Scully

Thomas J. Scully, 60, of Beamis Avenue in Cumberland, is a Spanish and French teacher at Western Hills Middle School in Cranston.

The former owner of Scully Jewelers on Mendon Road, he spent 12 years on the Town Council and two on the School Committee. He ran unsuccessfully for the House District 45 seat in 2004 and 2006.

He says that, “As a School Committee member, then a Town Council member, I’ve had to live with the actions of the senators and state representatives.” “Few of them have the experience to see what happens to towns as a result of their actions, from the budget cuts to the unfunded mandates.”

The issues he intends to address if elected to the Senate are education, the state deficit and high taxes.

Addressing the deficit starts with cutting out spending on unnecessary administrative positions, he said. He pointed to the newly created job of Steven Kass as the communications director for the state Emergency Management Authority.

“You can’t spend as if you’re in the good times if you’re not in them,” he said.

Unless the state government addresses the state’s financial situation, he says, any attempt to improve education in the state will be hampered.

Scully says he would advocate for cutting certain state taxes in order to be more competitive with neighboring states and increasing state revenue by adding taxes that target those that can afford them.

For example, Massachusetts has a lower gas tax, which results in cheaper gas. Scully is also suggesting a tax on luxury boats and yachts. “If a guy can afford a big boat, then he can afford the tax on it,” he said.

As head of the council’s finance subcommittee in 2004, Scully authored a town ordinance capping the amount of money the town can raise each year from local taxes.

The ordinance limited the town to a 5.5-percent tax-rate increase in its first year and lowered that number by a half a percent each succeeding year until it reaches a limit of a 3 percent tax-rate increase next year.

Scully was born and raised in Central Falls, where he attended high school and graduated in 1965. He is a 1969 graduate of Providence College and a former staff sergeant in the Rhode Island Army National Guard.

He served as trustee of the Lincoln and Cumberland Boys & Girls Club and the Cumberland High School graduation party chairman. He lives with his wife, Donna, and has three daughters and six grandchildren.

pmarcelo@projo.com