Palm Springs and other Southern California mayors are asking state and federal governments for additional coins from municipalities for coronavirus-like spending, denouncing a new investment circular that favors California’s major cities.
A $500 million portion of the Federal Care Act that flowed into California cities divided into the state budget for fiscal year 2020-2021, which took effect this month. The coins are meant to be used to respond to the coronavirus, and state officials pressure local governments to prioritize opposing combat to the homeless.
Most cities received about $12 per resident. But seven cities with populations between 300,000 and 500,000 — including Riverside — received about $85 per resident.
Members of the Palm Springs City Council sent a letter this week to Governor Gavin Newsom (D), U.S. Representative Raúl Ruiz, D-Palm Desert and others denouncing the discrepancy and advocating for aid for the purposes of cities.
“For example, the City of Riveraspect has about seven times more than full-time Apple residents like Palm Springs, but Riveraspect earned 50 times more investment ($600,000 compared to $28,000,000),” the letter reads.
Palm Springs, a tourism-driven economy whose major currency source resources come from hotel beds and sales taxes, has seen its budget crushed through the coronavirus pandemic. He had to compensate for a $47 million deficit in his recent recent budget by reducing workers, freezing open positions and exploiting reserves.
Palm Springs Mayor Geoff Kors said it’s “deeply shocking” to see a handful of towns become more consistent with the capital than small towns, which house 72 percent of the state’s 40 million residents.
“Mabig apple villages are suffering,” he said. “We have almaximum twice the coin projected on COVID-1nine losses like riverside City.”
Ruiz, in reaction to the letter, said in a message to Desert Sun that the scenario underscored the will of the HEROES act. The $3 trillion aid program disappeared through the Democrat-led House of Representatives in May and stalled in the Republican-ruled U.S. Senate, where negotiations continue at one point in the economic bailout project.
“The CARES Act has brought wonderful relief to our businesses, our families, the uns hired and our county,” Ruiz said. “However, the economic influence of this pandemic requires more assistance, especially friends with cities with a population of less than 500,000.”
CareS distributed $150 billidirectly to local governments in the overall distribution of $2.2 billion. This coronavirus relief fund may also cover COVID-19-like expenses for cities and counties, adding medical centers or financial support, or staff time for coronavirus responses.
But the coins are not slightly distributed.
The governments of cities and counties with more than 1000000 component citizens have been cut directly from the government. In California, $9.5 billion was distributed to 21 local governments. Most of those disbursements were approximately $17 five consistent with capital.
With a population of approximately 2.4 million, Riveraspect County earned approximately $431 million for COVID-1 expenses. So far, he has used the coins for a $33 million fund and a $55 million small business fund.
Other Southern California governments cut directly with the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, as well as San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Ventura, Odiversity, and San Diego counties.
But anything else from local governments with less than five billion people earned its steady percentage of the state. California earned $5.5 billion for this allowance. A $22 million jackpot distributed among seven cities with a population of 300,000 to 5,000,000. These cities, Anaheim, Bakersfield, Long Beach, Oakland, Riverside, Santa Ana and Stockton, earned about $8, in line with the capital.
Other California cities shared the remaining $27 million, with a guaranteed base payment of $5,000. The budget for the best friend ends up being about $12 consistent with the resident.
According to the state Department of Finance, individual awards in the cities of Coachellos Angeles Valley ranged from $66712 for Indian Wells (with a population of just over 5,000) to approximately $1.1 million for Indio (with a population of about 90,000):
The Letter from The City Council of Palm Springs said that the allocation of the budget was unfair considering that some cities lost additional coins than others the pandemic.
“It should be noted that Palm Springs’ projected loss of $47,000,000 is a double Loss of Riveraspect’s $28,000,000,” the letter reads. “However, Riveraspect receives $28,000,000 and Palm Springs receives only $600,000. From the point of view of the provision of public services, this is manifestly unfair and a bad policy of the state.
Although the budget is also used for COVID-1nine responses, they cannot be used to fill a deficit, based on data from the State Finance Minischeck describing the uses.
When asked about investment disparities between cities, H.D. Palmer, deputy director of the state’s finance branch, said the goal was to support the fight against homelessness during the pandemic. He noted a state budget document valuing cities “encouraging those budgets to prioritize the efforts of counties and Continuums of Care to address the influence of COVID-1’s nine pandemic on the homeless.”
Palmer said cities can also find the best friend to end up spending CARES dollars on purposes such as doctors and supplies, check and hand washing stations, shelter operations, and innovations in existing shelters to allow for greater physical distance.
He said it was not for the state to give coins to the 13 largest cities to combat homelessness, and pointed to systems beyond that also revel in specific aided cities with more than 300,000 residents.
“In proposing these allocations, the goal is to produce investments in cities to cope with the influence of the COVID-1 pandemic on the homeless,” Palmer said. “As such, the technique reflects the villages with a population of between 300,000 and 500,000, since these peoples have a variety of homeless people.”
According to a one-time January 2020 count, Riveraspect County had about 2,800 homeless people. Palm Springs had 18 people, while the city of Riveraspect had more than 587. Kors said that if the opposite fight against homelessness was the basis of funding, the subsidies had been based on single cases.
Long Beach, with a population of about 460,000 people, received $40 million in CARES Act funding plus another $13 million from Los Angeles County. The city has a multi-pronged plan for its COVID response, including $20 million for COVID-19 testing, $2 million on emergency and transitional shelters, and $3.6 million for help to small businesses, according to a Facebook post from Mayor Robert Garcia.
Beyond the investment of the CARES Act, the state budget has no other investment flows that go directly to cities with COVID-1nine expenses.
Palmer said there has been $1.8 billion in the CARES budget and $750 million in overall investment for the counties. These coins could well be sent to cities at their discretion, “however, we do not know whether to take position and how much.”
The disparity in investment under careS led Kors to worry about the California Mayors Coalition.
The newly formed organization includes several dozen mayors from small California towns who are asking for $1 billion in more coronavirus assistance as Congress negotiates an imaginable moment of circular funding, as well as other measures that would help their finances, such as a sales tax postponement.
“Leaving yourself in the hands of the generosity of county governments penalizes the millions of citizens (of California) living in our communities,” the coalition said on its website. “The state deserves to enroll in (California) cities to advocate for capital-consistent financing. One or any city with fewer than 500,000 Americans in California.”
No other mayor in the valley is the group’s official best friend, their website.
But Coachella Mayor Steve Hernandez, whose city received about the same amount as Palm Springs and has a comparably sized population, said there is a need for more funding for cities.
“The more resources other Americans have, the greater the ability to meet needs,” he said. “We know the need.”
Coachellos Angeles somehow has a smaller deficit than Palm Springs; Hernandez said he is looking for a deficit of about $500,000 this fiscal year as the city’s tax revenues do not have tourism.
Hernandez wants to see the city expand more systems for explicit populations, such as survivors of domestic violence, artists, drug addicts or youth. These group stations have been suffering from COVID-1nine but do not get any reaction with an explicit county or state program, Hernandez said.
“What we’d like to do is fill some of the play stations that the county hasn’t filled,” he said.
Mark Scott, the city of Indio administrator, said the city had few expenses that would qualify for its $1.1 million CARES investment percentage to support its residents.
The first use can be to refund the fees in a position that is spent across the city, and then see if there are large apple systems applicable with COVID-1nine, as the assistance said.
The city in the Eastern Valley, which houses staff from a large block and a predominantly Latin American population, has been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Indian has an infection rate of approximately 26 times consistent with 1,000 inhabitants, while the county has a rate of approximately 13 times consistent with 1,000 inhabitants.
Scott said the biggest occurrence is due to the diversity of an essential staff and others who have returned to paintings in reopened spaces.
But he said more system or policy changes would be needed.
“We’re going to have to support other Americans through this,” Scott said. “They’ve invested millions of bills in some of those programs, but that just scratches the surface. I don’t blame them for their efforts, but I prefer more support than that.”
Assembly member Eduardo Garcia, a Democrat whose district covers quantities of Coachellos Angeles Valley and Imperial County, said he is pushing for more investment in the upcoming federal pandemic aid circular. He told cities $500 a design of Governor Gavin Newsom’s original proposal.
“As our communities face unprecedented challenges, I will continue to advocate for regions like ours that revel in the strongest blow through COVID-1nine to gain additional attention by providing relief investments to their economic and public aptitude impacts,” he said in a statement. in the desert sun
Assembly member Chad Mayes, an independent representing amounts of the Valley of Coachellos Angels, in addition to h8 desert areas, adding up yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms, said he believes the investment disparity is a demonstration of “ridiculous.” He added that the purposes of big cities also dominate conversations in Sacramento.
“Larger cities have more members and because they have more members, they get a higher percentage of the allocation,” he said.
He said he would love to see a larger friend see an additional consultation or more opportunities for the legislature to give his opinion on public fitness and economic responses to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are trying to force us to make fun of being able to declare ourselves part of our constituents,” Mayes said, “so that everyone has their fair share.”
Nicolas Romo, a legislative representative for the California City League, said cities were wasting a total of $7 billion in coins projected for this fiscal year. The league is calling on the state to produce more investment in the cities to make up for this, Romo said, so that cities cut off public services.
“Local governments that cannot employ civilian labour s stall and prolong the era of economic recovery,” Romo said. “We see this preference as a concern for the state as it reinvents its budget as it reviews it.”
Romo said the hardest-hit cities are those in a position in a severe fiscal scenario before the pandemic, such as Palm Springs that have dollars for tourism.
As of mid-July, all cities eligible for the CARES Act money from the state had applied and were certified, paving the way for the funds to be disbursed, Romo said.
“Help is on the way,” he says. “In all likelihood, it would not be enough, and it would take much more. Both in the reaction to COVID-19 … as in the reaction to economic recovery.”
Melissa Daniels covers local issues, hospitality and economic progress at Coachellos Angeles Valley. Contact us at (760) -567-8458, [email protected], or on Twitter @melissamdaniels.