Orange County officials have spent or know how they’ll spend $453 million of the $554 million in federal money the county received from the CARES Act, a coronavirus relief bill.
The $453 million total includes money that’s already been spent and department forecasts of what they’ll need in coming months, county Chief Financial Officer Michelle Aguirre said. The CARES Act requires the county to use the money by Dec. 31.
The biggest chunk, $203 million, is for general public health costs including COVID-19 testing, protective equipment such as masks and gloves, and related expenses, according to a report county supervisors heard Tuesday, May 19.
Another $91 million went to address public health among the homeless and in local jails, and to provide food to residents in need. Paying county workers handling emergency response totaled $88 million, and $71 million went to behavioral health services and additional cleaning and maintenance of county facilities.
Supervisors are still hammering out plans to use the remaining $101 million to help cover cities’ coronavirus-related costs that don’t get reimbursed through the Federal Emergency Management Agency or some other way, and to help small businesses pay workers and cover expenses.
The fact the federal money has been earmarked and divvied up means Orange County cities won’t get a share as a large group of mayors requested in April, but county officials have said federal guidelines don’t allow them to use the funding to replace lost revenue that has blown a hole in most cities’ budgets.
County CEO Frank Kim noted that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s May budget revision proposal suggests sending some of the state’s federal relief dollars directly to the state’s biggest cities, including Anaheim and Santa Ana, and that counties be given money to pass along to smaller cities, but it’s unknown how much Orange County might receive under the proposal.
The county is also dealing with budget holes of its own. Expected drops in sales taxes and other revenue sources that either come directly to the county or are passed down from the state could create a gap of $458.5 million over this fiscal year and the next one, county officials said.
Aguirre said the shortfall would likely be addressed with a combination of spending cuts and using county reserve funds. County departments have been asked to prepare revised budget proposals by the end of this week.
