Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is calling on local jurisdictions to match state restaurant relief efforts using their CARES money, in an effort to bolster the additional $250 million state dollars set aside for business recovery last month.

In an announcement on Thursday, Hogan outlined the allocation of $50 million in state relief funding for restaurants across each county, which is to be administered through local governments. Prince George’s County and Montgomery County — the state’s most populous jurisdictions — are set to receive roughly $6 million and $8 million respectively.

“I have directed our team to ensure that this much-needed funding gets out the door as quickly as possible,” Hogan said in a statement Thursday. “We are urging counties and local jurisdictions to match these new state investments by utilizing their remaining CARES Act funding so that we can direct even more resources to where they’re needed most.”

So far, Anne Arundel County, which received around $5 million from the state, has agreed to match the funding for the restaurant relief program. Montgomery County has also established a $14 million relief program (not using CARES money) to reimburse local businesses up to $5,000 for the money they spend coronavirus-proofing their establishments. Last week, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks said the county planned to use the $6 million in state dollars for restaurant relief, but the county has yet to establish its own restaurant recovery program with CARES dollars.

The pressure from Hogan for local jurisdictions to spend their federal CARES money on the restaurant initiative comes as officials weigh how to best spend the money. According to the Baltimore Sun, about two-thirds of the CARES money distributed to 19 of Maryland’s 24 counties was unspent as of Oct. 28. The deadline to use up the funding is Dec. 30, and many local leaders say they need more time to make decisions, based on the rapidly changing state of the pandemic and a grim winter ahead.

Hogan’s urgency for the matching funds also comes as Montgomery County — one of the state’s hardest hit jurisdictions by the virus — weighs cutting restaurant capacity from 50% to 25% as coronavirus cases tick up in the region.

The state’s $50 million in for restaurant relief comes from Maryland’s economic relief fund, which Hogan expanded by $250 million in October. With renewed stimulus plans stalled in Congress, the state pulled additional money out of its $1.3 billion rainy day fund.

The county-by-county allocations for restaurant relief were determined by the number of restaurants in each jurisdiction.

In addition to the restaurant relief money, Hogan is also setting aside funding for arts and tourism industries, and other small businesses across the state.

The Maryland State Arts Council received $3 million for an emergency program that allows venues, entertainment centers, and artists to apply for grants to blunt the impact of lost programming and canceled events. Tourism agencies in each county will receive additional funding to increase marketing, and $50 million will be set aside for the backlog of small businesses still waiting on grants from March and April.