The economic pain of the shutdown has reached the city government level.

On March 19, the very first week of the county’s shelter-in-place order, I wrote a column in which I stated, “People are suffering. People will continue suffering.” That was less than a month ago; the economic suffering is well at hand, and as individuals struggle to keep roofs overhead and their businesses from tanking past the point of no return, cities have begun suffering right along with the people who inhabit them.

At first the signs were subtle. The Carmel City Council, for example, went into closed session on two occasions to discuss an agenda item described as “a threat to the security of public buildings, essential public services or the public’s right of access to public services or facilities.” That threat, as Carmel Mayor Dave Potter told me, was economic. Revenue, specifically the transient-occupancy tax generated by hotels, had gone to zero almost overnight due to the pandemic. And so too had sales tax. The discussions being held in closed session were about layoffs. Let the suffering commence.

Then Monterey City Council, in an unprecedented meeting that lasted well past 1am the day after it started – April 22 – discussed the city’s economic reality: Officials are projecting a $10 million loss for this fiscal year and may lay off 106 positions, effective June 2. Of those 106, 23 positions are currently vacant and won’t be filled. The remaining 83, representing almost 20 percent of the city’s workforce, would lose their jobs. The cuts will hit most deeply at the city’s beloved public library and sports center, the Parks & Recreation Department, as well as the recently renovated Conference Center.

Normally stoic public officials couldn’t hold back tears, but they did that night – on Zoom. After hours of discussion, Councilmember Tyller Williamson asked the city’s human resources director, Allyson Hauck, to seek concessions from the city’s union groups as a possible way to avert layoffs. The council voted 5-0 to give Hauck a week to talk to bargaining units and come back on April 29, past this paper’s deadline, with the plan for what happens next.

In Salinas, on April 22, City Manager Ray Corpuz also warned that layoffs could be in the works. His comments came during his regular Wednesday press conference, something the city launched a few weeks into the shelter-in-place order.

Salinas is facing a whopper of a budget hit, of between $10 million and $15 million. Whereas Monterey relies on hotel tax, Salinas relies on sales tax. Like Monterey, the city will enact a hiring freeze, then move to furloughs before turning to layoffs of an estimated 100 employees.

Corpuz has directed the city’s department managers to cut 10 percent from their budgets. The city is in its mid-year budget process in preparation for voting on a new budget in July.

“Everything will be on the table. Every job will be on the table,” Mayor Joe Gunter said at the press conference.

And so will every salary. At the April 28 meeting, in closed session, the Salinas council also discussed an item involving a threat to public safety.

“We’re moving fast,” Councilmember Scott Davis tells me. “We have to get the budget ready for July and we will have a better understanding of what kind of cuts and what will be happening come June. Fingers crossed we can put this behind us and start reopening the city and start generating revenue.”

Then there’s Seaside, where City Manager Craig Malin put it most succinctly in his regular newsletter, The Manifest. In the missive, dated April 24, he started with the question, “When do we run out of money?” And then he laid out the reality, ending with this: “We need to reduce personnel expenses in the next fiscal year by 20-25 percent. We are facing a $10+/ – million revenue reduction in the next fiscal year, and we’ll run out of money in less than a year if we don’t act soon, and at sufficient scale to make a difference.”

He and his department heads have reduced their salaries by 10 percent, he writes, and a hiring freeze has been implemented. There’s no travel budget, no training budget and no discretionary expenses.

“There are few foreseeable scenarios where layoffs cannot be part of the city’s necessary response to the emergency we find ourselves in,” he writes.

MARY DUAN writes Local Spin for the Weekly. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/maryrduan