The St. Louis-based Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative said budgets of local governments along the river have been stretched to the limit fighting the COVID-19 pandemic while revenues for 10 cities along the Mississippi River have fallen 10 % to 30% this year.
“显然，FEMA将取代我们在防止新颖的冠状病毒传播时必须处理的一些费用，但是以营业新利18备用官网登录税或酒店汽车旅馆税路的形式缺乏对城市的收入，使用税在我们的联邦政府的一些限制中，城市依靠来平衡预算的事情中，这只是消失的，”贝滕多夫，爱荷华州市长鲍勃·加拉格尔（Bob Gallagher）和MRCTI的联合主席鲍勃·加拉格尔（Bob Gallagher）说。
If expenses continue to outpace revenue, mayors of the 97 cities along the river will have to make tough decisions, including whether to keep first responders, he says. A large percentage of Bettendorf's budget is paid by property taxes, which haven't changed, Gallagher says. Bettendorf's revenues are down 8% to 10% right now, a loss of about $2 million.
密西西比州维克斯堡市长乔治·弗拉格斯（George Flaggs）表示，营业税和旅游收入的损失对他的城市预算的影响远大于此。
"I have a budget of $30 million, which is nothing compared to a lot of other cities, but we're about to lose about $3.2 million in tourism revenue for this quarter because of the decline in hotel space and the lack of visitors," Flaggs said. "We have a national military park here (a historic Civil War battlefield), and it normally averages a half-million visitors a year, [but] is down to less than 100,000 people this year because of the virus. Sixteen percent of our budget comes from casino revenue."
加拉格尔说，市长认为他们不会由联邦政府整理，但是他们需要一些东西来减轻打击，停止裁员，并确保包括关键基础设施项目在内的城市服务继续不间断。新利18备用网址
