Grand Forks officials, nonprofits relieved after Trump administration backs down from funding freeze

Yahoo

30-01-2025

Jan. 29—GRAND FORKS — Local officials expressed relief after the White House backed down on an order to halt trillions of dollars in federal support.
The Trump administration on Wednesday
rescinded
a budget office memo calling for a spending freeze on federal grants and loans less than 24 hours after the order was blocked by a federal judge.
The broadly written memo, issued Monday, generated widespread confusion as federal agencies attempted to parse out what of their funding to halt and state and local entities waited anxiously to find out whether the flow of federal dollars would be interrupted.
In Grand Forks, the White House order threatened to disrupt construction projects, university research, public transportation, plans to expand air service at Grand Forks International Airport and local efforts to combat homelessness.
"I still don't understand the full intention of what the memo meant to do, so I'm glad they took a second to reassess their approach," said Brandon Baumbach, business manager at Grand Forks Public Schools.
A little more than 10% of the school district's funding — more than $14 million — is set to come from federal sources this year.
An Education Department spokesperson clarified Tuesday the funding freeze would not affect formula funding for low-income students, special education and the cost of operating the Grand Forks Air Force Base school district.
That still left millions in funding up in the air, including a promised 80/20 federal match
to build a new Nathan Twining Elementary and Middle School
on the air base.
After learning of the funding freeze, the district business office on Tuesday attempted to request a partial reimbursement for around $650,000 of design work on the base school, only to find themselves unable to submit the request through an online portal.
Medicaid and Head Start providers nationwide reported similar difficulties accessing online federal reimbursement portals Tuesday, even though the White House later clarified those programs were supposed to be exempted. In Grand Forks, Head Start did not experience the disruption, according to Tracey Johnson, director of the local program.
Baumbach said he planned to review discretionary grants received by the district and assess the likelihood they could be subject to a future hold by the Trump administration.
"We're aware of some of the administration's thinking, so that will guide our own analysis and what we should be thinking about going forward," Baumbach said. "It alarmed us, and so it had our attention, and now it has our attention."
The original memo, from the Office of Management and Budget, purported to target "Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies."
City Administrator Todd Feland said federal funds pay for half of the city's operating costs for public transportation, which it receives via reimbursement in a similar manner to the school district.
He said a protracted hold on federal funds could have disrupted summer road projects the city had not yet bid out as well as the
$99 million expansion of the city's wastewater treatment plant.
"If there was a long delay, we would have missed construction season," Feland said.
It could have also delayed
plans to add a new air carrier
at Grand Forks International Airport, since the city has not yet received the $1 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation to fund start-up costs.
Some were still parsing out the expected impact of the White House memo when it was rescinded.
Grand Forks Public Health Director Tess Wall said her agency spent much of the last two days conferring with the state Department of Health and Human Services, which distributes federal dollars to local public health agencies like Grand Forks'.
"It was a lot of waiting for clarity on specifics," Wall said. "There really wasn't enough information to make any action."
Around 39% of Grand Forks Public Health's funding comes from the federal government, Wall said, and pays for programs like chronic disease support, early screenings for breast and cervical cancer, and its tuberculosis program.
Grand Forks County officials had been working to determine if the freeze would affect the county Emergency Management Office or one of its Defense Department grants, County Administrator Tom Ford told the Herald in a Tuesday text message.
As of Wednesday morning, UND administrators were still parsing through programs that could have been affected by the wide-ranging order.
The Trump order had been expected to disrupt research grants from agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Scott Snyder, vice president of research and economic development, told the Herald on Wednesday morning he'd received "relatively vague" messages from the NSF and the Department of Energy, and nothing from the NIH.
The Trump administration
ordered federal health agencies to pause all external communications
last week, which Snyder noted had almost certainly contributed to the lack of a response from the NIH.
UND had around $66 million in federal research expenditures during its 2023 fiscal year. Federal grants and contracts totaled more than $104 million for the university last year, according to Finance and Operations VP Karla Mongeon-Stewart.
A statement attributed to university spokesperson Meloney Linder said UND was "pleased" to hear the freeze order had been rescinded and that the university would continue to monitor the situation.
Derek Sporbert, director of UND's TRIO programs, had expected the federally-funded programs for low-income and first-generation students to shut down in a matter of weeks if the funding hold was not resolved.
He told the Herald in a text message he was "relieved" the memo had been rescinded and that the situation emphasized the need to work with lawmakers to ensure the program's future.
"Our ND legislators have always fiercely defended and supported TRIO in our area, and we realize that we work with students from all backgrounds and life situation(s) much broader than the scope of DEI or other types of programs," Sporbert wrote.
The Monday budget memo explicitly mentioned DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which the Trump administration described as "illegal and immoral" in a Jan. 20 executive order.
A hold on federal funds could have also disrupted efforts to confront homelessness in Grand Forks, to which the city has allocated much of its recent Community Development Block Grant funding.
City Council's Committee of the Whole signed off on allocating CDBG capital funds to update the fire alarm system at Northlands Rescue Mission this week, Executive Director Sue Shirek noted.
Many homeless providers in North Dakota had been unable to access funding while the freeze was in effect, Shirek said, which threatened to disrupt support to already vulnerable people.
United Way Executive Director Heather Novak said the nonprofit is banking on $195,000 in CDBG funds to cover security and energy efficiency improvements to two apartment complexes the nonprofit recently purchased to house homeless families.
Paying that out-of-pocket would mean less funding toward United Way's family assistance programs. The nonprofit is also worried about funding disruptions for the rental assistance and utility assistance it issues to keep struggling families from becoming homeless in the first place.
Novak remains concerned how long the status quo would hold.
"Right now, everything is changing so rapidly that you're kind of just a sitting duck," she said. "We're waiting to hear what's going to happen, and we'll pivot any way that things move."