Meeting Crisis With Courage: A COVID-19 Budget Playbook for Advocates and Policymakers
The immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are all around us: hospitals and health care providers are rallying to meet an unprecedented crisis, essential workers are putting themselves at risk to keep our stores and public transportation running, and ordinary Californians are facing social and economic uncertainty.
In just a few weeks, local governments will begin making their annual budgets. Falling revenues from the economic shutdown and a higher need for critical services will force difficult decisions. Ill-advised actions by public officials could create racial inequities that will persist for years to come. This policy brief offers guidance on how to avoid a repeat of the Great Recession, when short-sighted cuts and policy changes that overlooked community priorities led to a lost decade for many.
Residents, community organizers, and advocates play a critical role in local budgeting by lifting up the issues that will make the most difference in their communities and holding leaders accountable for their decisions. Meeting Crisis with Courage offers numerous actions advocates and policy-makers can take as they work to solve the challenges of the pandemic and safeguard our communities. Advancement Project California recommends advocates fight for the equitable use of federal, state, and local revenue to create stability and accountability as well as align with community by building strong coalitions and gathering data from residents to inform policy.
Advocates and budget decision-makers must quickly assess how revenues and expenditures will change because of the epidemic and the economic downturn.
Meeting Crisis with Courage is one of many resources Advancement Project California has created to support the Californians most impacted by this pandemic—low-income people of color.