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Locals blame state, but state points to federal restrictions

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Illinois

* From a Southern Illinoisan article entitled “Congress allocated money to help cities. Southern Illinois officials say restrictions make it hard to get”…

Across Illinois, many small cities and counties are facing a financial abyss caused by plummeting sales tax and other lost revenue related to pandemic shutdown orders.

They say no real relief is coming their way, despite the money Congress allocated to help state and local governments in the CARES Act. Of the roughly $3.5 billion sent to Illinois, the General Assembly carved out $200 million specifically for small cities and counties. […]

“And then, as the state, through DCEO, developed guidelines on what it could be used for, and the restrictions placed on it, essentially, are going to make most of that money inaccessible to us,” [Carbondale City Manager Gary Williams] said. […]

Under the reimbursement program, Carbondale is eligible for up to just more than $1 million — incidentally, about the same amount the city has lost in sales tax. But Williams said he projects only being able to draw down about 10% of that amount.

* I reached out to Mr. Williams to ask him to explain the ten percent number…

That’s actually not what I said during the interview, I told the reporter that it was doubtful that we use even 10% of our allocation which is a little over $1 million. I also told her that it was an estimate at best and we wouldn’t know for a while yet. The reason why we expect to use little of our allocation is that most of our expenses to date would have been for PPE which we received free from IEMA. To date, our total costs are a little under $30,000 which 75% is reimbursable through IEMA. We can recover the additional from CURE, which we’re grateful for, but like every other city I’ve talked to, we would prefer to use the funds for revenue losses which to date are over $1 million.

* And then I asked Jordan Abudayyeh at the governor’s office for comment…

NONE of the federal funding we’ve received can be used for revenue losses, at the state level or at the local level. It can only be used to cover additional costs that are related to COVID. There’s some talk at the federal level about relaxing the rules on it. Wouldn’t so much help the state because all of our federal money is allocated already.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Aug 28, 20 @ 1:58 pm

Comments

This is interesting because Jordan is correct and it is amazing the IL GOP empty suits did not run to Mitch McConnell to fix this when they all voted for most of the other COVID bills after the CARES ACT….betting Boss Toss could have demanded this in the post office bill.
This problem is not unique to IL either

Comment by Annonin' Friday, Aug 28, 20 @ 2:03 pm
While Mr. Williams and Ms. Abudayyeh are technically correct, there is sufficient flexibility in the CARES rules to allow for a variety of expenses to be covered, including personnel expenses, contract services, facility upgrades, etc. There should be a way for the state and locals to develop a program that meets the intent (if not the letter) of the CARES without bringing heat from the feds. However, the Governor’s decision to reject an earlier proposal from the IML to use the funds for business relief probably created hard feelings on both sides. Bury the hatchet and work it out.

Comment by OOO Friday, Aug 28, 20 @ 2:37 pm
Of the $150 billion total that was appropriated in the CARES Act for states/municipalities - and which was to be freed up a bit in terms of spending restrictions - fully 75% has already been spent or targeted by the various states.

Comment by dbk Friday, Aug 28, 20 @ 4:09 pm