Two months ago, David Cicilline proposed a budget which wouldn't raise property taxes.  With the dire local and national economy, it seemed too good to be true.  Apparently, it was.  The mayor has released a revised budget which would raise property taxes by 2.6%.  As far as tax increases go, it is a small, but still troubling.

     The mayor said it was a difficult decision to make, and a "last resort," but that seems unlikely.  David Cicilline claims the increase was necessary to maintain essential city services.  It's hard to believe there wasn't anything that could be cut.  It also would have been nice if he apologized for wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire an auditor to investigate the bad check his brother passed to the city, along with his attempt to "brand" the city by paying a six-figure fee to an out-of-state company to come up with the name "The Creative Capital."

     The only thing that has changed between the two budgets was the elimination of state revenue sharing.  David Cicilline wants to make the loss of funds look like a surprise, but state legislators made it known that the funds would likely be lost.  The appropriate thing would have been to take a conservative approach and craft a budget that didn't take funds from revenue-sharing into account.  This would have minimized the possibility of a deficit, and would have actually left a slight chance of a surplus.  Of course, David Cicilline would rather use smoke and mirrors instead of common sense when working on the budget.

     David Cicilline will talk about the economy and mention how hard Providence has been hit by foreclosures.  What he doesn't mention is that he has raised property taxes several times since he has become mayor.  Each of these increases has raised the monthly burden for Providence property owners.  For many of these residents, it meant a foreclosure.  The next time you hear David Cicilline mention foreclosures, keep this in mind.