The city of Arlington’s Mayor Jeff Williams called for more funding to be directly allocated to local governments and not the state in response to the Senate Republican’s coronavirus relief bill proposal that was drafted on Monday.
The so-called ‘Heals Act’ would roughly allocate $1 trillion dollars to various sectors, but includes no aid for local governments. At a press conference on Tuesday, Mayor Williams along with other city mayors across the U.S. voiced their concerns that the federal relief package falls short of providing enough money for local governments.
“After the pandemic hit, according to projections, we saw $20 million lost here in our community in just a few months,” Williams said. “We need Congress to not leave cities behind.”
Mayors from the cities of Dayton, Ohio; Savannah, Georgia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania all agreed that the economic downturn brought by COVID-19 is hurting local government and businesses extra hard.
Williams said his city did not receive money from the CARES Act, the coronavirus relief bill that was approved in March. He does not want to be forgotten, again.
“We’ve seen the dollars come to the state but even when that came in previous care act it was intended for emergency and medical services. The numbers were not factors in there to help us rebuild the economy,” Williams said.
Money distributed to the state does not always make it to all cities. And when it does, Williams pointed out it can only be used for certain services.
“We can’t count on states to save us,” Williams said.
He thinks giving relief money directly to cities and not to the states would lead to a quicker economic recovery.
At the press conference, which was organized by the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Dayton, Ohio Mayor Nan Whaley agreed with Williams. Whaley also made note that the coalition of mayors have the support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“Most of the experts across the country including the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas believe it is going to cost us more if Congress does not come forward with assistance to our cities,” said Williams.
He said he’s been talking with experts directly about what next steps he can take if Congress chooses to not address cities.
“The importance of cities to the economy. We truly are a major economic engine of our nation,” he said.
Recently, Williams along with nearly 100 other Texas mayors wrote a letterto the state’s Congressional delegation addressing the need for direct federal aid to local governments.
Senate Republicans are expected to kick off negotiations with congressional Democrats later this week. Williams hopes this will not become a party issue.
“This virus knows no boundaries. It is not a Democratic or republican issue. It is hurting red states and blue states and that is why you have mayors in both parties and every state who are pleading with congress to provide the aid we need,” he said.
Got a tip? Alejandra Martinez is a Report For America corps member and writes about the economic impact of COVID-19 on marginalized communities for KERA News. Email Alejandra at amartinez@kera.org. You can follow her on Twitter @_martinez_ale.
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