The Pima County Courthouse building in downtown Tucson, Arizona.
Last week, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rescinded its memo that would have halted $3 trillion in federal grants, loans and aid.
Despite the lifting the freeze, President Trump has directed federal agencies to review awards issued from Biden-era appropriations as part of his Executive Order, Unleashing American Energy.
Pima County currently manages twelve grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), totaling $68 million.
County Administrator Jan Lesher said the county is assessing the potential impact of the executive orders while awaiting further federal guidance.
“It would be difficult for me to think of an area of the county that will not see some impact as we really begin to delve through how many of the grants are involved because of the depth of the funding,” Lesher said.
One concern, she noted, is whether the county will be reimbursed for expenses it has already paid.
“We have projects that have been incompleted and we’re just waiting on our last single payment,” she said. “Do we have anything that hasn’t started that we’re going to need to get in the queue?”
The grants support a range of projects including air quality monitoring equipment to evaluate compliance with emission standards, brownfields remediation funding from the Environmental Protection Agency, fiber middle-mile broadband infrastructure funding from the Department of Commerce and road construction and safety work from the Department of Transportation.
As the county evaluates its spending on these projects, Lesher said she is looking to organizations like the National League of Cities and the County Supervisors Association, which are also investigating the full impact.
“There are grant programs that have been in place for so long that you almost don’t think of them as grants,” Lesher said.
One example is Community Development Block Grants, which fund community facility improvements and public service programs in low-income neighborhoods.
“If those funds went away and the Board of Supervisors wanted to continue the program believing that it had significant value to the people of Pima County, those dollars would then have to come out of the general fund, which means other programs are going to have to end,” Lesher said.
As for the number of jobs at stake, Lesher said does not know that number but is investigating what those numbers are program by program.
Last week, the Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sued the Trump Administration for attempting to freeze federal funds already appropriated by Congress, violating the Impoundment Act of 1974 and Administrative Procedure Act.
The initial funding freeze put about 2,600 federal programs across more than 20 federal departments at risk.
In a memo updating the county on the federal funding impacts, Lesher’s office said it has compared the county’s portfolio of federal grants against a federal assistance catalog to determine which funding sources could be affected.
The full impact is still unclear, as courts have introduced further uncertainty about executive actions affecting funds.
The County Administrator’s office is continuing to review the fiscal and programmatic impacts and will provide updates as more information becomes available.
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