‘Our Members Are Literally Processing The Dead Bodies.’ Counties Plead For More Funding From Congress

As the COVID-19 virus surges across the country and Congress considers a bipartisan proposal for a new round of relief, county governments are making a final push for direct federal aid. America’s counties are on the front lines of the nation’s response to the pandemic, operating over 1,900 public health departments, nearly 1,000 hospitals and employ thousands of law enforcement, doctors and nurses, coroners and medical examiners.

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The cost of the pandemic to supply these workers with protection and pay for responding to the virus has taken a financial toll. Including the expected loss in revenue from the recession, COVID-19 is expected to have a $202 billion impact on county budgets. But many counties didn’t receive direct financial aid from Congress in the first round of federal support in March. The Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) created by the CARES Act only doled out direct aid to states and localities with populations of at least 500,000.

That left out most counties. Matt Chase, executive director of the National Association of Counties, said in a media call Thursday that ultimately, more than 2,900 counties “had to go beg to their governor for resources.” While some governors and legislatures distributed some CRF money quickly to localities, others didn’t. And still others have received no CRF funding at all from their states.

While the $160 billion in additional aid for state and local governments in the current bipartisan House proposal is encouraging, said Chase, “we do remain concerned that some want us to wait again.” In the spring, the virus was spreading in population centers but hadn’t yet reached many smaller communities. Now, it’s essentially everywhere and smaller governments tend to have fewer resources and staff to handle a surge when it happens.

“Our members are literally processing the dead bodies,” Chase said. “We need a strong federal partnership — now.”

Ada County, Idaho, coroner Dottie Owens described an increasingly dire situation in which deaths have been increasing at a substantial rate. Twice this week, Idaho broke its daily record for new COVID-19 cases but Gov. Brad Little has still resisted a statewide mask mandate. Owens said her office used CARES Act funds earlier this year to purchase basics like a refrigerated trailer for body storage, PPE, N95 masks and gloves. Without that aid, her $50,000 morgue budget likely would have run out.

“The only reason we’ve been able to do what we’re doing is because of that [federal] funding,” she said.

But now, the body bags supply is again running short and staff are working long hours and covering for coworkers (including Owens herself) who have been ill with the virus. Without more federal aid, front line workers will have to triage their own budgets.

“You have to start looking places,” said Owens. “For example, I have a toxicology budget of $75,000. Do we quit running as many toxicology reports and catching overdoses to handle this?”

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