City manager gives preliminary estimate of federal freeze's local exposure; $79 million in grants cited

City Manager Alan updated the City Council on Jan. 28 about a short-term White House pause on certain federal programs and provided an initial accounting of federal grant awards in the city's current budget.

"I do not have an exact number," Alan said, describing the briefing as preliminary. He said the federal guidance released to date indicates the pause "does not apply across the board" and that Social Security, Medicare and mandatory programs such as Medicaid and SNAP were explicitly excluded in the guidance the city had reviewed.

Alan gave an order-of-magnitude figure for federal grants included in the city's budget: $79,000,000 in awards included in the current budget (he said that figure excludes human-services projects). Of that total, he said roughly $60,000,000 is for streets and bridges, $8,000,000 for Water Works projects and $11,000,000 for community development-related programs such as the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program and HOME funding. He also noted the school system had a separate reserve of $14,000,000 for school-lunch funding.

Why it matters: City officials said the freeze could affect capital projects and nonprofit drawdowns that rely on federal funding, and council members raised concerns about short-term impacts on local nonprofits, emergency shelter…