Title
Supporting fair, direct federal emergency support to reopen and build local American economies.
Body
WHEREAS, America’s cities, towns and villages face unprecedented threats due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic emergency, and will experience budgetary shortfalls of up $134 billion in fiscal year 2020 alone; and
WHEREAS, the negative effects of the pandemic emergency on local communities’ budgets will continue long after this year; and
WHEREAS, three million critical municipal worker jobs are at risk, threatening cuts to basic community services, including 9-1-1 response, sanitation, inspections, and road maintenance; and
WHEREAS, communities have taken extraordinary measures to protect health, safety, and the continuation of essential services throughout the emergency; and
WHEREAS, the City of Saint Paul has implemented several programs and policy initiatives to help our residents and businesses cope with the realities of the COVID-19 virus:
• Created multilingual phone lines with translators who are providing casework-type service for residents who speak Hmong, Somali, Oromo, Karen, and Spanish.
• Passed the Saint Paul Bridge Fund, which provides grants to families and small businesses who need emergency relief.
• Committed to cover our first responders through workers’ compensation if exposed to COVID-19 while on duty.
• Collaborated with Ramsey County to ensure our residents experiencing homelessness can access services, food and health care.
• Partnered with Saint Paul Public Schools rapidly mobilize to ensure that our school children could continue to access the meal service many of our families depend on. This has amounted to 150,000 meals per week. Changes to preparation and distribution were required in order to safely provide meals and those changes increased costs above the per meal reimbursement.
• Reduced a variety of fines and fees for businesses and residents, and have suspended all dunning and collection processes through June.
• Initiated community and culturally-specific roundtable discussions to better understand the impact on our diverse residents and to receive feedback on how to better respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the City of Saint Paul calls on Congress to allocate fair and direct federal support to all of America’s communities, regardless of population size; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this funding must be flexible and address not only the additional expenses incurred by communities to respond to the pandemic emergency, but also the dramatic budgetary shortfalls resulting from pauses in commerce, tourism, other economic engines; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that local governments will ensure federal funds are immediately used to rebuild and reopen the national economy, as well as to keep critical services operating.