SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – California’s auditor says the state should have spent more money helping its smaller counties battle the coronavirus. Auditor Elaine Howle said the state’s 16 most populous counties got nearly twice the amount per person than the 42 smaller counties. That’s because the state decided to send some of its allocation to those large counties even though they had already gotten direct funding from the federal government. The Department of Finance said the state Legislature approved the funding strategy. The audit was the first of Howle’s reports looking at how the state is spending billions of dollars in federal coronavirus aid.