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Mass. officials advise state departments to prepare in case Trump shuts off federal funding
“You’re identifying what will happen — where will the impact come if the tap is turned off of federal money, either broadly or narrowly.”
Massachusetts officials have tasked state departments with taking stock of federal grant money and identifying contingency plans in case President Donald Trump moves forward with a federal funding freeze.
Amid panic, confusion, and legal challenges, Trump’s budget office rescinded a memo last week that would have halted federal grant and loan spending across the country. But with future federal funding anything but certain, Massachusetts isn’t waiting to see whether Trump will try for a second bite of the apple.
In a memo of their own last week, Massachusetts’s Office of the Comptroller and Executive Office for Administration and Finance asked state budget directors and financial officers to gather information on their departments’ federal grants, including the number of employees paid through federal programs.
Trump's orders:
“Despite the fact that the order was stayed and the [Trump administration’s] original memo was withdrawn, this activity is very much going forward,” state Comptroller William McNamara said Tuesday during a meeting of the comptroller’s advisory board.
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The Jan. 28 state-level memo directs officials to “identify potential departmental actions to protect Commonwealth residents and resources in the event federal payments are stopped, including the use of other funding sources currently available to them.”
However, “agencies should not assume that additional state funding will be available,” the memo cautioned.
McNamara said state officials have undertaken similar analysis in the past when faced with potential federal government shutdowns. In both scenarios, he said, “You’re identifying what will happen — where will the impact come if the tap is turned off of federal money, either broadly or narrowly.”
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Yet McNamara also pointed to a lack of clarity from federal officials regarding next steps for Trump’s funding freeze.
“There are many different possibilities,” he said. “It’s unclear, but one that I would share that’s certainly a possibility is that there will be another memorandum, or perhaps a series of them, but they will be more specific and targeted. But no matter what comes next, it’s up to us in the Commonwealth to prepare for it.”
McNamara said officials are aiming to understand “what are short-term mitigations that may be possible, … and then what would sort of go to another level for kind of policy considerations and changes.”
Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz also addressed Massachusetts’s efforts to prepare for a potential impact to its federal funding.
“What we’re trying to do is work with our agencies, work with the comptroller’s office to create a baseline for how we can then be a bit more nimble and responsive to what might be happening as we learn more from the federal agencies,” he said Tuesday, noting those agencies have been “a little bit ambiguous in their direction.”
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Gorzkowicz added: “It’s been a bit frustrating, but we’re doing our best to try to interpret that, understand it, and stay on top of it.”
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