With much needed revenues diminishing to keep them sustainable, municipalities across the state are feeling the financial impact from the coronavirus pandemic.

Pennsylvania Municipal League Executive Director Rick Schuettler said the challenge is to ensure that local governments will be able to provide services for its people.

Speaking with state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale on a Facebook discussion, he noted that property taxes are the main revenue sources for many cities, boroughs and townships.

Unfortunately, many people were thrown out of work due to COVID-19, preventing them from keeping up with mortgage payments and taxes.

Other big revenue sources for local governments include earned income taxes and parking fees, which were also impacted by COVID-19, he noted.

Among the services that feel the crunch of decreased revenues are police and fire departments, according to Schuettler.

“No mayor wants to decrease public safety,” he said.

Schuettler said communities can recover, but will surely need more help from state and local government bailout programs.

He called for Congress to pass a stimulus bill that directly helps communities.

Mandated pension costs, he noted, are doing nothing to lessen the problem for communities to meet operating costs.

He noted that COVID-19 has adversely impacted many small businesses across the state.

“The mom and pop businesses are what communities are all about,” he said.

Schuettler said his organization was on board at the outset of the pandemic, helping municipalities get the information they needed to deal with the coronavirus.

He noted that many government buildings across the state shut down and later reopened.

Ensuring public meetings were properly conducted in the early weeks of COVID-19 was another issue the organization addressed.