Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons
As sales tax revenues plunged over the past few months, the City of Page was forced to lay off 14% of its municipal staff in April.
Page City Manager Darren Coldwell told local business leaders, city officials now expect sales tax revenues to drop about 33% due to COVID-19 shutdowns.
The layoffs, which affected 25 of the city’s 175 employees, eliminated everyone employed by the public works department, employees at Horseshoe Bend, all the summer recreation programs and the employees who work for the Page Public Library.
Robert Maxim, who is a research associate at the Brookings Institution said that cities that rely on sales taxes to function are starting to have economic shortcomings due to the lockdowns.
“A lot of cities, and especially those that rely on sales tax, are going to have huge budget holes blown in them, and so it’s going to be difficult for municipalities to respond [to the crisis] on their own,” Maxim told the Arizona Daily Sun. “That’s where, in my opinion, the federal government needs to be doing more for states and localities.”
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