To the editor:

After reading a recent article in the Journal-World, I agree that senior citizens are being thrown to the wolves. Why? Because city taxes and school taxes are getting out of reach for senior citizens.

When senior citizens receive a small increase from Medicare, everything else increases as well. The increases on items are greater than our monthly increase from Medicare. What do we do to make up the difference? We draw from our savings and soon those savings are gone.

The city of Lawrence and school system need to live within their budget just like we must.

A few years ago, the school system bought a very nice expensive building at 101 McDonald Drive that is used for school board meetings. This purchase has nothing to do with educating our children or increasing teachers’ salaries.

South Junior High is not that old, but now we are building a new school because the design was not right – money unwisely spent again.

The city and school system need to take a hard look at where our tax dollars are being spent.

Some of our neighbor states have cut senior citizens’ taxes or frozen taxes on their homes when they reach retirement age regardless of their income.

The bottom line is, something needs to be done for senior citizens: freezing taxes or cutting the amount of taxes a retired person pays. By doing this, senior citizens could stay in their homes and wouldn’t have to sell their homes because taxes are too high.

Darlene Miller,

Lawrence