ALBANY COUNTY — “We had a public-health crisis. We now have an economic crisis,” says Stephen Acquario.

He is the executive director of the New York State Association of Counties. On Friday, at Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy’s press briefing, Acquario painted a bleak picture for local governments across the state.

He said New York State is currently estimating a $13 billion budget deficit that will grow to $60 billion over four years.

In Albany County alone, the drop so far this year from last year’s sales-tax revenues is $15.5 million, a decrease of over 11 percent. Under a “severe recession scenario,” Acquario said, Albany County’s sales-tax loss could exceed $61 million, a loss of about 22 percent.

McCoy, who serves as president of both the County Executives of America and the County Executive Association of NYSAC, said he has talked to his counterparts across the state and nation. Some counties, he said, are refinancing debt and doing short-term borrowing; others are putting off new equipment purchases or limiting training.

“Some counties are considering even harder decisions like closing parks, steep budget cuts, even layoffs … No one want this,” said McCoy.

Acquario added to that list, naming temporary county cuts in mental health, addiction, and social services as well as infrastructure needs. “Without federal help, these cuts may become permanent,” he said.

Both McCoy and Acquario called on the federal government to fund counties.

Counties have been running COVID-19 testing facilities, tracing contacts, managing quarantine, “leading a 24/7 emergency response” as well as providing food assistance to families and seniors in need and schoolchildren, said Acquario.

At the same time counties are providing these essential, but often not budgeted services, Acquario said, they have “faced an economic quadruple threat.”

He named declines in local sales tax and hotel-occupancy taxes, higher spending needed to respond to the health emergency, a loss of state reimbursement, and an economic lockdown.

Besides a projected sales-tax decline between $780 million and $1.9 billion for the counties outside of New York City, other county revenues are expected to decline as well.

Acquario named a decline in hotel occupancy tax that could range from $50 million to $79 million; revenues from gaming and video lottery terminals that could fall between $56 million and $83 million; and state reimbursements and aid that could drop between $592 million and $1.5 billion.

Counties are projecting losses as high as $2 billion and, without state reimbursement, that could grow to $3.5 billion in 2021, said Acquario. “Over two years, we’re now talking over $5 billion in economic injury to counties across this state,” said Acquario.

County revenue losses are just the beginning, Acquario said. During the Great Recession, he noted, county retirement costs increased significantly. State aid cuts were made permanent and equaled nearly $400 million a year ever since, he said.

He went on, “New York counties need $5 billion over a two-year period just to make them whole from the injury that we will have sustained in 2020 and 2021.”

“Congress goes back to D.C. on Monday,” said McCoy. “They’re talking about the fifth stimulus package. It needs to have more for local governments. The $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package passed earlier this year, McCoy said, funded only counties with populations of 500,000 or more. 

“That doesn’t help us,” said McCoy of Albany County, which has a population of roughly 304,000.

With the state shortfall, he said, “They can’t pass it down to the counties … and expect us to survive.”

McCoy also said, “The way the CARES [Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security] Act was written, it turned states and counties against each other. We need leadership; we need unity.”

Acquario said he expects Congress to extend unemployment insurance, without the $600 bonus, and to continue the Payroll Protection Program to help small businesses keep their employees. But he said what is needed is direct assistance so that county health departments can attract and retain nurses and staff to properly run departments as well as help for wastewater treatment, environmental health, and public health.

“Taxing your way out of it is easy but right now people need help and they need relief,” said McCoy. “So we have to be careful as we move forward together.”