It's getting so multi-million dollar cost increases on the city's many development projects are becoming an almost daily phenomenon.

For any taxpayer who is paying attention, the huge increases over original estimates is little short of alarming.

I'm no accountant, but it's difficult for me to see how the city and county, with finite funds, are going to pay for the vastly escalating costs. It's time for a detailed and public accounting.

Just look at recent happenings:

- The latest -- an emergency appropriation of $10 million by City Council -- from its emergency reserve fund to build the underpinings for a deck to go over Fort Washington Way. (The deck will cost an estimated $44 million down the road.) The city hopes the county and/or the state will chip in. But there are no promises. And County Commission President Bob Bedinghaus says while the county likes the idea, whether the county can afford it "is another question."

- The cost of Fort Washington Way, originally estimated at $100 million, has risen to about $280 million. That includes a considerable expansion of the scope of the work, but doesn't include the new deck.

- The Bengals' Paul Brown Stadium currently stands at $407 million and the Reds' stadium costs rose to more than $334 million this month -- well above their original estimates. Parking for the riverfront is another esimated $135 million. Then there's interest on the bonds to finance it all.

And speaking of bonds, Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes has raised the alarm already. He recently said the county has already obligated $52 million of its available $58 million in bonds -- leaving only about $6 million per year for the ballpark. No bonds, no money, no Reds stadium construction. There is some disagreement about this, but without Rhodes' certification of the bonds there won't be any.

Equally troubling is the report that if the county can't meet its obligations for the stadiums with its current share of the half-cent sales tax increase, commissioners will reduce or eliminate the property tax rollback. (County Commissioner John Dowlin, however, says that won't happen.)

- The city has gone back on its promise to use a major part of a 1989 income tax hike to repair streets. Only half the streets reported repaired were repaired; the money instead was spent on other road projects, with the result the city's streets are in worse condition now than they were 12 years ago when the tax was approved.

City Manager John Shirey said it's going to take years and "a lot more money" to bring streets up to standard. Voters were promised that if the tax money wasn't used for the purposes specified, the tax would be automatically repealed. It hasn't been.

Mayor Charlie Luken has it exactly right. The taxpayers, he said recently, were "hoodwinked. We have got a big problem of convincing the public we're not going to hoodwink them again."

Indeed. In fact, there is more. Among other things, there is the proposed $405 million expansion of the Albert Sabin Cincinnati Convention Center, with its grandiose plans for spanning I-75 with the new addition.

Neither the state nor the county is even considering joining in this financing any time soon. Luken has correctly called this pie in the sky and said it must be trimmed back. But even trimmed back, its going to cost plenty.

Then there is the ambitious riverfront plan. The Banks, a combination housing, shop, park and restaurant development on the central riverfront. Taxpayer investment is "guesstimated" at $196 million at the moment, with the private sector contributing $159 million. Then there is the courting of Nortdstrom's to put a new department store downtown. That won't come cheap.

Along with all this, the city manager has projected a $17 million city budget deficit by 2004. This despite a booming economy and tax revenues at an all time high.