Andrea Macko for Porcupine Soup updates WGXC's story about how the Town of Cairo's major tax error goes back at least two years, and maybe more. For the past two years at least Cairo town officials have announced a tiny tax increase, when a much larger tax increase was actually charged. In December, Cairo voted for a 0.51 percent tax increase, but taxpayers are actually paying 7.5 percent, an error of around $300,000. The year before voters were told about a 1.8 percent increase, but actually paid a 4.5 increase. Now the town needs to cut the budget to reflect the smaller tax numbers they announced to the public. So far the town has violated the state's tax cap, and broke the law again by retroactively voting to allow the town of Cairo to exceed the tax cap. Certain planned projects and town board raises are the first cuts the town will make to its budget, but how much gets cut will depend on how many years the town made similar errors. At the Jan. 9 town meeting Cairo Town Supervisor Jason Watts said, “I didn’t catch this, I’m sorry. It’s not one of my good points,” but he did not resign. Nor did he fire the bookkeeper, and he said, “She took on a set of books and didn’t get trained at all. She is catching on now and everybody makes mistakes... Only this mistake was huge.” Read more about this story in Porcupine Soup.