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Warren Evans talks steering Wayne County through COVID-19's economic fallout

Posted at 6:34 PM, Dec 15, 2020
and last updated 2020-12-15 19:34:06-05

(WXYZ) — Wayne County Executive Warren Evans is joining us to discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting his county in tonight's 7 UpFront segment.

Among the issues he's dealing with are the fast-approaching deadline for the Wayne County Cares program and the economic fallout from the pandemic, including the depletion of the rainy day fund and the impact from the decline of the airline industry.

You can see the full interview in the video player above.

"I think every city, county, municipality wants some government assistance," Evans says. "We think we need it. We know we need it, but it doesn't look like the Congress is going to do anything before the holidays here. We, in Wayne County, have gotten an approved budget for the next year. My biggest fear at this point is the unknown. What is it going to look like in the next several months? We see a vaccine coming, but things are still iffy in terms of generating revenue going into the next year."

"We just don't know what the budget is going to look like next year," he says. "We've worked our way through next year. We've put ourselves in a position before this to be fiscally responsible enough to be able to weather some storms, but next year is going to be the big concern and we're just hoping for the best, preparing for the worst."