Batavia Gets $1.55M In Coronavirus Relief; Recovery To Take Years

Batavia IL

19 October, 2020

12:02 PM

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BATAVIA, IL — Batavia is set to receive more than $1.5 million in federal coronavirus relief, but the city's administrator says it's nowhere near enough. The Kane County Board last week finalized its plan to split $27.7 million across 27 municipalities based on population. That total includes about $1.55 million for Batavia, despite city officials requesting nearly three times that amount to help cover its pandemic-related expenses. Kane County Back On Watch List As Positivity Rate Tops 10% Batavia will use its funding from Kane County's CARES Act allocation to cover increases in payroll for public safety employees and its spending on protective gear and equipment to ensure its employees were safe in the office, according to City Administrator Laura Newman. She told Patch the city was "grateful for what we could get," but she's "100 percent sure that there is more need than the funding that we have received thus far." Middle School Cross-Country Team Sidelined By Coronavirus Newman urged the federal government to pass another coronavirus-relief package that includes funding to cover lost revenues for municipalities. Batavia is expecting to see a significant drop in income tax revenues, with the city's unemployment rate more than twice what it was in August 2019 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The city is also likely to receive less revenue from motor-fuel taxes and potentially property taxes, Newman said. Illinois Coronavirus Update Oct. 19 — Don't miss updates in Batavia as they are announced — Sign up for Patch news alerts and newsletters. She would've preferred the new stimulus package to have been passed "last month." "We need it ASAP," Newman said, adding she is worried any second stimulus will depend on who is elected as president and to Congress. Any delays to election results could cause "further complication" for Batavia's precarious finances amid the pandemic, Newman warned. Batavia To Equip Police With Body Cameras In 2021 City officials around the country are working to create multimillion-dollar budgets and long-term spending plans without any end in sight to the coronavirus pandemic, and Batavia is no different. Even if vaccines were widely available in January and life and business could return to some sort of normalcy, Batavia's recovery from the coronavirus pandemic would take at least three years, Newman said. "Nobody has a crystal ball on this, but it's certainly not just going to affect this year (or the next)," Newman said. REGIONAL NEWS: Ghosts Of Geneva: A Ghastly Downtown Tour3 Injured In Rollover Crash After Driver Cuts Off Aurora Cop CarAurora School Named Illinois' Best Public High SchoolIn-Person Classes To Restart Next Month In West Aurora D129