Maricela Ramirez was at an educational conference in Washington, DC at the end of January, when she and other participants heard the surprising news: Federal Financing for Head Start programs that support early children with low incomes nationwide were frozen.
Ramirez, Chief Education Officer of the Education Office in Los Angeles County, quickly contacted colleagues and realized that it was true. They had tried to achieve a routine withdrawal of millions of dollars the day before, but it had not arrived overnight as expected.
Ramirez said “Stress and Panic” started to insert around them in their office and among the conference participants around them.
“Our team had to judge whether Lacoe had to close and determine where Lacooe could find funds for the payment of its employees if the system continued to decrease,” Ramirez recently wrote in a legal registration. Breaks in federal financing could interfere with mental health services, advice, health care and nutritional support for up to 8,000 children.
Ramirez 'report on the consequences and the continued fear caused by the sudden decision of the Trump government to stop billions of dollars to federal support in the past month. At least 16 explanations came from California.
Together, the explanations draw an idea of alarm and chaos in the hours and days after the budget office of the White House in a memo on January 27 and the continued fear and uncertainty when the Trump administration continues to fight for such a household authority.
While the administration remained frozen in the following days, some funds remained the Office for Management and Household and Household Memo, which were issued in a significant public turmoil. And in response to the lawsuit of the states, the Trump government argued that Trump and OMB “clearly have the authority to lead agencies in order to fully implement the president's agenda”.
On January 31, the US district judge John J. McConnell Jr. He continued to block it on February 10, partly to the strength of the explanations – and wrote that the “categorical and comprehensive freezing of the government” “was probably unconstitutional and caused a huge part of this country to harm and continue to damage.”
The Trump government accused McConnell of being “unbearable judicial over -control”, but has resorted to an appeal if the legal dispute continues.
In a statement, Mary Halterman, a deputy program budget manager of the California finance ministry, wrote that the federal financing “usually includes about a third of the state budget. In the 2024-25 financial year, the state's $ 500-billion budget anticipated federal funds of $ 168 billion, without taking into account the financing of the state's public college and university system.
The majority, around $ 107.5 billion, is for payments as part of Medi-Cal, the California version of Medicaid, which offers almost 15 million Californians or more than a third of the state's population for health care, Halterman wrote .
This includes around 5 million children – more than half of the children in the state.
California also has 63 billion US dollars in California according to the law on infrastructure investments and jobs from 2021 and almost 5 billion US, “Halterman wrote.
The financing -Freeze -Memo of the Office of Management and Budget immediately created “confusion and doubt” about California's ability to further provide such services, wrote Halterman. And this uncertainty was “continuing”, she wrote.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Protested against President Trump and Elon Musk's policy on Wednesday in the US capitol.
(Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press)
“Without knowing whether and when federal dollars are paid out, state authorities may not be able to hand over these funds, which causes an immediate break or a possible termination of state services in some sectors,” Halterman wrote.
The Freeze triggered similar alarm bells among state officials who monitor Medi-Cal and other health programs funded by the state, especially after they found on January 28 that a payment of $ 200 million was not received, wrote Lindy Harrington , a deputy state medical director.
The department “managed to continue the company on this day,” but did not have enough means to meet future financial obligations, “she wrote, and it now fears the” household chaos “of a longer disturbance – under the” health services could be Drastically restricted or even stop. “
California officials who monitor other public health and security programs have aroused similar fears after they have been locked up for a number of environmental and infrastructure projects, including cleaning contaminated industrial locations, monitoring air quality in low income and disadvantaged Municipalities and reduction of dangerous and potential fatal pollution along the busy freight corridor between Los Angeles and the domestic realm.
Eric Lau, deputy deputy director of the Department of Administrative Services in California State Water Resources Control Board, said that his agency had received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies for projects in connection with safe drinking water and overflow and rainwater management.
On January 28th at 8 a.m., the employees of Lau found that only 31 of the 45 grants of the Board of Directors were visible in his federal payment system and, according to the 14, provided an alarming message: “Error 839: No accounts found the right criteria.”
It took days for some of the accounts to come online again, wrote Lau and warned that longer disorders could be catastrophic.
“The construction, construction and maintenance of critical water devices are stalled, with the continuous water pollution, the supply of disorders and serious threats risk for public health and the environment,” he wrote. “Ultimately, the right of the Californian is threatened with safe, clean, affordable and accessible water.”
Federal financing was also temporarily blocked for researchers at California State University and the University of California campus, homeowners and building contractors who retrofit the houses in order to be more energy -efficient, the supervisory authorities, the security violations for work and support the job, career services and training programs In dozens of local workers, development centers monitor nationwide.
Both the state and local officials warned that all the cuts of federal financing, which are not carefully checked and articulated by the congress – have articulated the places time for the creation of new budgets for their own budgets – deeply unclear and potentially dangerous.
California Suppt. Of public lessons, Tony Thurmond wrote that the state received annual funds of 7.9 billion US dollars from the US Ministry of Education, which supports 5.8 million students. The temporary freezing for financing in the past month has not disturbed school programs, partly because the state did not have an important award for federal funds.
However, every interference in these funds would “harm”, “immeasurably harm”, he wrote.
For the current school year, the state receives 1.5 billion US dollars of direct funds for special education students, Thurmond wrote. In addition, public schools rely strongly at Medi-Cal-in the amount of millions of dollars per school and centuries to provide additional therapies and psychological and physical health services, wrote Thurmond.
The California schools also receive large amounts of federal financing as part of the law about every student. In this financial year, California was assigned to 2 billion US dollars in Essa funds in order to “meet the needs of some of his most endangered students” and to ensure that they correspond to certain competence standards, wrote Thurmond. Among other things, 120 million US dollars for the upbringing of “train children”, 232 million US dollars to strengthen the quality and effectiveness of school staff, 157 million US dollars for acquisition and improvement programs for English and $ 152 million The improvement in school conditions and technology assigned, 157 million US dollars. Thurmond wrote.
The California schools also spend 40 to 50 million dollars of federal funds per week to feed students through nutritional programs.
Another freezing “could lead to layoffs, the suspension of services for needy students and disorders of learning the students,” wrote Thurmond.
State programs that would be completely independent of education would also be at risk, since many educational programs are mandatory under state and federal law and the state would be forced to mix its resources in order to provide them independently.
Mason Matthews, Chief Budget and financial officer in the CEO office of Feia Davenport, the Feia Davenport's office, announced these larger budget concerns. With around 10 million inhabitants and a budget of around 49 billion US dollars, the district is most populated with estimated federal financing of 5.3 billion US dollars.
Matthews wrote that the “exact effects” of the recent break for federal financing “remain unknown”, but the risks of a further freeze, public security processes, public services, development of workforce, care, child benefit, housing and emergency management. “
An affected group would be in need of families from the Calworks program of the state of cash aid, labor services and childcare through which the district receives more than 2 billion US dollars in federal funds every year, Matthews wrote. Also at risk of abused children, he wrote when the district's Ministry of Children and Family Services rely on annual federal financing of USD 604.5 million in order to examine abuse and neglect and to provide “support and therapeutic services” for such children.
In a broader sense, further freezing would cause “considerable budget and administrative pollution” for the district, since federal financing is around 10% of the district budget, and “irreparably damage the daily life of all residents,” wrote Matthews. This applies in particular to the budget load, which can already be felt from the devastating forest fires that have burned parts of the district last month.
“Holding back federal financing in conjunction with the ambiguity and uncertainty about which funds are retained and how long it causes irreparable damage and criticism and restoration efforts endangered,” wrote Matthews. “Although the district will take suitable measures to react to the fires of the LA district, without reimbursement by federal financing, other decisive programs from County can be affected, e.g. living opportunities for homeless families and veterans.”