This post originally appeared in the May 16 Politics Report. Get the Politics Report delivered to your inbox.
Help appears to be coming for budget-strapped San Diego County cities that didn’t receive federal CARES Act checks last month.
We wrote recently about the plight of the 17 cities in the county other than the city of San Diego, which received a $248.8 million allocation, and their hopes that county supervisors might be willing to share some of the $334.1 million they got.
Supervisors Greg Cox and Kristin Gaspar are asking fellow supervisors at their Tuesday meeting to consider doling out $50 million of the county’s CARES Act money to the 17 cities that didn’t receive large lump sums. Cox and Gaspar are proposing the money be divvied up based on those cities’ populations.
Cox told VOSD he made the pitch after hearing from officials in the South Bay who described the devastating impacts the coronavirus is having on their budgets.
“I’ve said from the very beginning that we’re in this together and this is putting our money where our mouth is,” Cox wrote in an email.
The day after Cox and Gaspar’s proposal went public, Gov. Gavin Newsom weighed in with an idea of his own. Newsom’s revised budget proposal calls for cities that didn’t get CARES Act allocations to get some state CARES Act money and would have counties give out those funds to cities under 300,000. (Read: All San Diego County cities other than the city of San Diego.)
Cox said he plans to keep his proposal on Tuesday’s agenda despite the governor’s announcement.
“We are looking at the governor’s May revise budget to see how we may be able to use state funds to assist cities. We will discuss that all at Tuesday’s board meeting,” Cox wrote. “Either way, my intent is to continue to assist the smaller cities one way or the other.”