City Welcomes News Funding Freeze Lifted

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Category: News

Created on Wednesday, 29 January 2025 15:07

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By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
    City staff breathed a sign of relief today with the news an executive order freezing federal funding that would have stopped a number of local projects – including the airport – has been rescinded.
    A number of nonprofits that receive federal funding also were affected by the executive order.
    City officials for the past week were still working out what projects would have been affected, and a possible response to President Trump’s executive order, when the reversal was announced this morning.
    Melissa Wileman, city public and government relations director, said city staff had a tentative list of affected projects that included the seawall, the Green Lake hydro rehabilitation, other hydro projects, the airport renovation and others that have received federal funding.
    The order “Unleashing American Energy” directed federal agencies to pause certain loans, grants and initiatives associated with the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
    On Monday the White House budget office issued an internal memo that ordered a pause on additional federal grants and loans. Wileman found out through the national news that the executive order and freeze were being reversed, but not without consequences.
    “The freeze created significant uncertainty and anxiety for staff working closely on these projects; it also led to considerable wasted time and chaos as we scrambled to assess the implications,” Wileman said. “The freeze would’ve been catastrophic, for example, with the airport project, because we are already billing quarterly for work completed, so how could we have simply halted a project of that scale?”
    She said not only did the freeze create strain on internal teams, but also created concerns about the potential impacts on contractors who are actively working on city projects.
    Wileman said city staff members also were hearing about the affected nonprofits that perform essential services in the community.