From Peirce’s column on Citiwire.net:
Cities’ revenues will plunge sharply as property taxes, in their first year of recession-impacted reassessments, get set to decline deeply in 2011. Local government fiscal shortfalls may total $83 billion, which the League of Cities estimates may force up to 500,000 staff reductions. Basic city services will shrink. Infrastructure projects will get cancelled or postponed.
These are hard times for America’s local governments. Economists may declare the Great Recession is “over,” but localities see a different picture. The federal stimulus monies that helped so many of them balance their budgets runs out December 31. So does Washington’s two-year old “Build America” bond program, which has made local infrastructure borrowing more affordable.
State and municpal governments face nothing but hardship in the years ahead. It’s time for fundamental change, not the usual short-term 3%-budget-cuts-across-the-board belt tightening. If we fail to rise to the occasion, we face a future of entropy and decay.