News Release     

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, February 19, 2010

CONTACT: Giovanni Cicione, Esq. 
(401) 732-8282 

(401) 996-3536

MEDIA ADVISORY:

SPECIAL RIGOP REPORT –

“THE OPPOSITE OF RIGHT PART X”

CHAFEE IS THE TEACHERS’ PET, GIVES TAXPAYERS A ROTTEN APPLE

Lincoln Chafee tries to take credit for many things which occurred while he was mayor of Warwick.  But, as more Warwick residents wonder why their city spends $43.2 million more on schools than the City of Cranston or $4,394 more per pupil than Cranston  (Warwick Beacon 2/16/10), Mr. Chafee should be raising his hand to take some credit for this boondoggle. 

It all goes back to the shiny red apple Mr. Chafee gave the Warwick Teachers Union in 1994.  The Warwick Beacon identified two key areas where Warwick schools cost more than Cranston schools.  First, the Warwick Teachers contract is the only teachers’ contract in the state which has a pupil weighting system that increases the number of teachers by requiring class size to be reduced.  This provision alone costs Warwick taxpayers $11 million more a year (Warwick Beacon 2/16/10).  Second, Warwick teachers pay a de minis co-share for health care of $11 per week (Warwick Beacon 2/16/10).

Back in 1994, the Warwick School Committee was fighting “to do away with the pupil weighting system that is used to reduce class size” (ProJo 5/3/94), and was trying to get teachers to “pay up to 20 percent of their health insurance” (ProJo 5/4/94).  Instead, then Mayor Chafee decided to circumvent the Warwick School Committee and agreed with the Warwick Teachers Union to give teachers a 19.4 % pay raise with no health insurance premium co-share while keeping the pupil weighting system in their contract (ProJo 5/3/94).  Although the Providence Journal described this sweetheart deal as "the biggest achievement of his early tenure in City Hall," (ProJo 10/10/2000), a former Warwick School Committee Chairperson was quoted at the time as saying “the city taxpayers could not have done any worse” and that “[e]ven a monkey can manage to give everything away.”  (ProJo 5/3/94 and 5/4/94).  By comparison, a few months later in that same year, the Cranston School Committee was able to negotiate a teachers’ contract which required new teachers to pay 20 percent of their health insurance premium and did not adopt Warwick’s pupil weighting system (ProJo 8/31/94).  

While Warwick taxpayers continue to shoulder the burden of paying more for the schools than similar communities like Cranston, Chafee went on to cash in on his sweetheart deal with the Warwick Teachers Union.  The Providence Journal reported that “[i]t is no coincidence that the mayor raised money from various teachers unions across the state in September, within weeks of his settling the contract with the Warwick Teachers Union.  The American Federation of Teachers, the parent of the local group, sent a note to other member unions in the state, saying Chafee helped the union with a good contract and suggesting the favor be returned.”  (ProJo 1/6/95, emphasis ours.)  Chafee continues to receive PAC contributions from teachers’ unions (Chafee Finance Reports 2^nd and 4^th quarter 2009).