Letter to Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker; Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader; Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader; and Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader - Rep. Cook Leads Bipartisan Effort to Ensure COVID-19 Relief Funding for Small and Midsize Counties

Letter

Dear Speaker Pelosi, Leader McCarthy, Majority Leader McConnell, and Minority Leader
Schumer,

We appreciate your leadership and your bipartisan work to pass the CARES Act, which provided
much-needed aid to support necessary expenditures incurred during the COVID-19 outbreak. As
part of that aid, funds were allocated directly to state and local governments to assist with their
immediate response to COVID-19. This critical funding helped states and some local
governments fund relief efforts and provided vital lifelines to our communities. Unfortunately,
the legislation failed to provide funding for counties with populations under 500,000, hampering
their ability to provide front-line defense for over half of all Americans.

For example, in California, only 16 of its 58 counties received federal funding to assist with the
increased costs associated with our coronavirus response. Some California counties fell just short
of the 500,000 threshold, with counties containing over 499,000 individuals missing out on
critical funding. Just like larger counties, our small and midsize counties are managing the
impacts and enormous costs involved in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, while at the
same time experiencing significant losses in revenue.

Counties large and small provide critical services to our constituents during this public health
emergency. All county governments deserve some level of assistance to prevent suspension of
critical services and programs and thereby prevent additional deaths.

As Congress considers additional COVID-19 related funding, we ask that any additional aid to
state and local governments include flexible funding specifically targeted to counties that fall
below the 500,000 population threshold and were excluded from direct funding in the CARES
Act. Specifically, we request the following:

- Establish a base of $1,000,000 for all counties/county-equivalents with a population
below 500,000
- Establish a relief fund, similar to the fund established in CARES, to appropriate specific
funding to local governments under the 500,000 population threshold
- Ensure flexibility for this funding to replace losses incurred as a result of COVID-19

We are working on a bipartisan legislative proposal that would accomplish these goals, and we
hope to work with House and Senate leadership to ensure that this proposal is included in the
next COVID-19 assistance bill.

Our local governments are on the front lines of this crisis. We look forward to working with you
to ensure that all of our counties receive the assistance they need to keep our communities safe
and healthy.