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Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds <br />Allocations to Counties <br /> <br />May 10, 2021 <br /> <br />The American Rescue Plan Act (the Act) established the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery <br />Fund (CSFRF) and Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (CLFRF), which provide a <br />combined $350 billion in assistance to eligible state, local, territorial, and Tribal governments to <br />help turn the tide on the pandemic, address its economic fallout, and lay the foundation for a <br />strong and equitable recovery. This document describes Treasury’s methodology for allocating <br />the funds to counties. <br /> <br />Allocation methodology <br /> <br />The CLFRF provides $65.1 billion to counties. The Act requires that these funds are allocated <br />based on each county’s population share of the total population of all counties, using the latest <br />available population data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Treasury makes use of the 2019 Census <br />for the purposes of this allocation.1 <br /> <br />The Act further requires that any urban county 2 cannot receive less from CLFRF than it would <br />have received if the CLFRF county funding was distributed to urban counties and metropolitan <br />cities according to section 106(b) of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 <br />(hereafter, the Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG, formula). Treasury consulted <br />with HUD to identify which counties were classified as urban counties in Fiscal Year 2021 for <br />the purposes of CDBG,3 and to apply the CDBG formula as required by the Act. Urban counties <br />received an upward adjustment to their allocation as a result of this provision. <br /> <br />According to the Act, for any county that is not a unit of general local government, funds shall be <br />paid to the state in which such county is located and distributed to each unit of general local <br />government within such county based on population. <br /> <br />Additionally, units of local government that have formed consolidated governments (e.g. <br />consolidated city-county governments) may receive an allocation under each of the formulas for <br />metropolitan cities, counties, and nonentitlement units of local government, as applicable. <br /> <br />1 It is worth noting that at the county level, 2020 was made available in early May. “New Vintage 2020 Population <br />Estimates Available for Nation States, Counties and Puerto Rico Commonwealth.” United States Census Bureau. <br />May 4, 20201. However, 2020 data is not yet available across all geographies, for example, for cities and towns. <br />Because urban counties receive a minimum allocation that is in reference to what the county would have received if <br />allocations to counties and cities were made as per section 106(b) of the Housing and Community Development Act, <br />allocating to counties based on 2020 data; and cities based on 2019 data, would require mixing vintages which <br />would not be a consistent database to rely on. <br />2 Urban counties are defined in section 102 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 (42 U.S.C. <br />5302). <br />3 Consolidated city-county entities, municipios, independent cities, coterminous city-county entities are not <br />considered urban counties for the purposes of this provision, consistent with how these entities are treated for the <br />purposes of the CDBG program.