Elected officials and social service agencies spent Tuesday scrambling to make sense of a sudden freeze in federal funding imposed by the Trump administration, with civic leaders warning that it could have devastating consequences.
The office of Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato said the freeze could punch a hole in the county budget worth at least $500 million, meaning less money for investments in such things as public safety, lead-abatement and environmental programs, and economic development. That's not including cuts that would affect other government agencies or institutions like universities.
“These orders as directed so far are designed to maximize cruelty, chaos, and suffering," said a statement from the office. "We hope they are not the final decision from the Trump Administration."
The funding pause was announced in a late-Monday memo authored by Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. While the funding had already been allocated, and while spending is the prerogative of Congress, Veath wrote that the freeze was meant to align spending with President Donald Trump’s policies — and to halt the use of tax dollars to support what he called “Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies.”
Vaeth said that funding received directly by citizens — such as Social Security payments or student loans — would be unaffected. But that still left trillions of dollars at stake, with the fate of infrastructure investments, research projects, and social service contracts suddenly in the air.
The freeze was originally set to go into effect at 5 p.m. Tuesday, but federal judge Loren AliKhan of the District of Columbia issued a pause of her own, rolling it back until Monday, Feb. 3 to allow more time for the court to decide whether the measure was legal.
“Clearly, someone there seemingly screwed up and got too far out there,” Gov. Josh Shapiro told reporters Tuesday afternoon.
And while Shapiro said he expected the administration to walk back at least some of the memo’s provisions, “What they've done over the last day or so has been really chaotic and really reckless.”
Roughly one-third of the state’s annual spending is supported by federal dollars, he noted. “You have veterans worried they're not getting their support. You got … families of kids who are worried they're not going to be able to get the health care that they need. And you've got governments all across this country, led by Republicans and Democrats alike, who are really concerned about their ability to just run their day-to-day operations.”
‘The fact that it’s bonkers doesn’t make it less frightening’
Some nonprofit agencies, which receive contracts directly from the government and from intermediary groups that include local governments or other nonprofits, were thrown into a panic by the freeze. Leaders of many said they were still grappling with how or whether it would affect their operations, though several were wary of speaking publicly given the uncertainty.
“The fact that it's bonkers doesn't make it less frightening,” said one nonprofit executive.
United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania President and CEO Bobbi Watt Geer said that while federal funds provide her organization with some support, its main concern was for the partners with which it works.
“It’s not unusual for up to 90% of an agency’s budget to come from state and federal sources,” she said in a statement. “We’re trying now to get an understanding of how these agencies and the people they serve will be affected.”
Ken Regal, the executive director of the anti-hunger group Just Harvest, said his organization would continue to operate as normal at least for now. A memo to federal agencies, he said, was not the same as a notice to services providers: “Until a federal agency, or an intermediary that uses federal dollars and has a contact with us, tells us something different, we are confident we can continue to work and the government will pay us.”
Regal said he took comfort that a lawsuit had been filed to halt the freeze. The case was filed in a federal court based in Washington, D.C., by an umbrella nonprofit and public health groups, and it argues that the freeze was “devoid of any legal basis or the barest rationale” and would have “a devastating impact” on human service providers and their clients.
The federal court action Tuesday merely put a temporary hold on the policy to allow time for a discussion about the merits of the freeze. But Regal said, “I’m pretty confident that what they’re doing is blatantly illegal, and that a reasonable judge will stop it.”
Still, while Regal said that “organizations and the people we serve should not be frightened in the short term, they should be worried in the long term about the administration’s desire to destroy the good things that government does every day.”
Other agencies struck a cautious tone, with the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank issuing a statement in which it acknowledged that it was “in contact with state and local elected officials to better understand how this may impact our programs …. The Food Bank is prepared to serve our neighbors during this uncertain time."
The order has even stirred up confusion for fans of opera — an art form Trump himself is said to admire. The Pittsburgh Opera was awarded a $30,000 NEA grant for an upcoming production of "Madama Butterfly," but while those funds are accessible only as reimbursements, spokesperson Chris Cox said it was unclear how the memo would affect the company “if at all.”
‘Wallowing in uncertainty’
Of special concern in Pittsburgh would be the impact of a freeze on funding spent by the National Institutes of Health. That money plays a key role in Pittsburgh’s life sciences sector, which accounts for an estimated $3.4 billion in economic activity and more than 15,500 jobs.
The University of Pittsburgh declined comment; Carnegie Mellon University said it was seeking "to understand how the guidance issued by the Office of Management and Budget may impact grants and cooperative agreements. This includes reviewing activities that may be impacted by executive orders."
Linda DeAngelo, an education professor in the University of Pittsburgh’s educational foundations, organizations and policy department, said many of the ground-breaking innovations that have emerged locally were sponsored by federal support.
“That basic research … is not really occurring in the private sector,” said DeAngelo. “We're talking about all types of scientific discoveries that later lead to very important things that we're doing in the world.”
Pittsburgh Life Sciences Alliance CEO Megan Shaw noted that NIH funding had not been affected as of Tuesday. But she said the stakes were high: "By funding research that is too early for the private sector to support, the NIH plays a foundational role in advancing medicine and innovation in human healthcare,” Shaw said.
The Jewish Healthcare Foundation echoed those concerns Tuesday. Even more worrisome, argued foundation President and CEO Karen Wolk Feinstein, is what a freeze could mean for research already in progress.
“For some of these research projects where people are in clinical trials, there are lives at stake,” she said. “We are wallowing in uncertainty.”
While much remains unknown about how the funding freeze could destabilize medical care, the orders could also bring an economic hit to the region, Feinstein said. While organizations like the Jewish Healthcare Foundation provide grant funding to similar research projects, she stressed that private resources couldn’t replace those provided at the federal level.
“I don't want people to think the private sector can step in and fill the gaps because you're talking about a very disproportionate amount of money available,” Feinstein said. “We can’t make up for government funding for very long.”
Moreover, she said, “You can’t leave sick, hospitalized people… [and] frail seniors who need ‘round the clock care unattended and unpaid for.” She pleaded with officials to focus on “the number of ordinary lives that are torn asunder by all of this.”
‘Sometimes you need to press pause’
Government agencies, too, were grappling with the potential impact of such an order.
Federal money supports a wide range of state and local initiatives: Pittsburgh’s water authority, for example, relies on federal help to replace lead-lined pipes and make other investments. “We’re hopeful these resources remain available to Pittsburgh Water and its ratepayers,” the agency said in a statement.
Pittsburgh Regional Transit, the county’s mass transit agency, said in a statement that it had “serious concerns over the potential disruption to federally funded projects that could ultimately delay improvements to public transit in Allegheny County.”
The agency, which relies on federal support for both capital investments and operating support, said:. “We are closely monitoring this situation and hope this will be resolved quickly.”
The freeze has also left many questions unanswered for school districts, which rely on federal grants for everything from supporting economically disadvantaged children to upgrading buses.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education says it administers approximately $800 million in federal funding to thousands of schools statewide through the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Much of that funding goes to help schools provide for students from low-income households and their homeless peers.
Education officials said they were trying to gauge the freeze’s scope and impact: The Allegheny Intermediate Unit, which provides services to families and schools locally, said it was “aware of the developments, and we are currently determining the impact on our programs.”
Elected officials, meanwhile, offered a range of responses.
Democratic U.S. Sen. John Fetterman originally sounded dismissive when asked by a Beltway reporter about the freeze.
“Just because it’s an executive order doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a reality,” he said.
Later, however, Fetterman issued a statement saying that he had heard from numerous social service agencies and was aware of difficulties accessing Medicaid.
“These services, including Medicaid, are critical to our most vulnerable and I am calling on [the Administration] to immediately restore access,” he said.
Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick did not respond to a request for comment, though in a Tuesday-evening social media post he said he was "hearing from constituents" about the pause, but "President Trump campaigned on getting our spending under control. ...As a former CEO, I know that sometimes you need to press pause to make sure spending lines up with your strategic plan."
Other federal and state-level Republicans either did not immediately respond to queries or played down concerns.
“It seems reasonable that any new administration would want to take a moment and review matters such as these,” said Kate Eckhart Flessner, a spokesperson for state Senate Republicans. “We have confidence this will be an expedited process.”
And while attorneys general in other states began a legal challenge, Pennsylvania’s newly inaugurated top lawyer, Republican AG Dave Sunday, also issued a guarded statement through a spokesperson: “We are reviewing the announcement and assessing the potential impact."
By contrast, Democratic Congressman Chris Deluzio pledged: “I'm gonna fight to get this funding unfrozen and delivered.” His counterpart, U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, said that “Trump’s executive order claims to be ‘ending wokeness’ but in the process is robbing people of their ability to afford groceries, education, health care, and housing.
“The President, who is supposed to be a guiding force in times of crisis, has instead repeatedly created a tidal wave of uncertainty. This reckless instability is all happening because of the administration’s culture war-driven agenda. We demand that the Trump Administration uphold the law and the Constitution and ensure all federal resources are delivered in accordance with the laws Congress passed.”
Local officials professed more uncertainty, colored by deep misgivings, about the impact of the freeze. The office of Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said it was still gauging the potential impact of the move.
Pittsburgh City Councilor Erika Strassburger, for one, warned that if the freeze lasted for more than a brief time, “I can't tell you how much it will grind the gears of the city to a halt and make it nearly impossible for us to serve our constituents in the way that we want to, over and above the challenges that we're already facing this year.”
City Councilor Barb Warwick said the uncertainty itself was part of the freeze’s real goal.
“This is about scaring people. This is about making a splash, and sort of doing a flex on the American public,” she said. “I’m hoping, of course, that it ends up being not much more than that.”
This story is developing and will be updated. It was reported and written by Jillian Forstadt, Julia Fraser, Kate Giammarise, Kiley Koscinski, Julia Maruca, Bill O’Driscoll, Chris Potter, Tom Riese and Julia Zenkevich of WESA. Audio produced by Susan Scott Peterson.
