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Ortt calls for local CARES Act relief

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Fri, Oct 23rd 2020 10:00 am

Recently, New York State Sen. Rob Ortt called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to release $1 billion in unused federal CARES Act funds that remain in New York state's coffers.

A press release said, “The federal CARES Act originally contained $7 billion in funding for the state of New York and was distributed to local governments with populations greater than 500,000 residents. While this was helpful to New York, its largest cities, and larger counties, reduced sales tax revenue and a lack of federal aid have put immense financial pressure on many smaller governments around the state.”

Ortt, the state’s Republican leader, said, "Each day that passes, small towns, villages and county governments across our state are being forced to make difficult financial decisions due to the lack of state funding and planning. One billion of the approximately $3 billion remaining from the original CARES Act funding is currently categorized for ‘other’ use, and I can think of no better way to make use of this ‘other’ category spending than to throw a lifeline to our struggling local governments."

Ortt called for the Division of the Budget to immediately release the funding to local governments that did not receive previous assistance. He also suggested distribution from these available funds should be allocated by utilizing the same formula used for local governments in the state's Aid and Incentives to Municipalities (AIM) distribution.

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