LOC News
Federal Recovery Package Getting Closer
The National League of Cities (NLC) has made it their mission throughout the Coronavirus pandemic to advocate for additional federal resources for municipalities across the country. The LOC has partnered with NLC from the start and has shared the overall goals of finding additional support.
This week, the House Oversight and Reform Committee is “marking up” legislation that indeed includes significant assistance for the nation’s 19,000 cities, towns and villages. The state and local section of the legislation is very clear about delivering funds directly to cities of any size, so there is no minimum population trigger for receiving funds. The mechanism used for determining funding level is a modified version of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) formula. Without this modified approach, cities with a population less than 50,000 and counties less than 250,000 would not see any funds.
Thankfully, the persistence of the NLC is paying off. While there are still several steps to go to determine support and final funding, the markup will include the following:
- $350 billion in total for all municipalities, counties, states, tribes, and territories. Of that amount, $130 billion is set-aside for local governments, equally divided between municipalities and counties;
- The $65 billion for municipalities will be allocated to all 19,000 cities, towns, and villages according to a modified Community Development Block Grant formula. Under that formula:
- $45.5 billion will be split among all municipalities that are designated CDBG entitlement cities (generally cities with a population greater than 50,000)
- $19.5 billion will be split among cities not designated CDBG entitlement cities (generally cities with a population less than 50,000)
Of the remaining funds:
- $195 billion for states and the District of Columbia. Oregon would typically receive about 1.2% of the state distribution, which is roughly $2.5 billion;
- $20 billion for tribes; and
- $4.5 billion for territories.
Additional details:
- No deadline for spending down funds; and
- Eligible expenditures will include replacement of lost revenue.
Contact: Jim McCauley, Legislative Director - jmccauley@orcities.org
Last Updated 2/12/21