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The whiplash from the Trump administration’s Monday directive to pause federal grants and loans but revoke that directive Wednesday has left Pitkin County officials wary of the security of their federally received funds.
“These actions have created some more uncertainty about how federal dollars are going to flow through this administration. We still need to look at what our exposure is in terms of grants that have federal backing, that are mid-project versus those we have not started,” said County Manager Jon Peacock in an interview with Aspen Daily News. “I think we may encourage being a little bit more conservative … until we have that same level of certainty that we’ve had in the past about how reliable those funds are going to be.”
The Office of Management and Budget, an executive branch office that oversees federal agency performance and administers the budget, issued a memo on Monday that the government “must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”
The Office of Management and Budget rescinded the memo, known as M-25-13, on Wednesday, a day after a federal judge had temporarily blocked the directive on Tuesday.
While the first memo said Medicaid and Social Security would not be targeted, the vague nature of the rest of the memo sent recipients of federal grants and funds into a scramble.
In a Jan. 28 email to county leadership, Peacock explained the state of confusion over the ramifications of the order and highlighted potential risks.
“At special risk are grants we have taken with a scope that addresses climate action and/or equity issues. Also, any federal grants toward law enforcement capital or operations given our welcoming resolution,” he wrote. “We have a large number of grants that are federally funded, and we will want to evaluate where each stands.”
The county is working with about 85 grants at the moment, and Peacock said they started working through which grants included federal dollars. They can be sub-grants of federal money passed through via the state of Colorado, for example.
Peacock said the U.S. Department of Transportation canceled a kickoff meeting scheduled for Thursday to discuss the recently awarded MultimodalOptions for Decarbonization, Efficiency and Safety (MODES), though he’s waiting for that to be picked back up. The DOT grant awarded $2 million for multimodal transportation initiatives at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport.
Other county initiatives relying on federal dollars include the future of the airside of the airport, currently undergoing an Airport Layout Plan update for a multi-hundred-million dollar modernization project.
“Are FAA grants included in this? We think they were, but we didn’t really know,” he said. “In times of uncertainty, we’re going to look at our exposure and how we can manage the risk.”
Financial statements for 2024 are not yet finalized, but the county received $11.3 million 2023 and $1.3 million was passed to other entities. In 2022, the county received $8.4 million in federal grants and passed along $140,078. In 2021, federal grant money totaled $7.3 million of which $2.2 million went to other entities.
County Finance Director Liz Woods said that in 2023, $4.7 million went to Aspen-Pitkin County Airport runway pavement rehabilitation, which is why the 2023 total is higher than years prior.
Another area of concern is the Human Services Department, which connects Pitkin County residents with government services like food, medical and childcare assistance.
Peacock said in the Jan. 28 email that the Human Service Department would have “significant issues if federal funding is even temporarily cut.”
Lindsay Maisch, human services director, spent much of Wednesday in meetings with state partners planning contingency plans. Now they’re back to business as normal for services, she said, but are preparing for possible setbacks.
Since his first term, President Trump built a reputation for making repeated attempts to push through his agenda in the face of legal hurdles or challenges. Maisch said she and partners are planning for a version of M-25-13 to be enacted sometime in the next four years.
While human services may not be as heavily impacted as some infrastructure grants the county is pursuing, Maisch said that impacts to the regional human and social services nonprofit scene could stress county human services.
“If our local food distributor was no longer able to set up and do mobile pantries and that whole system of care, now we're looking at a lot of people who maybe won't have dinner or won't have a meal, and more than that — the ability to to feed their family,” Maisch said. “I think where we’re seeing kind of the bigger pressures is around our partner organizations, and then any grants that we get that are federally funded.”
Human Services programs flagged for impact include a Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) grant, the Community Services Block Grant, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and a senior nutrition grant.
Maisch said she suspected a $20,000 Family Voice Grant to address disproportionality, equity, diversity, and inclusion in child welfare awarded to the county would be rescinded, but with the revocation of the directive it will move forward
To meet any shortfalls, Peacock said the county would look to the county General Fund, the Healthy Community Fund or other budget reserves.
The Healthy Community Fund, supported through a property tax, allocates grants to nonprofit organizations that provide critical health and human services and community resources to people who live and/or work in Pitkin County.
The 2025 county budget set $5.1 million for the fund. In 2024, the fund expended approximately $4.4 million — same with 2023. The grant program benefits around 70 regional nonprofits annually.
It will sunset in 2027, meaning Pitkin County will need to consider asking voters to renew the tax soon. If they decline to do so or voters reject its renewal, that funding will no longer exist in the county budget and the budgets of many local nonprofits.