Smithtown – Huntington Supervisor Chad A. Lupinacci stood with Town and County Officials at Smithtown Town Hall on Monday, September 14 to call for the passage of Congressman Lee Zeldin’s bipartisan Direct Support for Communities Act, which would provide Federal COVID-19 relief directly to local municipalities, including towns and villages.
“I joined with my colleagues from various levels of government to call for the passage of Congressman Lee Zeldin's bipartisan Direct Support for Communities Act, which would ensure funding would go directly to municipalities, Towns and villages as part of the fourth Federal stimulus bill to assist communities with COVID-19 recovery efforts,” said Supervisor Chad A. Lupinacci. “Thank you to Congressman Zeldin and his bipartisan colleagues for this proposal to ensure municipalities, such as the Town of Huntington, see their share of funding to cover the increased costs of delivering essential services during the initial COVID-19 outbreak and the immediate post-pandemic future.”
The Town of Huntington has not seen any of the previous rounds of Federal funding sent to Suffolk County to provide relief for the increased costs local municipalities incurred providing essential services during the COVID-10 pandemic.
The Direct Support for Communities Act proposal would require that money is appropriated into two funding pots: one for Cities, towns and villages and one for Counties.
Of the portion of emergency fiscal assistance for cities, towns, and villages:
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70% would go to Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) communities using the CDBG formula through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to allocate the funding.
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30% would be sent to the states, which would be required to sub-allocate this entire amount within 30 days to all other communities in the state based on population.
The portion of emergency fiscal assistance for counties would be allocated across all counties based on population, unless the county's CDBG entitlement amount is higher than what that county would receive under an allocation based on population.
Cosponsors of the Direct Support for Communities Act are Congressman Lee Zeldin (R, NY-1), Congressman Antonio Delgado (D, NY-19), Senator Chuck Schumer (D, NY) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY).
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