket than Warwick. Now, I'm not saying Providence doesn't need it but they can't say Warwick doesn't.

Did you know there is a $2 Million technology grant Warwick is supposed to get? Did you know that the changed they qualifications to include that a school will only get the grant if it is an acceptable population level set by the state? Did you know that if we don't have enough students in the school then we don't get the grant? Without the grant we don't get the $2 Million for technology. Our kids will not get new technology, Providence will get our $2 Million. Did you know that we are currently well below the threshold to get the money. This means the State and Federal Government has already determined that the population at each of our schools is so low they don't want to send us money. How do you get the population to a level in each school to make it so we can apply for and get these grants? Closing a school and moving the kids to fill up the school more. I believe the cut off is 75-80% for the grant. This means our schools are 20-25% underutilized.

When the technology grant does not come to Warwick and the schools do not get technology while the districts around us do, where do you think new families will move when they are looking to move to RI? Warwick where there is no new technology or Coventry, West Warwick, Cranston? I would say anywhere but Warwick. To add to the problem, with the new PARK assessment program, ALL school distracts are REQUIRED to have new technology, so if we don't get it through a grant like this then we will be forced to pay for it ourselves by asking for more money from the City council to which they will reply, you need to make cuts or we won't give you anything or by making additional cuts to actual education.

So, the schools do not seem to be passing the buck the the city council, they are making cuts but no one knows about it because the schools get no respect from the local media and have a hard time putting information out to the people.

This is a very small list of cuts made over the years to save money.

Patrick Maloney Jr

Former School Committee Vice Chair.

From: Cutting schools to bone

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