Trump grantmaking order heightens uncertainty for city funding

Dive Temporary: 

• The Trump administration issued an government order this month supposed to streamline and strengthen oversight and coordination of the federal discretionary grantmaking process.
• The order directs federal businesses to overview grant awards to make sure they meet the administration’s “priorities and the nationwide curiosity” and assess their progress every year. It would additionally simplify the language on grant utility questions, choose functions that “advance the President’s coverage priorities” and require businesses to reform their insurance policies so the businesses can terminate grants that don’t meet the administration’s pursuits. 
• Lobbying teams representing native and county governments say they imagine the administration’s new insurance policies might make acquiring grants tougher. 

Dive Perception:

The Aug. 7 government order, Bettering Oversight of Federal Grantmaking, is the most recent of a number of Trump administration actions to dam federal cash from going to recipients or funding work that don’t align with the Trump administration’s priorities. 

The order takes goal at what the administration describes as “range, fairness, and inclusion and different far-left initiatives.” It directs businesses to pick discretionary grant functions that advance the Trump administration’s coverage priorities and keep away from tasks that assist race or gender, undocumented immigration and the existence of transgender folks. 

It additionally encourages offering grant funds to a broad vary of recipients “relatively than to a choose group of repeat gamers.” Grant recipients might want to submit “written explanations or assist, with specificity” earlier than drawing down funds for every award. 

The Nationwide Affiliation of Counties, in an Aug. 19 post, said that counties rely on federal grant funds to assist a variety of priorities together with social companies, well being packages, public security, catastrophe response and infrastructure investments. 

“Adjustments to federal grant coverage, particularly ones that apply retroactively, could create unintended administrative or monetary penalties when implementing these packages,” the group said. 

A spokesperson for the Nationwide League of Cities mentioned in an e-mail that it’s reviewing the total influence of the chief order on cities. The group mentioned it agrees the grantmaking course of could possibly be improved, however the government order “provides to the bureaucratic course of with extra political evaluations and one other replace to the Uniform Steerage which underpins all grants.”

The spokesperson added that the chief order falsely asserts that grants already in course of “might be partially or totally terminated and not using a substantial trigger.” That transfer, the NLC said, is “counter to Congress’ Constitutional energy of the purse.”

The NLC is making an attempt to assist cities overcome complicated grant processes by coaching small and enormous communities to use for and handle federal grants, the group said. 

County leaders, in the meantime, are urging Congress and the administration to not cancel or freeze beforehand awarded funds and “assist the soundness and continued funding of essential tasks and packages which have been correctly accepted, allotted and distributed,” NACO wrote.