St. Joseph Budget Impact COVID 19 (4-22-20)

St. Joseph Budget Impact COVID 19 (4-22-20)

Leaders got the not-so- surprising news today that the covid-19 economic shutdown will hit the budget hard.

With people staying at home, they aren't spending money and aren't paying sales taxes -- a big source of revenue for the city.

In fact, city numbers show sales tax revenue accounts for about 24% of the city's general income overall.

With the shutdown, city staff fear a 20-30% drop in that revenue city manager bruce woody says the lost revenue could impact the city's general services all across the board.

(woody) "...public safety and street maintenance."

Before the covid-19 pandemic hit, sales tax revenue was actually up by about 4 percent from last year, city council members will be looking at these numbers hard as they develop next year's budget which starts july