California should have spent more COVID relief money on small counties
Hundreds of people line up to check out at a Costco store on March 14, 2020 in Novato, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The California state auditor on Tuesday issued a report saying that large counties got more COVID relief money than small counties, even though some smaller counties had virus infection rates just as high as the large ones.
Auditor Elaine Howe's team found that counties with more than 500,000 residents ended up getting about $190 per person in $1.3 billion in CARES Act funding earmarked for California's 58 counties.
But she also found that counties will fewer than half a million residents received just about $102 per person.
Most of the Bay Area counties are considered large. But Marin, Solano and farther south, Santa Cruz, counties got the lesser amount.
"It’s a pretty common frustration in California," said Assemblyman James Gallagher, a Republican who represents six smaller counties. "The way that funds are distributed tends to favor the (San Francisco) Bay Area and Los Angeles, where the majority of the legislature are from, right? Whereas, the rural areas really feel like they get kind of short shrift."
Howe's audit found fault with the rationale behind giving smaller counties less money.
She said the California Department of Finance said there was a higher spread of COVID-19 in the 16 larger counties because of their greater population density. But, the audit found, the COVID-19 case data maintained by the California Department of Public Health does not support that assertion.
In fact, Marin County had a higher rate than the larger Kern County in central California.
Howe's recommendation is that the state should have more equitably shared the $1.3 billion in COVID relief funds to all counties.
In her opinion, the state should have first allocated $1.1 billion to the 42 smaller counties and the remaining $200 million across all counties on a per-person basis, which would have resulted in all counties receiving $179 per person in COVID relief funds.
"This allocation methodology would have addressed more counties’ needs for COVID-19-related funding because each county would have received the same funding per person," the audit stated. "Consequently, by not equitably providing counties with funds, there is greater risk that more small counties’ COVID-19-related funding needs were unmet."
In a response letter to Howle, Department of Finance Director Keely Martin Bosler said the department and the Legislature agreed to give the money to counties "generally based on their relative share of the state’s population."
Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer deferred to the Legislature, which approved the funding strategy as part of the state’s operating budget.
"If the auditor’s office has concerns over this process, they should take their policy recommendations directly to the Legislature," Palmer said.
Associated Press reporter Adam Beam contributed to this report.
