Parish level leaders are calling for more federal funding as the National Association of Counties estimates budget losses due to COVID-19 are roughly $144 billion. Tangipahoa Parish President Robby Miller says spread mitigation efforts are eating away at the revenue they do have.
“Everything requires more people, small groups, you have to break them up more, everything takes longer, there is more cost involved because of PPE,” said Miller.
If they do not have the funds. Miller says the reduction in revenue from COVID-19 is making a bad situation worse in assisting in public health.
“Local government touches the people. We deal with every citizen, all of our healthcare, our public health units are demanding much more cost and time and effort,” said Miller.
Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson says sales tax collections are down a little bit, but much of the woes in his parish comes from COVID’s impact on the offshore oil and gas industry and the parish’s oil revenue.
“It helps us build roads and pump stations and levies and all the things that we need to protect our residents. In the month of June, that report came in and the check that we are going to receive is a whopping $27,000. That puts us about $150,000 to $160,000 off from where we should have been,” said Chaisson.
Chaisson says some estimates show nationally about 1.2 million local government workers have been furloughed or laid off and that can be even more damaging to the economy of a rural area.
“Investing in these counties means investing in public health and investing in our local economy. We are some of the largest employers in a lot cases,” said Chaisson.