How Mayor Bill Foster Will Raise Taxes Without It Being "His Idea"

Candidate Bill Foster campaigned for Mayor on his "no new taxes" and "lowering the tax rate" voting record while he was a city councilman, and he has consistently said he wouldn't raise taxes(keep in mind that in his opinion "fees" aren't "taxes", since Mayor Foster hasn't met a new or raised fee that he didn't like). But now it seems like he may be executing an elaborate plan to make a property tax rate increase almost inevitable. So how is he doing it?

The first step is to get his good friend and ally, Councilman James "Jim" Kennedy, to take one for the team by suggesting a property tax rate increase, that way it's not Foster's idea, and he can place the blame squarely on City Council and keep his "no new taxes" image clean(at least in his own mind) for his re-election campaign next year. Now why would Kennedy do this? Because he is Foster's buddy, he eats breakfast with him regularly, has private meetings with him frequently, appears at local functions and meetings with Foster all the time, almost always votes for what Foster wants in City Council, and even pitches Foster's ideas to council. That very close relationship gives Kennedy the inside track to what is going on with the city, as well as a leg up on the other city council members for his pet projects. And just maybe, 5 years from now, Foster may pay Kennedy back by campaigning hard for Mayoral Candidate Jim Kennedy.

The second step is to give a low-ball estimate of the budget deficit early on, then raise it, then raise it again, then hint that it may be even higher(Thanks to Doc Webb over on SaintPetersBlog for the in-depth account of this one). If the anticipated budget shortfall for 2013 has changed 3 times in less than 2 months (ending up more than double it's original estimate) then someone wasn't doing their job very well, or someone knew exactly what they were doing. As Doc Webb puts it, "Foster is teeing up, serving or pitching – pick your metaphor – the high end number to set up the City Council for a property tax increase".

The third step is to not stand in the way of City Council in deciding to raise taxes, or even to guide it from behind the scenes, through his top administrators suggesting a tax rate increase as a good idea, and offer options in the proposed budget for raising the property tax rate, and give no threat of a veto anywhere along on the process. While far from being a true "no new taxes" Mayor, it allows Bill Foster to keep his hands clean by not openly advocating for raising taxes, while getting what he wanted all along in a higher property tax rate to work with.

So what happens after he gets his property tax rate increase? Will it solve all of St Petersburg's short term financial problems? Probably not, after all Mayor Bill Foster isn't really that good at math. After being questioned on his inaccurate budget claims while running for Mayor he said "I could be wrong. I went to school to be a lawyer, not a mathematician." Just what you want to hear from the man in charge of our city's $199 million budget, especially now that the position of Budget Director is empty again.