While we concur with many of the suggestions presented by Philadelphia-based Public Financial Management – the consultant that spent more than a year reviewing Providence’s finances – we urge Mayor David N. Cicilline to resist instituting a commuter or parking tax.
Mayor Cicilline faces a Herculean task in getting the city’s fiscal house in order. It was a mess when he took office just over a year ago. And so hiring PFM was a wise investment on the part of the mayor.
PFM – described by the mayor as his “financial SWAT team” – has come up with a wide range of about 150 suggestions for easing the city’s financial burdens. The vast majority of them are good ones.
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Suggestions include freezing wages, seeking employee contributions for health insurance and eliminating positions deemed redundant or unnecessary.
Other ideas would have the city charge homeowners and businesses a fee to use the sewer system and privatize the care of some city facilities, such as Roger Williams Park Zoo.
Those suggestions and many more have merit. But PFM – citing the existence of such a policy in cities such as New York and Pittsburgh – is also recommending that Providence institute a 5 percent parking tax at city parking garages.
There is an inherent flaw in such an idea.
That is, Providence already has a parking problem. The perception among Rhode Islanders is clear. Providence is a beautiful and improving city, but visiting it can be a pain due to a lack of public parking.
That perception is widely held by shoppers and businesspeople. Have you ever tried to find a parking space downtown to run a quick errand or attend a meeting?
As we have stated in the past, cities like New York and Boston can get away with parking problems more easily than Providence. In those larger cities, people accept the expense of parking as a cost of doing business. You would not expect to drive into Manhattan or Boston’s Financial District and find a place to park easily.
But Providence is different. Providence sells its convenience. It is an alternative to those larger, more congested cities. Providence needs more affordable public parking locations, not an added expense at those that now exist.
Daniel Baudouin, executive director of the Providence Foundation, points out that the owners of parking garages and parking lots already pay real estate taxes.
“We are trying to get garages constructed in the city and here we are asking people to pay a parking tax,” he said. “It isn’t good for economic development.”
Parking lot operators oppose the tax for good reason. It would force them, as small-business owners, to pass the added cost along to consumers. And that, in turn, would hurt business. If approved, a parking tax would mean that commuters to the city would be hit twice. The city is already planning to increase the fees charged at parking meters and to dramatically increase the number of meters throughout downtown.
Mayor Cicilline should simply thank PFM for the suggestion in this case, but tell them that Providence isn’t like a lot of cities. And a parking tax would not work here.
