Editorial: City Council, School Board advised of loss of revenue

It’s not only families who are hurting because of the Stay Home, Stay Safe response to COVID-19 in Michigan. Family members can’t go to work and haven’t been able to go shopping except at grocery stores that don’t charge sales tax.
There is a lot that depends on tax money and that money isn’t going to be there.
On Monday evening, two local groups of elected officials were holding virtual sessions and both were discussing a serious loss of revenue.
The Belleville City Council was at Day One of its budget sessions to set the balanced $2.2 million budget mandated by the state and learning their state revenue would be less by an estimated 30%.
The Van Buren Public Schools Board of Education was in a regular meeting, spending more than $400,000 on buses because four or so old ones were red-tagged and learning they would be losing up to $5 million in state aid.
The city is putting all full-time workers on half time – except for police and fire employees. The school district knows there will be layoffs of teachers because they can’t afford to pay them.
Will the state or federal government swoop down with bags of money to solve all the problems? That’s highly unlikely, so as the coronavirus abates, elected officials throughout our state and others will be searching for ways to balance their budgets while offering the needed services. The times that try men’s souls.