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Show A-2 Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, April 4-7, 2020 The Park Record The Park Record. Serving Summit County since 1880 The Park Record, Park City’s No. 1 source for local news, opinion and advertising, is available for home delivery in Summit, Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis and Utah counties. Single copies are also available at 116 locations throughout Park City, Heber City, Summit County and Salt Lake City. SUBSCRIPTION RATES In Summit County (home delivery): $56 per year (includes Sunday editions of The Salt Lake Tribune) Outside Summit County (home delivery available in Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Utah counties; all other addresses will be mailed via the U.S. Postal Service): $80 per year To subscribe please call 435–649– 9014 or visit www.parkrecord.com and click the Subscribe link in the Reader Tools section of the toolbar at the bottom of the page. To report a missing paper, please call 801–204–6100. Same-day redelivery is possible if you call during the following hours: * Weekdays: 6:30–8 a.m. * Saturday: 7–8 a.m. * Sunday: 7–10:30 a.m. To request a vacation hold or change of address, please call 435–649–9014 or email: circulation@parkrecord.com THE NEWSROOM To contact the newsroom, please call 435–649–9014 or email editor@parkrecord.com Coronavirus may claim 1/3 of jobs in county Projections paint bleak picture as restrictions on businesses continue ALEXANDER CRAMER The Park Record Nearly 9,500 jobs and $369 million in earnings. That’s what Summit County’s economy stands to lose over the next 18 months as a result of the coronavirus in the most optimistic of the three scenarios presented to the County Council Wednesday by the county’s two highest-ranking economic experts. Jeff Jones, the county’s economic development director, noted that scenario could change with good news about progress in the fight against the global pandemic. But Jones estimated around 7,000 jobs were lost almost immediately as the economy ground to a halt in March, and another 2,000 jobs or so are likely to vanish in a second wave. The losses represent about 1/3 of the county’s total 31,500 jobs. “I wish I had better news,” he said. Jones predicted the county could lose about $500 million in total earnings and $780 million from its Gross Regional Product as a result of the pandemic, while Chief Financial Officer Matt Leavitt estimated that, using Jones’ jobloss numbers, the county could see a Continued from A-1 City plans no layoffs For display advertising, please call a sales representative at 435–649– 9014 or email val@parkrecord.com To place a classified ad, please call 435–649–9014 or email classads@parkrecord.com For questions about your bill, please call 435–649–9014 or email accounts@parkrecord.com The Park Record online is available at www.parkrecord.com and contains all of the news and feature stories in the latest edition plus breaking news updates. The Record’s website also hosts interactive entertainment, restaurant and lodging listings and multimedia features. Contents of The Park Record are Copyrighted 2015, Wasatch Mountain News Media Co. All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written consent of the managing editor or publisher. The Park Record (USPS 378-730) (ISSN 0745-9483) is published twice weekly by Wasatch Mountain News Media Co., 1670 Bonanza Drive, Park City, UT 84060. Periodicals postage paid at Salt Lake City, Utah, 84199-9655 and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Park Record, P.O. Box 3688, Park City, UT84060. Entered as second-class matter, May 25, 1977, at the Post Office in Park City, Utah, 84060 under the Act of March 3, 1897. Subscription rates are: $56 within Summit county, $80 outside of Summit County, Utah. Subscriptions are transferable: $5 cancellation fee. Phone: 435–649–9014 Fax: 435–649–4942 Email: circulation@parkrecord.com Published every Wednesday and Saturday decimated travel. The March and April tourism numbers are projected to drop sharply on a year-over-year basis, but the crucial December-February stretch of the ski season was strong, meaning the financial impacts on City Hall will likely be contained. Dias said the municipal government and the wider business community had already collected nearly four months of revenue by the time the mountain resorts closed. He said the community is “blessed” with the timing as he compared the impacts to those that would have occurred had the disease spread in December, as Park City prepared for the lucrative stretch from the holidays to the Sundance Film Festival in January. “We were fortunate to receive the economic hit when we did,” Dias said, also conceding City Hall itself is not “immune” to the drop. The municipal government is among the largest employers in Park City, with Continued from A-1 Employees furloughed tives will see their pay decreased 25%, while Katz said he will not take a salary during the six-month period. The company also plans to postpone on-mountain capital improvement projects, such as building new chair lifts, at its ski areas. The announcement of the cost-cutting steps came two and a half weeks after Vail Resorts closed its North American resorts, including PCMR, with several weeks left in the scheduled ski season $2.7 million reduction in sales and use tax annually. Jones predicted county earnings would revert to 2014/2015 levels, while the total Gross Regional Product would approach 2016/2017 levels, drops of 23% and 22%, respectively. Jones’ models range from what he sees as a reasonable best case, in which 80% of hospitality jobs are lost, to the worst case, in which 90% of hospitality jobs are lost along with 30% of retail jobs. In the latter scenario, the county could see a contraction of 11,407 jobs and a $442 million hit to earnings. Normally, the economy sheds around 5,000 jobs during the shoulder season, with seasonal layoffs starting in early March and continuing until slowly reversing course in May. Jones said it appears unlikely the normal hiring process will begin this year. Jones also shared a metric called an economic vulnerability index from a third-party economics and analytics firm. Of the more than 3,000 counties in the United States, Summit County has the 28th highest vulnerability index, just behind Pitkin County, Colorado, home to Aspen Snowmass Ski Resort. “The COVID-19 Vulnerability Index is a measurement of the negative impact that the coronavirus crisis can have on employment based upon a region’s mix of industries,” Jones wrote in a staff report. “For example, accommodation and food services are projected to lose more jobs as a result of the coronavirus com- pared to utilities and healthcare.” The index does not take into account infection rate or the government response to the pandemic, Jones said. Summit County has one of the highest infection rates in the state and the county government has effectively shuttered the area economy. Summit County stands to lose more than twice the jobs as the national average, according to data presented by Jones from Chmura Economics and Analytics and JobsEQ. All of this adds up to a bleak picture for both private and public sectors. Leavitt offered the council historical context from the Great Recession while noting the two crises are different, especially in how immediate the economic shutdown has been in 2020. Recessions, by their definition, can take six months before governments realize they’re happening and start to react. The recession hit the county for approximately 18 months, Leavitt said, from the fall of 2008 to the spring of 2010. But it wasn’t until five years after its onset, in 2012 and 2013, that revenues began to return to pre-recession levels. In that period, Leavitt estimated the county lost $7.1 million in sales taxes. In a staff report, Leavitt wrote that there are indications the COVID-19 economic crisis may be worse than the 2008 recession. Additionally, Leavitt indicated expenses could increase as counties grapple with the pandemic. Respondents to a survey sent to an association of local government finance officials indicated they anticipated local governments and agencies would spend 1%-3% of their operating budgets within the first six months of the crisis. For Summit County, that’s $600,000 to $1.8 million. He said the county has tried to ensure the Health Department’s funding is not reliant on sales tax revenues, which might be susceptible to a situation like this pandemic. According to his report, county functions supported by sales tax revenues include public safety, public works, elected officials, human resources, information technology and facilities. County Manager Tom Fisher said the county is already considering belt-tightening measures and will present recommendations to the council Wednesday. Fisher has instituted a hiring freeze except for essential services and indicated he was looking at each opening carefully. He has not considered furloughing or laying off employees, he said, options he will seek to avoid. The county employs a total of about 380 people in a given year among seasonal, full-time and part-time positions, Fisher said. He said he would be carefully reviewing compensation increases including merit raises, cost-of-living adjustments and 401k matching as potential areas for savings. Councilors also suggested capital projects might need to be delayed, though they did not go into specifics. staffing levels in 2019 ranging between 647 and 512, according to data compiled for an annual City Hall financial report. The numbers put City Hall in the top six employers in Park City, based on the number of maximum workers at any point in a year. The municipal plans to retain staff could eventually draw questions from rank-and-file Parkites if the downturn persists, particularly if the layoffs and the furloughs in the private sector continue. There are reports of layoffs, furloughs or reductions in hours across many industries. Park City Mountain Resort owner Vail Resorts this week indicated it is furloughing nearly 400 workers at PCMR starting Saturday and lasting for a minimum of several weeks. The employment situation appears to be dire elsewhere in the community as well with people working in industries that are largely dependent on the resorts suffering. Dias said municipal staffers are continuing their regular work or have been shifted to other duties, such as those who work in buildings like the Park City Library and the Park City Municipal Athletic & Recreation Center that have been temporarily closed. They are helping deep clean buildings, performing regular maintenance and painting the interior of buildings. “We’re trying to keep people employed,” Dias said, adding, “We’re trying to keep them productive.” Continued from A-1 County Manager Tom Fisher has indicated that evaluating the public health orders is squarely a Health Department responsibility. Bullough said his staff is in the process of determining the criteria to evaluate how and when to transition from the more urgent phase of the outbreak response to a more stable one for both residents and businesses. “We can’t be in this mode — this urgent mode we’re in right now — forever, and we have to identify how it is and what it is that allows us to transition out,” he said. “As we begin to see numbers ease, what is a logical way to allow businesses to begin to re-engage communities?” The public health orders were set to be reevaluated within a month of their effective dates, and officials have said they would start reviewing most within two weeks. The first public health order was effective March 12 but was re-evaluated within days and was quickly clarified in response to questions from businesses and community members, Bullough said. The stay-at-home order arose out of revisions to the first two public health orders and from discussions involving high-level Health Department officials, the county manager, the deputy county manager, the local emergency managers and attorneys, Bullough said. The conversation was then broadened to include elected officials from the county, Park City and the five other municipalities, as well as the Board of Health, Bullough said. In weighing potential adjustments of the stay-at-home order, Bullough said the Health Department is considering factors like the rate at which the virus is spreading and the capacity of local health care systems. He said the team considering the indicators includes clinical experts, a communicable and infectious disease expert and those with economic expertise. “Our obligation here is to protect our health system and our resources for residents,” Bullough said. “None of us have done this before and ... when I say none of us, I mean literally none of us in public health or in the business sector has dealt with a global pandemic of this scale. And so we’re learning along the way.” in response to the spread of the coronavirus. Ski resort destinations in the West have been among the areas hit hardest by the coronavirus on a per-capita basis, something health officials have attributed largely to tourism. Vail Resorts has said it expects to lose between $180 million and $200 million during the current quarter due to the early closures. “With the very real possibility that the global stay-at-home orders could be extended, and travel reduced regardless, our business in May through October is at risk,” Katz said. “We will work hard to reopen as soon as practical, but much of this is now outside of our control.” Van Ness said furloughed employees will be eligible to apply for assistance through the company’s EpicPromise Foundation. As of Wednesday, the foundation was accepting COVID-19 related applications from workers who are sick or caring for someone sick. Cases may peak small sample size mean it isn’t clear whether the curve is flattening in the county. “We have enough information to be hopeful. What we’re seeing is not discouraging, but we’re not to the point of being able to say, ‘OK, what we’re doing is really having a big impact in Summit County,’” Bullough said. “But we have every reason to believe it is. Social distancing works, stayat-home orders work. And I think as we’ve looked around — people are taking this to heart.” Bullough noted that the picture will continue to come into focus as increased testing offers more data. Between 20% and 30% of the tests in Summit County have come back positive for COVID-19, Bullough said, compared to a rate closer to 5% statewide. That indicates that only the sickest are being tested, Bullough said, and that the current information doesn’t accurately represent the disease’s progression through the community. A swing in new cases from nine on Tuesday to 23 on Thursday could indicate increased spread or something less sinister, Bullough said, like the sudden clearing of a backlog at a lab. The first order curtailing businesses came in mid-March, as the first case of community spread hit the county. The latest, issued March 25, was a joint public health order mandating residents stay at home unless it is essential to venture out. It was also signed by the Summit County Council and county manager and endorsed by the mayors in Summit County’s six municipalities, as well as the Board of Health. Questions remain about how long the orders will need to be in place and, consequently, how long the local economy will continue to lie dormant. 2025 EASY TO SHOW! Canyons Resort Drive #I-1 Canyons Village Convenient Banking Stop by or use our online banking or mobile app. Bank the way that’s best for you. 1 B D | 1 B A | 6 5 0 S Q . F T. | O F F E R E D AT $ 3 3 0 , 0 0 0 Jessica Sigg Realtor® 435.962.0689 jessicasigg@winutah.com parkcityjessica.com Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed accurate. Buyer to verify all information. 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