Taxes
Covering topics such as bonds, cryptocurrency, federal aid and pensions.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office details the ways that recent changes have diminished FEMA capacity. Local officials responsible for response and recovery want to be part of the conversation about what comes next.
State laws and local practices vary widely, so the impact on budgets will defy generalizations. But it’s unlikely that rising revenues will uniformly cover impending growth in municipal costs.
Total aid ranges from about 5 percent to more than 20 percent of annual spending.
Fontana City Manager Ken Hunt was the highest paid city manager in California in 2020. He earned $932,623 by resigning to retire. The high pay has raised eyebrows among taxpayer advocates.
New Jersey’s $46.4 billion budget will allocate some funds towards public pensions, tax deductions for college aid and small property tax relief payments. Republican lawmakers worry the increased spending will result in future cutbacks.
The city of Refuge has received funding from the U.S. Department of Labor to train 280 high school graduates in web development and cybersecurity for free over the next four years. The program will target marginalized communities.
State, local and county governments officials testified that they need continually renewed, flexible funding to fend off increasing cyber threats during a U.S. Senate hearing earlier this month.
The California city received $35 million to assist with rental relief during the pandemic, but as of June 7, had only allocated 7 percent of the funds. Advocates are questioning why it’s taking so long to distribute the assistance.
The city has approved a two-year budget that will cut millions from the police department budget and reallocate the money to fund violence prevention programs and other social services.
Officials remain in the planning phase on how to spend the rest of the county’s American Rescue Plan funds. Residents have advocated investing in education, broadband, minority investment and infrastructure.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has decided to end the federal unemployment benefits program more than five weeks early to encourage hiring. The state’s jobless pay is $275 per week, or $6.87 per hour, one of the lowest rates in the country.
Based on the city’s low cost of living, an increase in minimum wage would benefit residents more than in other major cities. Currently, the baseline living wage in the city is 16.6 percent below the proposed $15-an-hour wage.
As the coronavirus pandemic forced Americans outside, states are now investing some of their federal aid in updating park infrastructure to keep up with the record crowds.
Billions in federal aid give state and local governments the opportunity to leverage evidence-based approaches to help disproportionately impacted communities and address long-term systemic challenges.
A bipartisan group of senators proposed the gas tax should be indexed to inflation to help pay for new infrastructure spending, an approach Biden calls ‘regressive.’
Some New York legislators have proposed using federal infrastructure funds to revive the city’s streetcars, providing a nostalgic alternative to the bus. But transit advocates think the money should be used elsewhere.
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