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14% TAX HIKE!
The spin is On
Over three years our Providence Property Tax will have increased by 14% when the latest tax hike goes into effect, according to a ProJo article in today’s paper. The city council approved the budget, which included the tax hike, by a vote of 11 to 4 and must vote one more time, this coming Monday, for final approval. Watch this space for an update on that vote.
The four members who opposed the nearly 2% tax hike for this year were council President John J. Lombardi, Councilwoman Balbina A. Young, and Councilmen Joseph DeLuca and Miguel C. Luna.
The Mayor claims the tax hike will raise an additional 2.4 million dollars.
Hmmn, remember those huge pay raises the Mayor gave to Carol Grant and others in his administration a while back, all the while claiming that there will be no tax hike this year? Balbina Young had something to say about that. In her ProJo article in Friday’s paper, Cathleen F. Crowley quotes Councilwoman Young: “Councilwoman Young said she voted against the budget because of the tax increase and because some administrators were getting raises she didn't think they deserved.”
Hmmn, I wonder if any of that tax hike money will be used to get tough on crime and the criminals who prey on taxpayers.
"We've raised taxes for the last couple of years, but we are not giving anything back to the neighborhoods," Crowley quotes Councilman Luna, one of the 4 in opposition to the tax hike.
The Crowley article stated: “Mayor David N. Cicilline's administration said the tax increase, which would raise an additional $2.4 million, would allow the city to fully finance the School Department's $300-million budget.” But Crowley went on to quote Councilman Luna as saying: "It's like trying to inflate a tire that has a hole in it", “[but] Luna said the schools are draining too much from the city.”
In her article Crowley stated: “Councilman DeLuca said he voted against the budget because of the tax increase and because it included $600,000 to cover new positions. He also said the budget relied on revenue the city may not receive any time soon. For example, the budget includes $4.4 million in revenue from the sale of the Fogarty Building and the old police station, but there is no guarantee that those buildings will be sold in the coming year.”
“DeLuca estimated that the budget contained $20 million in "iffy" revenue.”
In one example of masterful spin control by Councilwoman Carol A. Romano , Crowley stated, then quoted Romano: “Councilwoman Carol A. Romano, like Cicilline, blamed the General Assembly for the tax increase. ‘The City of Providence did not raise taxes,’ Romano said. ‘It was the State of Rhode Island that forced us to raise these taxes because of the school funding they didn't give us.’
Spin it however, whatever, it still adds up to a 14% (fourteen percent) hike in our property taxes over the last three years.
Meanwhile, assaults and robberies on College Hill, home invasions, car break-ins, and drug dealing in Mt. Hope and shootings on the South Side and Smith Hill.
Will this tax hike help protect the taxpayers, the electorate, and the citizenry?
I hereby authorize this administration to use my property taxes to help fight crime and strengthen law enforcement.
John Twomey
Posted at July 22, 2005 12:26 PM