{"id":88829,"date":"2020-05-02T06:18:09","date_gmt":"2020-05-02T12:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-much-economic-relief-do-sw-colorado-towns-need-to-pull-through\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T10:26:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:26:55","slug":"how-much-economic-relief-do-sw-colorado-towns-need-to-pull-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-much-economic-relief-do-sw-colorado-towns-need-to-pull-through\/","title":{"rendered":"How much economic relief do SW Colorado towns need to pull through?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Local
Local municipalities, including Durango, Bayfield and Ignacio, are bracing for steep revenue shortfalls as a result of the global pandemic, but they are hopeful federal stimulus funds will help offset some of those losses.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Another trillion-dollar safety net is in the pipeline in Washington, D.C., as lawmakers debate an economic package that would provide funding for states and towns in the wake of severe losses in sales tax revenue.<\/p>\n

The National Governors Association and the Colorado congressional delegation has requested $500 billion from the new bill to boost budgets for state and local governments, but Congress has not yet proposed a specific amount.<\/p>\n

The package also faces challenges with timing. The U.S. Senate will reconvene Monday, but the U.S. House announced it will not return next week to Washington, where the number of COVID-19 cases is growing. Without a remote voting system in place for lawmakers, they won\u2019t be able to pass a new economic relief bill until they can congregate in the Capitol.<\/p>\n

For towns in Southwest Colorado, there is no time to spare.<\/p>\n

Durango is projecting a 30% overall decline in sales tax revenue because of COVID-19, a reduction that exceeds the Great Recession, said Devon Schmidt, the acting finance director of Durango. The city currently relies on sales tax revenue for 60% of its overall budget.<\/p>\n

The exact cost of the revenue loss remains unknown, but Durango\u2019s interim City Manager Amber Blake said Tuesday some of the scenarios the city is preparing for are situations \u201cnone of us could have imagined before our new reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the damage from the 416 Fire, Durango\u2019s economy experienced a \u201cV-shaped recovery,\u201d Blake said. Revenue dropped, but the economy quickly recovered back to where it was previously. However, Blake and Schmidt are not expecting a similar recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic<\/p>\n

\"Bennet\"
Bennet<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., has stressed the importance of direct federal funding for local governments like Durango, which are planning their budgets and steps for recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cFull flexibility is critically important for local counties and for the state,\u201d especially regarding revenue replacement at the local level, Bennet said in a phone interview with The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo restrict federal funding to just COVID-19 response is unreasonable,\u201d Bennet said.<\/p>\n

Small communities like those in La Plata County are not eligible for the funding set aside for states and cities in a previous COVID-19-related bill, the CARES Act.<\/p>\n

To offset some of the impact, Durango has deferred noncritical projects like remodeling the police station, and will furlough city employees not critical to the safety of residents for one day per week, starting in early May.<\/p>\n

Mark Garcia, Ignacio\u2019s interim town manager, said supplemental income revenue would be helpful for the town, which has managed to maintain all of its employees so far.<\/p>\n

However, \u201cJune is when we will start seeing what those impacts are,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n

Ignacio is deferring capital projects and other expenses that aren\u2019t necessary, such as purchasing new police vehicles.<\/p>\n

However, the town is still moving ahead with implementing a street signal at the intersection of Becker Street and Goddard Avenue.<\/p>\n

Bayfield\u2019s Town Manager Katie Sickles is waiting on more information from the state of Colorado to determine the exact toll COVID-19 will have on the town\u2019s budget, which won\u2019t be finalized until mid-May or June.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still a lot of unknowns,\u201d Sickles said.<\/p>\n

Emily Hayes is a graduate student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Durango Herald.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Municipal officials project 30% decline in revenue this year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-88829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88829"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88842,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88829\/revisions\/88842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88829"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=88829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}