COVID-19 has huge impact on Salt Lake Co.’s proposed 2021 budget

The COVID-19 pandemic will have a massive impact on the Salt Lake County budget for the coming year. Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson has released her budget proposal for the coming year, and it keeps in place many of the cuts the county has had to make since the pandemic began.

When the pandemic reached the county in the spring, every department in Salt Lake County made large cuts. Officials say the Community Services Department, the entity that includes recreation centers and arts and culture organizations, took the biggest hit. Those departments have been operating on “a shoestring budget,” according to financial analysts for the county. For example, most county youth sports have been delayed “until further notice.”

County officials said that $33 million was cut from county operations in 2020 and that only $6.4 million was restored in the 2021 budget. Overall, the 2021 budget has $26.5 million less than what was forecast for 2020.

“Our decision to make cuts across the county (when the pandemic hit) allowed us to protect critical services and set us up for a quick restart. Many of the cuts remain in this proposed budget,” Wilson said.

Since there were a lot of vacant positions in county government, officials didn’t have to make large rounds of layoffs like other counties had to. County Chief Financial Officer Darrin Casper said the majority of those unfilled positions are going to stay that way.

However, there is still a lot of uncertainty about county funding for next year, so Casper says they have no choice but to put themselves in a fiscally conservative stance. A large amount of federal funding won’t be around for 2021.

“This emergency is going to continue, yet the CARES Act funds expire on the 30th of December this year,” Casper said.

Despite the budget cuts and uncertainty, Casper said there are reasons to be optimistic. He said general sales tax revenue is up over 2 percent, even though restaurant tax revenues were down by 25 percent and transient room taxes dropped between 50 percent and 75 percent. Also, Casper said there was enough money to reopen the Granite and Daybreak libraries and the county is currently hiring employees for those facilities.