Josh Friday, director of the Governor's Office of Service and Community, said the termination of nearly $400,000,000 in AmeriCorps grant funding will cut support for schools, food banks, homeless shelters, health clinics, youth centers, veteran facilities and other nonprofit organizations across California.

The funding loss, Friday said, reduces direct service capacity in communities. “They’re cutting boots on the ground,” he said, adding that affected service members and local programs provide classroom support, park maintenance and disaster response on the front line.

Friday described the cuts as not a reduction of bureaucracy but a reduction in service delivery. He listed types of organizations that rely on AmeriCorps grants for staffing and program support and warned those institutions will not receive the funds they have relied on.

Despite those terminations, Friday said the state is continuing recruitment for the California Service Corps and remains engaged in programmatic work on post-pandemic academic recovery, rebuilding after the Los Angeles fires and planning for the future workforce. He presented those efforts as ongoing state priorities rather than completed actions.

No formal motion or vote was recorded on funding or program changes during the remarks; the statements were presented as informational and advisory. The remarks did not specify which AmeriCorps grants were terminated, the timeline for the terminations, or which local programs would lose specific dollar amounts. Those details were not specified in the remarks.