Grand Rapids City Manager, Mark Washington, says COVID-19 has forced the local economy to come to a halt creating a revenue shortfall for the city’s next fiscal year’s budget
“We may need to make reductions anywhere between $13 million to $23 million dollars in reduced revenue and expenditures.”
Washington says they are still figuring out exactly where the $5 to $10 million dollar loss in revenue is coming from, but he says a large proportion comes from lost income tax, parking revenue, golf course fees and commercial water customer payments.
“Particularly for larger manufacturers and plants, well those plants and businesses have closed down. So, we are losing revenue on our commercial water customers. “
This past Tuesday, City Commissioners gave Washington the authority to spend a half a million dollars without prior approval that he says will most likely be spent purchasing personal protective equipment like masks and face shields for city employees.
“We think that we need to try and make as much volumetric purchases as possible and its really easy to potentially make an order of $200,000 or $400,000 dollars of various types of these protective equipment.”
While Washington says layoffs or furloughs will depend on when the stay-at-home order is lifted, none are planned in the new budget. For now, he says a hiring freeze of non-essential staff has been implemented, but the city will continue hiring first responders.