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Happy V-E Day! 75 years ago today, we achieved Victory in Europe in World War II. Your correspondent humbly recalls the inscription at the military cemetery at Normandy: “all we asked ... was enough soil in which to bury our gallant dead.”
Today’s email will provide you an update on the CARES Act distribution, sales tax data and projections, and potential 4th stimulus in Congress, offer resources on Utah Leads Together 2.0 (including an update on live events), promote May’s Director’s Message and next week’s town halls (Tuesday with the Lt. Governor, Thursday on best practices), request your participation in state boards and commissions, and feature creative connections in our communities.
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May Director’s Message
Unlike what cities are seeing in other states, Utah has seen strong respect and collaboration between the state and local governments. Watch the May Director’s Message for more details.
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COVID-19 Update for Local Leaders
Live Events Update
The Statewide Live Events Recovery Committee met on Thursday to discuss the current interpretations of Utah Leads, Phased Guidelines 4.1 (released Wednesday), as they relate to community events. While there may be hesitancy to plan for these events, conversations between event organizers are going in a positive direction. Venues are getting ready to open while a few are currently open. (Most are aiming for a July opening at the moment.) Below in this email, you can learn more about ULCT town hall next week about live events during the future yellow stage.
This week brought a new Governor’s order--appendix 4.0.1--in the orange phase of Utah Leads Together 2.0 and it included several ULCT recommendations from last week’s town hall.
You can also see links to other COVID resources--ranging from how to screen and test employees to how to manage swimming pools--in the resources and training section below.
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Sales Tax Data and Projections
On Monday’s town hall, Utah State Tax Commission Chair John Valentine announced that the commission would have March’s sales tax data available on May 11, nine days ahead of schedule. Commissioner Valentine adjusted staffing for this month in order to facilitate the early delivery of March sales tax data. Watch for it on Monday.
In the meantime, ULCT contracted with Econowest Associates to produce sales tax projections for 63 Utah cities and you can see that data HERE.
Legislative Advocacy
CARES Act Update
Today, Team ULCT and the Utah Association of Counties met with the chairs and vice chairs of the Executive Appropriations Committee about the allocation of the CARES Act dollars for local government. As a reminder, Congress allocated up to $562 million for local governments in Utah but the money is in three distinct pools. Congress allocated $245 million to the State of Utah and the legislature intends to distribute that money to counties and cities. The money can only be used for “necessary expenditures” and not for revenue replacement. Congress also allocated $203 million to Salt Lake County and $111 million to Utah County solely because their populations exceeded 500,000. We are striving to ensure that every city and town receives an allocation to address “necessary expenditures.”
The chairs raised concerns about the federal allocations to Salt Lake and Utah Counties and the equity in allocation between those two local governments, the cities therein, and the cities, towns, and counties in the rest of Utah. The chairs wanted to know more about the plans of Salt Lake and Utah Counties to use their allocations. We will resume negotiations on Monday with the goal of having consensus by Wednesday’s Executive Appropriations Committee. For more information, contact Wayne Bradshaw at wbradshaw@ulct.org or Cameron Diehl at cdiehl@ulct.org.
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4th Stimulus
Sen. Mitt Romney joined us on our Monday town hall to profile all of the moving pieces about a potential 4th stimulus package. You can watch the town hall HERE. In fact, the following day Sen. Romney advocated to the Republican caucus the need for more direct assistance to states and local governments in the 4th stimulus. You can read the story HERE.
Meanwhile, the National League of Cities and the Utah League of Cities and Towns are working together on an advocacy plan to articulate the need for the 4th stimulus and provide support to Utah’s congressional delegation. More details will come next week.
Other Legislative Advocacy
ULCT continues to work with legislators to address legal issues and anticipated revenue reductions caused by COVID-19. Legislative appropriations committees will meet through May. The legislature will likely call several special sessions over the summer to adjust the budget as revenue estimates solidify and to appropriate any additional federal funds. We will be watching closely as policymakers tackle significant declines in the motor fuel tax, allocation of the CARES Act funds, programs to promote economic development, and housing issues. For a review of the April special sessions, click on the summaries provided by the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel. Click tabs below for summaries of the 3rd and 4th special sessions.
Boards & Commissions
Under state law, the ULCT Board of Directors can nominate or appoint city officials to represent ULCT on various boards and commissions. ULCT has the ability to either directly appoint a representative or recommend someone to the Governor for him to select. Please submit your statement of interest form and a resume by Monday, May 11 at 5:00 p.m. to abolic@ulct.org. If you have any questions regarding the following boards, please contact Abby Bolic.
We are looking to fill ULCT seats on the following boards and commissions:
- Utah Outdoor Adventure Commission
COVID-19 Resources
The following are resources that may be valuable to you and your community during the pandemic:
EDA CARES Act Recovery Assistance Investments
The Economic Development Association just announced availability of $1.5 billion in CARES Act Funds to aid communities impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. EDA CARES Act Recovery Assistance investments will support a wide range of non-construction and construction activities, including Revolving Loan Funds, in regions across the country experiencing severe economic dislocations brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.
Examples of projects that EDA may fund through its CARES Act Recovery Assistance include economic recovery planning and preparing technical assistance strategies to address economic dislocations caused by the coronavirus pandemic, preparing or updating resiliency plans to respond to future pandemics, implementing entrepreneurial support programs to diversify economies, and constructing public works and facilities that will support economic recovery, including the deployment of broadband for purposes including supporting telehealth and remote learning for job skills.
For more information, visit the EDA CARES Act Recovery Assistance page.
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ULCT
Upcoming Events
We have two town hall events for local leaders planned for next week:
Tuesday at 4:00 pm, Lt. Governor Spencer Cox will join us. Please submit any questions about the state's management of the pandemic recovery by clicking here.
Thursday at 2:30 pm, a group of panelists will join us from a working group on live events. You'll hear ideas on how communities are modifying traditional events to properly maintain social distancing, as well as participate in the discussion about the timing for larger events throughout the summer and fall.
Watch for more information coming to your inbox next week.
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Spotlight-Creative Connections
Community leaders throughout our cities and towns are certainly coming up with creative ways to connect their residents. We want to share these ideas! For example, we learned that in Hurricane, residents are invited to "round up" on their utility bills to help pay the bills of those who can't afford it right now.
And it Nibley (pictured), the HOPstacle challenge brought out the clever side of many residents. Each Easter, a blue bunny typically leads residents through a "HOPstacle" course. Due to social distancing, this year the city adopted a "virtual" challenge. Families set up their own HOPstacle courses at home and recorded the challenge. Click the image to see one of the winning videos and get a good chuckle.
We want to share great ideas from your communities each week, so please shoot us an email if you have an example to share. (We love pics and videos!) Send your creative ideas to Susan at swood@ulct.org.
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