A leader of the U.S. Conference of Mayors had a blistering response to Utah Rep. John Curtis criticism of state and local governments for lobbying, though unsuccessfully, to be included in the pandemic relief package.
“He’s clearly out of touch and clueless,” Nan Whaley, the group’s vice president, said Tuesday of the former Provo mayor. “It’s embarrassing that he was ever a local government official, frankly, because he’s forgotten what the basis of local economies are.”
Whaley, mayor of Dayton, Ohio, made the comments on CNN Tuesday morning in response to a video clip of Curtis discussing the pressures Congress faces to give economic aid to states and cities during the pandemic. A number of cities and states, he said, are doing fine.
“Counties and states are taxing authorities. It surprised me a little bit that all of the pressure has been on Congress to move forward and incur debt that we don’t have, and states have the same taxing authority and I think in many ways it’s a mistake to look to one federal government to solve all the problems across the United States,” Curtis said on CNN. “This one-size-fits-all answer across the U.S. is very, very difficult to do.”
The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a statement Tuesday decrying Washington’s decision to leave cities out of the pandemic relief bill Congress passed Monday and argued it will cause essential workers to lose jobs and residents to lose services.
“Despite the clear evidence that shrinking revenue in cities across the country is leading to job loss and the reduction of critical services like public safety, Congress chose to turn its back on first responders, police, firefighters and other essential workers by failing to include direct fiscal assistance for all cities in its relief package,” the statement reads. “Congress has callously abandoned the very people who are the backbone of American cities and have served their communities on the frontlines with an indefatigable spirit for the last nine months.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that government employment trended down in November for the third month in a row. Employment in local government education continued to trend down by about 21,000, while noneducation jobs in local government increased by about 7,000.
Whaley also said that, unlike the federal government, local governments must have balanced budgets each year. Because of this, she said the federal government is the only entity that can take action, and their failure to do so means they “sincerely don’t get it.”
“They’re in their fancy places in Washington D.C., forgetting where the rubber meets the road, forgetting about the people providing the everyday lifesaving services in our communities and it’s just really a disappointment but not surprising unfortunately to mayors across the country,” Whaley said.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that state budget shortfalls due to the pandemic’s economic fallout will total a cumulative $555 billion over state fiscal years 2020-2022. To deal with this, many states have made and may have to continue to make budget cuts.
Utah, for example, slashed its budget earlier this year and had to turn to state reserves to keep the economy afloat.
A Tribune report on the impact of COVID-19 on Utah city budgets found that cities throughout the state were forced to make cuts due to revenue losses. Some cities, like Park City and St. George, were hit harder than others.
Ally Riding, Curtis’s communications director, said Curtis did not have any further comment about the issue but referred The Tribune to an op-ed the congressman wrote earlier this year.
“Provo, and Utah generally, planned ahead and will weather this pandemic far better. Utahns and people around the country know rainy-day funds are important for families and for businesses — governments should be no exception,” Curtis wrote in the op-ed. “A bailout would unfairly punish responsible cities. Utahns shouldn’t pay extra for [New York City Mayor] Bill de Blasio’s prodigal spending — neither should other cities and states.”
Cameron Diehl, executive director of the Utah League of Towns and Cities, said the league has lobbied for the interests of local governments throughout the pandemic.
“The League worked with members of Utah’s congressional delegation to ensure they understood the challenges that local governments have been facing throughout the COVID-19 crisis,” Diehl said. “While we are disappointed that Congress did not include additional state and local support in the COVID-19 relief package, we worked collaboratively with the State of Utah to ensure that local governments received the full 45% of the CARES Act allocation.”
The CARES Act stipulated that up to 45% of the funds allocated for state and local governments could — but did not have to — go to local governments. In Utah, the state decided that all 45% of the funds that could go to local governments should go there. Even so, some cities — like West Valley City, Utah’s second largest — complained they didn’t get a fair shake in the distribution from county officials.
But county and municipal governments in other states were even louder in their complaints, apparently for good reason. The National League of Cities reported that only 10% of the funds allocated for state and local governments went to local governments.