Even if the imperial government tried to put in more money towards maintaining infrastructure, the actual physical ability to fix it all doesn't exist (chronic lack of trained labor and good equipment, not to mention the organisational structures and institutional knowledge has been degraded).

The backlog for changes that need to be made is also huge. You might as well try to fight a forest fire with a bucket (that has a hole in the bottom). And I am being literal here, since someone posted a news article about how the fire fighters literally ran out of water.

Basically, you can't budget your way out of societal and ecological collapse. So if you are a bourgeois mayor, might as well just save your own hide (physically and politically) by ramping up police spending. Get the gangsters your political power is based on some new treats and toys.