Floyd County area organizations respond to federal freeze

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

Social service providers that utilize federal funds spent a couple of days wondering if they would be getting paid following an abrupt order from the Trump Administration.

On Monday, Jan. 27, an internal memo from the White House budget office ordered a temporary pause on all disbursement of federal funds pending a comprehensive analysis of federal programs to determine if they align with the new administration’s executive orders concerning “foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”

News of the freeze on federal funds caused concern and confusion as public entities and non-profit organizations scrambled to determine if and how such a freeze would impact them.

“Nobody knows anything yet,” said City Administrator Steve Diers on Tuesday. “I guess we just have to wait and see.”

The city has regularly used federal funds to pay for or subsidize infrastructure projects, such as the Mill Race Parking Lot project. While most of the federal funds allocated to the city for recent projects have already been collected, the city does still have money from a USDA grant for water conservation to draw down on.

“We’re on the tail end of that,” said Diers.

More notably, the city is awaiting word on if it will be awarded a “game changing” $20 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. It is hoped that, if awarded, the city will be able to factor the grant into its current budget planning.

Beyond just the city, many area government departments and non-profit organizations, such as the Floyd County Emergency Management, the Foster Grandparent program and Charles City Housing Authority, utilize federal funds, either directly or through the state.

“We have heard nothing about it,” said Todd Schriever, executive director of Floyd County Veterans Affairs, who checked this week to make sure that the freeze didn’t disrupt veteran transportation services. “We were not affected, luckily”

A federal judge put a block on the funding freeze on Tuesday and by Wednesday the White House rescinded the order, presumably restoring the status quo to business as usual for the time being.