North coast counties react to Trump’s funding orders

MENDOCINO CO., 2/5/25 — Between President Donald Trump’s plans to take over Greenland, Panama, Canada, and now Gaza, it’s not surprising that people might have lost touch with what’s happening here at home. That luxury is not granted to a wide variety of nonprofits, districts, and agencies. Trump’s recent executive orders to pause all federal funding until recipient programs could be reviewed for adherence to his policy priorities are at the moment legally suspended. That doesn’t mean the matter is dead.

Representatives from Northern California agencies and nonprofits expressed concern caused by the initial directive when the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a memo on Jan. 27, instructing federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance.” 

The memo further stated that, “[i]n the interim, to the extent permissible under applicable law, Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to [the] obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency acti[vities] that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.” Medicare, Social Security benefits and Medicaid were exempted from the suspension. 

Said Scott Cratty of the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council (MCFSC), “The MCFSC received the final signature authorizing work on its first direct federal grant on 1/13/25. That grant is intended to support staff focused on establishing and supporting Firewise Communities throughout Mendocino County, a process that includes doing neighborhood risk assessments, developing three-year action plans, and tracking local investments made to improve wildfire safety. The grant would also support launching at least 30 strategic wildfire safety improvement projects. Stopping or delaying this community work and the many related projects would stymie the effort to reduce wildfire risk to communities throughout the county.”

Cratty added that MCFSC is also working with a federally funded GrizzlyCorps/AmeriCorps member who “is primarily responsible for our fire science education program that is currently scheduled for delivery to over 800 Mendocino County students starting in late February and running into April. A disruption in funding now could unravel all the months of preparation that were needed to produce and coordinate that project.”

Lucresha Renteria, executive director of the Mendocino Coast Clinics (MCC) wrote to the community on Facebook, “I implore the administration to just let us do the great work we do and just let go of trying to force us to justify the work we do and the value of that work.”

Renteria continued by explaining the not-always-obvious impact of such an order: “This freeze is temporary, however, we may see funding reductions or other types of limitations. An executive order from last week may result in extra auditing of our finances which means more costs to pay to our auditors to review our expenditure of our federal grant. In the nonprofit [community health center] world that means less money to provide healthcare. Infrastructure and administrative overhead will be much higher to remain compliant with the changes that are being enacted.”

In a telephone interview on Feb. 4, Renteria said, “The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) oversees funding under Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act, which funds the MCC and other federally qualified health centers across the nation. We do not get federal funding for special populations—Anderson Valley Health Center gets seasonal and migrant farm worker funding as a second stream on top of health center funding. There are additional special Section 330 funding streams that include homeless grants. MCC only gets the universal base funding.”

 “Our grant is just over $2 million annually,” added Renteria. “The funding helps offset costs for the uninsured and wrap-around services for our patient population… For people who have limited or no healthcare insurance we are the safety net. For behavioral, dental, substance use and [other] services, we have a discount program.” Other services include patient support in determining health care eligibility, transportation assistance, education and outreach, as well as case management.

Renteria said, “We received a notice from HRSA that lists three Executive Orders (EOs), and we are directly being told to stop services which conflict from the EOs. We also have been cautioned to ‘scrub’ our social media or websites of any indication of work we do in opposition or not in alignment with the EOs. Yes, this is our reality, and it is a nightmare.” That order has since been put on hold.

Civil action against OMB

Several coalitions brought civil action against the OMB with concerns over potential overreach of Trump’s executive authority. 

Federal District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order to stop the funding freeze. In his ruling on a case brought forth by a coalition of 22 states and Washington, D.C., McConnell Jr. ruled that the funding freeze potentially violated the separation of powers by allowing the executive branch to override Congress’s constitutional authority over federal spending. 

The National Council of Nonprofits also filed a lawsuit against the OMB. The case was heard by Washington D.C.’s U.S. District Court Judge Loren AlikKhan. AliKahn ruled according to the declarations and evidence presented by the plaintiffs that “painted a stark picture of nationwide panic in the wake of the funding freeze.” AliKhan wrote, “Organizations with every conceivable mission—healthcare, scientific research, emergency shelters, and more—were shut out of funding portals or denied critical resources beginning on January 28.” In her temporary injunction order, AliKahn wrote that, “the parties shall meet and confer and file a joint status report proposing a preliminary injunction briefing schedule on or before Feb. 7.”

Mendocino County Superintendent of Schools Nicole Glentzer said in an email communication, “There is concern about the impact the executive orders will have on schools, but there is still much that is unclear. The new administration introduced a number of changes that affect schools. Our educators are dedicated to ensuring that our schools are a welcoming place for all students to learn, and adequate funding for schools is a constant concern. Fortunately, approximately 90% of the funding for schools in California comes from the state rather than the federal government. For most schools, the bulk of the federal funding they receive is for Special Education.”

Glentzer provided two orders that came down from Washington. Executive Order Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity For Families states that the Secretary of Education will issue guidance on how to use federal funds to support K-12 educational choice initiatives. This guidance would describe how states using the Child Care and Development Block Grant can use the grants to expand educational choice for families who choose educational alternatives including private and faith-based options.

Executive Order Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling requires the Secretary of Education to create an “Ending Indoctrination Strategy” that will recommend ways to eliminate federal support for “illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.” Glentzer said, “It has not been my experience as a parent or educator that our schools are ‘indoctrinating’ or illegally ‘discriminating.’”

Jared Huffman’s virtual roundtable

On Monday, U.S. Congressman Jared Huffman hosted a virtual zoom roundtable on Trump’s orders freezing federal funding. He heard from constituents and community organizations in Humboldt, Trinity, and Del Norte counties about the potential impacts of Trump’s orders.

Huffman said, “The reason we are doing this is, we are really trying to tell the story to this administration and to my colleagues in Congress, if we can get them to listen, that some of these extreme early actions that are being taken are really disruptive and hurtful, especially in rural communities like the ones I represent on the north coast of California.” Huffman said he invited the media because “It’s hard to tell the story if no one is listening, and we hope that they can provide a megaphone and amplify the alarm that I am hearing all over my district now about what some of these things mean.”

Huffman described the orders as “really dizzying.” He said that on the first day, “We saw 26 executive orders, and we’ve seen 40 more signed since then. We have never seen anything like it, and we are still scrambling to understand the scope and the legality and the implications of all these different orders. 

“Here is what we do understand. The OMB got everyone’s attention on Sunday when they put out this sweeping memo to freeze everything, all federal grants, contracting and any programming involving federal funding except for Social Security and Medicare so that senior political appointees in the Trump administration could go through and do a political review essentially, to make sure that everything comported with all of these dozens of new executive orders. And that includes anything as stopping all funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, stop all funding under the Inflation Reduction Act, stop all funding that looks like the ‘green new deal,’ whatever that is, stop all funding that involves wokeness, or diversity, equity, and inclusion. I am still trying to understand where things like equity and inclusion became dirty words.

“Thankfully, we got some help from a court that held that up and then the Trump administration put out a clarifying memo saying, ‘That we are going to withdraw the OMB memo but we will still be moving ahead with the funding freeze,’ and I am grateful that a federal court enjoined that temporarily as well.” 

Huffman continued describing the process that agencies and nonprofits receiving federal funding may have to deal with. “We do have an administration that is saying they are still intending to go very aggressively down this road. Bear in mind that road included 3,200 line items in a spreadsheet that OMB had sent out to every federal agency that instructed them for each of those line items to identify a senior political operative in the Trump Administration to do this litmus test and find out if everything was kosher with the executive orders.”

He said, “Look, we are not out of the woods, at best we are in a moment of temporary reprieve, and I think it is an important time for us to take stock and try to understand what this means. A couple of days ago I met with tribal leaders, and you know I represent more tribes than anyone else in the lower 48 states in Congress. The stories we heard there about the amount of programming that could be interrupted or stopped and what that would do to their communities…. The Indian health centers are right in the middle of the cross hairs for many of these orders. So much of what they do involves equity and is done in the name of environmental justice— another thing that the new administration is trying to freeze and shut down. So many of these Indian health centers are the only game in town for remote rural communities. They serve more than just tribal members. They serve the whole community. They include counseling programs and suicide prevention programs for LGBTQ youth, the most vulnerable population in America. Tribal LGBTQ teens have the highest suicide rate in America. And we have programs with federal funding that are making a difference and are saving lives. All that goes away if that funding freeze rolls out as it has been represented.

Huffman noted that a nonprofit in the southern half of his district had a grant pulled because it involves climate change education, “a huge abrupt disruption to that nonprofit’s whole operation.”

The 2021 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) were enacted to upgrade and improve the nation’s infrastructure— roads, bridges, public transit, broadband, water systems, and energy grids. Mendocino County is already seeing many of these projects in progress thanks to this funding. The question is what will happen if and when the funding stops.

Impact on rural communities

Over a dozen representatives from various agencies during the virtual town hall with Huffman outlined what millions of dollar cancellations of funding and subsequent program disruptions would mean to real people in their communities and jobs.

Rural school districts are especially hit hard by any loss of funding. Representatives from several school districts spoke of the potential loss of grant program funds including the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 (SRS) which was enacted to provide financial assistance to rural counties and school districts affected by the decline in revenue from timber harvests on federal lands. 

Fabio Robles, superintendent of the Trinity County schools, said that as a forest reserve county, Trinity County is very dependent on federal funds. 

The SRS program allows counties to allocate funds where they’re needed most, whether for school operations, road maintenance, or community development projects. The funds also help maintain roads, bridges, and public transportation, as well as support emergency services like fire departments, sheriff’s offices, and search-and-rescue operations. The SRS program is now in limbo and is awaiting Congress to reauthorize the SRS administered for counties hosting both U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management forested lands through Fiscal Year 2026.

Michael Davies Hughes, Superintendent of Humboldt County Office of Education, said program cuts would be devastating if the funding freeze or cuts or delays go through. He said that students who are already disproportionately at a disadvantage will be impacted: “We are talking about students in Humboldt County who are living in poverty.” 

Jeff Harris from Del Norte County Unified School District agreed, saying that students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged—homeless youth, foster youth, Native American youth—would be particularly impacted. He also noted that “We need to talk about how these dollars also support staff who provide services for these students, social workers, psychologists. Mental health counseling and college and career support and guidance for over 800 students. Every dollar that goes away from federal funding then comes out locally, and we just cannot sustain that.”

Many funding streams that rural communities depend on involve state and federal commingled funds, and many programs include multi-county partnerships. 

Kerry Venegas, executive director of Changing Tides, which serves Humboldt County families, said, “We have 18 unique programs that go through our agency with disability services, childcare services, and mental health to families, children, and youth. The majority of [federal] funding is passed through to the state and then co-mingled with state funds.” She went on to say, “The childcare vouchers program and Parent Choice Program provides the majority of support for families to access childcare so they can go to work or school, so children can have a safe and nutritious place to stay. In our country alone, that is 1,500 kids and almost 1000 families immediately would [not have] those services. Over $3.8 million went out in childcare services in Humboldt County alone, and that means we are talking about many childcare businesses, professional childcare providers that are centers-based, and women-operated and -owned businesses, HeadStart programs, all have equity language in them.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) supports rural communities through funding for various childcare programs, which are crucial for families living in underserved areas. The potential of funding cuts includes school closures, job losses, delayed infrastructure projects, and diminished emergency response capabilities.

Venegas pointed out that childcare and adult food programs that are administered by the state are now 100% federally funded. “It is the USDA and once the USDA shuts off or freezes those funds that immediately ceases.” 

Seniors and aging services will also be hurt. Maggie Kraft, executive director of Area 1 Agency on Aging explained that they help people live independently at home. Their staff is small, all women who need to work. “We worry about our employees being hit,” said Kraft, “And we have the newly growing population of homeless elders who are primarily women over the age of 60. If this is resolved after April, we just won’t be here because we don’t have the money to go past April. 43% of our funds are federal dollars and all those dollars are on the lists.” The lists she cites have to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion.