ORLANDO, Fla. — When Congress passed the "American Rescue Plan", it came with a $1.9 trillion price tag — and one promise.

That promise was that the relief package would help American families and local governments steady themselves and begin to bounce back.

For many, enduring the year-plus long pandemic is crippling to their health, households and finances.

Millions in Florida alone applied for unemployment system as they faced furloughs and layoffs.

Local governments, who were already in the middle of their budget years, were forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on critical supplies and overtime.

Increased budgets with declining revenues meant some governments had to strip services and staff.

More than 53,000 Floridians working for local governments were laid off, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Central Florida city and county leaders say they are counting on an influx of federal aid to help them cover budget shortfalls created by the pandemic and to steady themselves.

"Just one event after another"

Leesburg City Manager Al Minner described the pandemic as "the hurricane that never left".

“It’s been challenging, just one event after another,” Minner said.

Leesburg was not immune to the pressures of the pandemic. Like many downtowns, there were "closed" signs that sat in shuttered stores for some time.

“Our big concern was a big fall-off in state-shared revenues,” Minner said.

Minner said Leesburg survived the pandemic thanks in part to tightening the budget and a surge of federal aid.

By the time cash was funneled from D.C. to Tallahassee to Lake County and then to Leesburg, the city municipality received just shy of $2 million as part of the CARES Act program.

The city put that money to use, providing grants to small businesses and aid to families in need.

“We were wise in how we spent it, it was a pretty direct injection into the business community,” Minner said.

The idea at the time, Minner said, was to help stores stay open and for people to remain on the job. Building stability is what local governments would come to rely on.

It was a rapid task unfolding in cities and counties across Central Florida.

“Our first and foremost goal was to get that money into the hands of our community as quickly as possible,” said Don Walker, communications director for Brevard County. “You try not to let government red tape get in the way, you try to get the right people in place to get that money out as quickly as possible.”

CARES Act money came with many strings attached. Funding was limited and direct in how it could be spent, and local governments had to provide accounting for where the money went.

Like many local governments, Brevard County relied on dozens of employees who volunteered to work weekends and after hours to process applications for assistance. That work was beyond the employees’ regular scope of work, but overtime was paid for using CARES Act funding.

Similarly, Orange County temporarily reassigned nearly 200 convention center employees to other county divisions where they too processed assistance applications and filled holes left open by a hiring freeze. 

Brevard County’s share of CARES Act funding totaled nearly $105 million, going to small businesses and providing rental, mortgage and other assistance to families.

“Because we had a lot of small businesses hurting, we knew we had a lot of people hurting as well,” Walker said.

With vaccinations now surging, many in the U.S. are feeling a sense of a pandemic thaw, a slow return to "normal". However, like any storm, the debris remains. Especially for smaller municipalities, that debris includes debt.

Most municipalities saw spending soar as it needed personal protection equipment, hazard pay for employees and other necessities.

“Cities, if they were lucky, had reserves to dip into,” said Michael Wallace of the D.C.-based National League of Cities. “Those reserves will need to be built back.”

Like the state’s budget, local municipalities are required to pass debt-free, balanced budgets.

New funds, fewer strings

Despite trillions of dollars being spent on aid, even the CARES Act, with its strings attached, went only so far.

“The biggest weakness was that dollars didn’t reach every single municipality,” Wallace said. “(Many cities) had to bark and bargain and negotiate with the states to get access to any level of those funds to help their residents, and in many states funding was insufficient to provide any meaningful level of service.”

One of the first major pieces of legislation President Joe Biden signed into law was the $1.9 trillion "American Rescue Plan".

Unlike CARES Act funding, the American Rescue Plan does three things that Wallace says improves impact.

1. It allows city governments to directly obtain funding, instead of having to go through county governments.
2. It cuts the strings by lifting some of the requirements imposed by CARES Act.
3. It allows local municipalities to apply for the new round of federal aid to fill budget shortfalls created due to the pandemic.

“Our budget was impacted, but the good news is the federal stimulus dollars there now are for revenue replacement,” Walker said. “As is infrastructure, so we’ll be able to recoup some of those dollars through that program and still continue to help small businesses and other folks in our community who need assistance.”

Walker adds that the new round of funding will also allow municipalities to pick up infrastructure projects and other programs that were put to the side because of the pandemic.

In the city of Leesburg, some of the new round of federal funds will be used to help the city cover budget impacts, such as costs involved in waiving utility late fees and shutoff forgiveness.

Cities like Leesburg also incurred impacts regarding staff, who themselves and their families also faced COVID diagnosis and health concerns.

While the future may be uncertain, one thing is sure — most people are ready to get there.

“I think everybody’s ready to, I don’t think there’s going to get back to ‘normal’, but I think everybody’s ready to get back to the new normal,” Minner said.

Leesburg is already counting on it, but Minner knows it will take a year or so for things to fully rebound.

The city’s annual bike fest, normally held this time of year, is being pushed back to November 2021, with a quick turnaround to hold the event again in April 2022.