PROVIDENCE – Mayor David N. Cicilline has asked the General Assembly’s top Democrats to prevent Gov. Donald L. Carcieri from withholding $32.5 million in automobile excise tax revenue earmarked for cities and towns.
The proposal to use the tax payments to close the state’s budget shortfall rather than pass them on represents nearly half the money Carcieri plans to use in closing a $67.8 million hole in the 2010 state budget. The proposal would require approval from the Legislature, which directed the governor to find the additional money when it passed the budget in June.
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Carcieri said he was motivated to withhold the excise payments partly as a means of forcing local government into cost-cutting measures such as regionalization and consolidation. “We cannot continue to funnel money to cities and towns without their participation in the state’s budget conversation,” the governor said Monday.
In a letter Cicilline sent to lawmakers earlier this week, he said Carcieri’s proposal would “impose an additional financial burden on Rhode Island families.” The lost revenue would create a nearly $6 million shortfall in Providence’s $618 million municipal budget for 2009-10, according to the mayor.
“This is the latest and most egregious example of the governor’s effort to shift the costs of state government to local property taxpayers of our cities and towns,” Cicilline wrote. He added: “Local governments rely on the promises made in the state budget in planning and adopting their own budgets.”
Cicilline noted that the state has cut other sources of funding to the city in recent years, including eliminating general revenue sharing, which peaked at $15.54 million in fiscal 2007, and reducing state payments in lieu of taxes by $5.17 million. The mayor also emphasized that the city government has taken steps to control costs, including negotiating union concessions and cutting jobs.
Cicilline did not say what he would do if the automobile excise payments are not transferred to the city.
