Webinar: Making Necessary Budget Cuts with an Eye to Equity and Resilience

As the COVID-19 crisis has significantly slowed economic movement in most of the United States, cities across the country are bracing for major fiscal shortfalls. Additionally, city leaders must confront the high level of uncertainty over what course the coronavirus pandemic will take and for how long. In light of these factors, municipal budget cuts are all but inevitable. The situation is especially difficult for legacy cities, which were either already struggling economically or whose economies had just turned the corner.

And while making budget cuts is never easy, they can be particularly fraught during a crisis. The cuts that may be easiest to make for municipal government leaders may end up disproportionately impacting the city’s most vulnerable residents – or may make it more difficult for the city to start rebuilding when the crisis has passed. This webinar provides local leaders with tools to avoid falling into those traps by highlighting established best practices and exploring community engagement strategies for identifying resident budget priorities.

With these tools in hand, legacy city leaders will be able to make necessary cuts to their budgets in such a way that they will be well-positioned to continue their revitalization agendas that were interrupted by the pandemic. They will also build resident buy-in and trust as they utilize community engagement to make sure budget cuts are made in a way that residents find the least harmful.

This webinar is presented by the Legacy Cities Initiative at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Speakers

Shayne Kavanagh, Senior Manager of Research, Government Finance Officers Association

Mary Bunting, City Manager, City of Hampton, Virginia