Special Briefing: 2024 Fiscal Outlook for States and Cities

For America’s states and municipalities, 2024 is likely to bring long-awaited relief from inflation and higher interest rates while presenting challenges—and not just because it’s a presidential election year. States, cities, and counties will have to contend with the imminent end of $350 billion in federal pandemic budget aid even as the revenue boom of recent years cools and the need for increased spending to ameliorate the risks of a changing climate put pressure on infrastructure spending. 

Listen in as our panel of experts discuss strategies that state and local governments are adopting to meet these challenges. Our panel of experts includes Clarence Anthony, CEO and executive director, National League of Cities; Mayor Kim Norton of Rochester, Minnesota; Mark Ferrandino, director, Colorado Office of State Planning and Budgeting; Eric Kim, senior director, Fitch Ratings; and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

 Notable Quotes: 

“There is a lot on the plates of local leaders, but city leaders are also resilient and optimistic, and they're determined to build their communities back better than ever before, in tandem with their state and federal partners.” - Clarence Anthony

 “Obviously, there are lots of risks… there are things that can go off the rails, but I will say that for the first time in a long time, the risks are more symmetric.” - Mark Zandi 

“We're a town of about 124,000 people and we’re home in Minnesota to the state's largest employer, which is the Mayo Clinic, and we are pleased to say that our local economy has rebounded fairly well from the pandemic.” - Mayor Kim Norton 

“We definitely see some headwinds in terms of revenue for the next year, but long term, we see continued growth. We also see the demand on those revenues and the demand on the state government to just continue to grow.” - Mark Ferrandino 

“In December, our economics team published its quarterly global economic outlook. And as we were just talking about, 2023 was a surprisingly good year. So good, in fact, that Fitch took off its recession forecast for 2024 in our last update, [and] we were one of those many in the consensus that we're expecting a recession, but we've pulled back on that.” - Eric Kim

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The views expressed on this podcast are those of the panelists and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Volcker Alliance or Penn IUR.