The City of Janesville is measuring the financial toll of the COVID-19 outbreak on the city budget.
Finance Director Max Gagin told the city council Monday night that they’ve racked up $864,500 in COVID-19 related costs, including $581,300 for precautionary surge shelters for the local hospitals.
Gagin said the personnel costs of $248,100 are budgeted for, but he included it as an opportunity cost because staff have had to reallocate their time and priorities for the outbreak.
The city is accounting for their unbudgeted expenses through a special revenue fund, which will be eligible for a 75 percent reimbursement from the federal government and an extra 12.5 percent reimbursement from the state.
The COVID-19 pandemic is also limiting some of the city’s normal revenues, and Gagin is projecting over $950,000 in lost funds from March through June.
One big hit to the city’s general fund is coming through the Janesville Fire Department. Overall, call volumes are down 20 percent, but Gagin said paramedics are seeing a higher percentage of their ambulance transports come in for patients on medicare and medicaid.
The government insurance plans have caps on how much money the fire department will be reimbursed for those medical calls, so the city is projecting over $250,000 in lost revenue in March, April, May and June.
Gagin is also looking at $165,000 in lost revenue for the city’s golf courses, which were closed under Governor Tony Evers’ initial safer-at-home order and are now open in lesser capacities.
Gagin said the city of Janesville is actually in a better position than many other municipalities across the country because more than 80 percent of its revenue comes from state-shared revenues and property taxes, which have been more stable than other funding sources.
