The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic downturn are impacting the lives of Californians daily. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is actively changing how households go about their daily tasks: working, shopping, commuting, visiting friends and family, taking care of their health, attending school, and many other areas of life. These in turn affect commute patterns, labor force composition, and potentially housing and migration decisions.

Local governments and agencies have been tasked in both keeping people safe and trying to keep local economies running.

• How are local agencies managing this balance?
• How is COVID-19 affectingbudgets?
• Are local governments forced to make difficult choices about expenditures?
• Which revenue streams have been most affected by the pandemic?
• How are school district finances faring in response to the pandemic?
• How are government transfers helping local governments?

This project has launched the COVID-19 Fiscal Impact Survey throughout the counties of California to answer these types of questions. The audience for the survey is leaders on financial and budgetary matters at local agencies, including budget officers, city managers, county administrators, and school district finance directors, among others who have a view on the ongoing fiscal impact of COVID-19 on local agencies.

This survey is being conducted by a team of researchers from UC Davis (Center for Regional Change), University of Southern California (Price School of Public Policy), and Occidental College. It is part of a three-year project supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative that seeks to understand how local government financial health is related to demographic change and commuting patterns. Learn more about the project here. The survey received additional funding from the Haynes Foundation.

We will be conducting this survey periodically over the next three years to understand the ongoing toll of the economic downturn associated with COVID-19 and the fiscal responses of local governments. We will summarize the survey’s findings in a series of fiscal health “temperature checks” on our project website and related reports. We believe these survey results will prove useful to you and your colleagues from throughout California as you seek innovative strategies for managing fiscal stress and supporting your communities through difficult times.

You can read a summary of the first round of the survey in this Cal Matters guest commentary. A more detailed overview is available under the survey results tab.

If you are interested in learning more about the survey or its outcomes, please contact us here.