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Executives of 15 Greater Boston cities and towns declared their support for the idea of a state-owned bank tasked with making loans to entrepreneurs of color and other “historically marginalized” business owners and area residents.

The Metro Mayors Coalition announced it backed an idea floated in a trio of bills (H.1223, S.655 and S.682) and a report from the state Senate‘s Committee on Reimagining Massachusetts: Post Pandemic Resiliency published earlier this month.

The coalition is made up of mayors and town and city managers from Arlington, Boston, Braintree, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Newton, Quincy, Revere, Somerville and Winthrop.

“We recognize that small businesses, especially those businesses owned by women, people of color, and indigenous entrepreneurs have faced more barriers in accessing traditional capital,” the coalition said in a statement. “This was clearly demonstrated with the initial distribution of the Paycheck Protection Program loans in the Commonwealth. Our Coalition views the creation of a Massachusetts public bank as an important tool to advance an equitable recovery and ensure capital and financial assistance are available to historically marginalized business owners and residents.”

The bank should be capitalized with federal COVID relief, the coalition said. A proposal released by the state legislature earlier this week did not include a “public bank” but only parceled out $3.65 billion of the state’s combined $6.05 billion in leftover federal COVID aid and a record budget surplus.