Pierce County taps savings to create $25M safety net should Trump cut grants
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Pierce County approved a $25M safeguard fund to cover federal grant shortfalls.
- The fund draws from $210M in reserves and ensures contractual obligations are met.
- Federal grant reductions tied to new Trump policies impact key local services.
A majority of the Pierce County Council has approved creating a $25 million supplemental budget from county reserves as a safeguard to keep its contract obligations through the end of the year amid federal funding cuts and policy changes.
Executive Ryan Mello, a Democrat, said Wednesday he will sign off on the supplemental budget in the next week after proposing the addition to the county budget last month. Although it’s unclear what funding previously allocated to Pierce County the federal government might take back, the Tuesday approval of the supplemental budget means the Mello will have authority to dip into the county’s $210 million reserves “to address programmatic and operational impacts resulting from the loss or reduction of federal funding during fiscal year 2025,” according to the ordinance.
After discussion Tuesday afternoon and the approval of several amendments, all four of the Democrats on the Pierce County Council voted in favor of the ordinance, with Republicans Dave Morrell and Amy Cruver voted against. Republican vice chair Paul Herrera was excused from the meeting and did not vote. He could not be reached for comment.
Pierce County expected to receive about $100 million from the federal government this year, said county finance director Julie Demuth on Thursday. The $25 million supplemental budget number was based on funds needed to cover the last quarter of the year, she said.
The federal government already has rescinded money allocated to Pierce County. Two weeks ago the county was notified that a $706,000 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention grant meant to assess and mitigate threats of youth violence and radicalization was revoked, effective immediately, Demuth said. Pierce County was told that the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been directed to focus only on programs that are part of their “essential mission of enforcing immigration laws, securing the border and combating anti-Semitism,” and no longer viewed that program as part of that mission, Demuth said.
Because the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention grant wasn’t seen as “core to our emergency management services that the county is legally required to provide,” the program will not continue or be funded by the supplemental budget, Demuth said.
“I’d like to say that I don’t anticipate we’re going to need to draw down a significant amount of these funds, but to be honest, we just, we also don’t know,” Demuth said. “We didn’t expect that grant to be rescinded. That came out of the blue.”
As previously reported by The News Tribune, Pierce County faces impacts from federal funding cuts, tariffs and new directives from the Trump administration. Local food banks have reported a loss of USDA assistance, as have Head Start programs, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department and local schools. Pierce County is among a handful of local jurisdictions that have sued the Trump administration for putting “unlawful and coercive” terms and conditions on federal grants that seek to ensure grant funds don’t promote topics like “illegal immigration,” “DEI” or “gender ideology.”
What does the supplemental budget do?
The $25 million supplemental budget does not expand existing programs or add new initiatives. It only allows expenditures to fulfill existing contractual obligations, preserve existing county functions or mitigate “the direct effects of federal funding reductions to spending” already allocated in the 2024-2025 budget “or in federal awards for which spending has commenced or a contract is in place pursuant to a Council-approved grant application,” according to the ordinance.
Under the ordinance approved Tuesday, Mello would have to notify the Pierce County Council at least five days before he spends money from the supplemental budget, said council communications director Bryan Dominique. Expenditures would be listed in the council agendas and read into the record in the interests of transparency, he said.
If federal grants aren’t cut or there is money left over, money in the supplemental budget would return to the county’s general fund, Dominque said. The executive, Finance Department and affected county departments would decide what money would be spent, Demuth said.
As for when Pierce County could expect to know what grants would be cancelled? It’s hard to say.
“We really do not know what to expect week to week, and sometimes it’s even day to day. At one point in time, things seemed stable, we have a path forward, and then something like the rescission of this FEMA grant instantly happened,” Demuth said. “So it is very unpredictable in nature right now. And it’s not only policy decisions being made at the federal level around grant funding, it’s also we’re looking at federal budget reductions as well, so we could get hit from multiple facets.”
‘A very unusual ask’
Council chair and Democrat Jani Hitchen described the supplemental budget proposal as “a very unusual ask” in “response to some really uncertain times.”
“My hope is that $25 million stays untouched. I think that’s everybody’s hope,” Hitchen said. “But this is a ‘break glass in case of emergency’ [situation], so that if there’s services to seniors and people with disabilities cut, that we can find a way to do something, if there are housing programs or Planning and Public Works or public safety programs that we deem really important to the health and safety of our residents, that we have a way to quickly move to make sure those programs can stay solvent for this year as we figure out how to move into ‘26 and ‘27.”
Republican council members Dave Morell and Amy Cruver said they struggled with supporting the ordinance given the need for fiscal restraint.
“This is a unique supplemental [budget] that this council has never had to deal with, dipping so deep into our reserve surplus to help backfill a lot of the federal grants that we may not get due to the terms and conditions that the new administration has put on those funds. We cannot afford to spend the amount of money that we’re putting out there,” Morell said. “We have to pick and choose. We can no longer spread the peanut butter to everyone to be fair. We will have to pick winners, and we will have to pick losers moving forward if you want effective delivery of services.”
Cruver said she couldn’t dismiss issues like food insecurity as a reality in Pierce County but questioned where funding was being distributed.
“We are not with unlimited funds, and constantly I hear, you know, blaming federal government for cutting back. Well, there were trillions of dollars spent that maybe shouldn’t have been, even going decades back. It’s not just the last administration,” she said. “We have to be prudent in what we are doing and looking at what has to be funded, what doesn’t. It is kind of a bellwether in understanding that as we work with our next budget.”
