Southwest Florida agencies began digesting President Donald Trump's proposedbudget after he released it earlier this month. Congress writes the nation's budget, but presidents' proposals still draw notice.
Trump's budget calls for$54 billion in cuts to parts of the federal government and the elimination of some popular agencies, such as the National Endowment for the Arts.
Here's a look at what the proposed cuts andfunding increases would mean for Southwest Florida.
Social and human services
Almost $3 million in federal funding used to help rehabilitate buildings used by social service agencies and to help disadvantaged groups, such asbattered women and at-risk children, would disappear under Trump’s budget plan, according to local officials.
But the localMeals on Wheels program for seniors and shut-ins would not be at risk. The program, run by the St. Vincent de Paul Society, does not receive any federal funding, unlike many other Meals on Wheels programs inthe U.S.
“Our Meals on Wheels program is strictly (funded) from the generosity of local donors,” said Kim Schul, administrator of thecharity program that provides meals to almost 300 people. “St. Vincent gets no federal funding, period.”
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On the other hand, Collier County receives $2.8 million in Community Development Block Grantsthrough the Department of Housing and Urban Development that would be on the chopping block, according to a list from the county.
The county government’s operating budget is $385 million, excluding budgets for the constitutional offices.
The federal money is awarded to agencies that make applications for funding for public services purposes, for infrastructure improvements and rehabilitation of affordable housing, and for emergency assistance programs, said Kim Grant, director of community and human services for the county.
Examples of how some of the money is being used this year include security improvements at the Shelter for Abused Women, a building rehabilitation for Catholic Charities, stormwater improvements on Karen Drive in the Bayshore CRA, infrastructure purposes for a Habitat for Humanity community in Immokalee and sidewalk improvements in Immokalee.
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Grant was taken aback by Trump’s budget plan to eliminate Community Development Block Grant funding and other cuts to programs with a similar focus on helping the disadvantaged.
“It’s definitely alarming,” she said. “It’s not uncommon for government funding for human services to be on the chopping block, but for it to go away completely, that is pretty substantial.”
The funding comes to communities based on a formula, and the aggregate impact nationwide will be tremendous, including in job creation and retention,she said.
“I think it will be a substantial impact,” she said.
The Rev. Lisa Lefkow, executive director of Habitat in Collier, said government funding is less than 1 percent of the program’s $20 million budget, but losingthe federal support would meanhaving to raise more money.
Other federally supported programs run by the county, including a program that trains retirees to be volunteers, could lose funding, Grant said. The federal support is $54,000. The retirees, after being trained, are placed with St. Vincent de Paul, a literacy tutoring program, help with home assessments and drive seniors to appointments, said Kristi Sonntag, the county’s manager of federal and state grants.
“Our volunteers do a wide variety of things,” Sonntag said.
Rookery BayEstuarine Research
The proposed cuts could prove devastating to the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.
The reserve, which was created in 1978 and started an environmental movement in Collier County, is one of 29 national estuarine reserves in the country. Trump'sbudget would eliminatefederal funding to all of them.
The three reserves in Florida are managed by the state Department of Environmental Protectionand also receive money from the state. Rookery Bay receives about $600,000 each year in federal fundingand $250,000 from the state.
Jess Boyd, spokeswoman for the DEP, couldn’t say what would happen to the reserves if the funding is cut.
Garry Lytton, executive director of Friends of Rookery Bay and former reserve manager, has started an online petition to lobby Florida members of Congress to continue funding the 110,000-acre reserve.
“Loss of federal funds will eliminate staff and close facilities that have reached over 180,000 local residents and students in the past decade,” Lytton said in the petition.
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The reserve was created to study and protect the estuary. It conducts base-line environmental monitoring and is tracking the effects of Everglades restoration
The waters of Rookery Bay reserve are a nursery for sport fish and a travel route for endangered manatees. Shorebirds and sea turtles nest on the beaches, and wading birds roost by the thousands on the reserve's mangrove islands.
Naples neighborhood aid
Trump’s proposed elimination of the federal Community Development Block Grant program could have an outsized local impact on the low-income River Park neighborhood in Naples.
The city typically earmarks $100,000 to $200,000 per year in such block grants for River Park, the only Naples area poor enough to be eligible for the federal urban renewal aid.
But the city often has approved the grants without public input, and it has left some grant money on the table when projects are less expensive than expected.
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The city also has faced criticism for not addressing River Park’s needs with local funding. The City Council agreed to add $150,000 to the current budget for River Park spending after residents complained that the city hadn’t committed its own dollars for the neighborhood in more than a decade.
During that time, the only public spending in the River Park neighborhood along Fifth Avenue North east of Goodlette-Frank Roadcame from the federal block grant program.
One community leader said he isworried that, without the program, the city won’t spend any money to improve the neighborhood and its community park, Anthony Park.
“Until we become a part of the city, accepted into the city, we’ll always be looked at as special —special funding, outside funding,” said Willie Anthony, a longtime River Park activist and president of the neighborhood association. “If this federal funding goes away, there won’t be other money.”
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The city hasn’t spent its own redevelopment money on the neighborhood of more than 60 single-family homes in at least a decade.
And since 2001, about $275,000 in federal block grants, or about 13 percent of the grant money, was diverted to other recipients in Collier County after the city’s projects came back under budget.
The city recently has used the federal block grant program for River Park landscaping and parking improvements, among other projects.
Related story:Nine years later, Naples leaders meet with River Park residents to discuss project funds
Last year, the council agreed to $166,000 in federal block grantfunding for a new sidewalk on the north end of Fifth Avenue North. City Manager Bill Moss said that moneyalready has been approved and likely would not be at risk if the federal program is cut.
The council agreed last month to another federal block grant project to install bathrooms at Anthony Park. If that aid isn't approved federally, the city likely would fund the project with its own dollars, Moss said.
Vice-Mayor Linda Penniman said that without committed federal funding, the city should tap into revenuefrom its Community Redevelopment Agency to fund River Park projects.
“Certainly that neighborhood needs more attention than perhaps most other (Naples) neighborhoods,” Pennimansaid.
Collier County Sheriff's Office
The Collier County Sheriff’s Office, which received about $1.16 million in federal grants in fiscal year 2016, still is monitoring the federal budget process, said Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Karie Partington in an email.
“As the budget has not been finalized, it would be premature for us to speculate on how it may or may not affect us,” Partington wrote.
The agency in the past has received federal grants to sponsor a number of measures, including:
- Initiatives to work with at-risk youths and their families.
- Fundingto pay for victim advocates.
- Programs to send deputies to local middle schools and high schools to educate studentsand deter them from using drugs.
Some of those grants are offered through the Justice Department, which Trump's budget would cut by $1.1 billion, or 3.8 percent.
Those cuts would include the elimination of the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. The program reimburses local jails for detaining for at least four days undocumented immigrants who committed one felony or two misdemeanors. Scrapping it would save the federal government $210 million this year.
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The Collier Sheriff’s Office received $302,700 through SCAAP in fiscal year 2016, after $217,050 the previous year.
The Sheriff’s Office also receives federal reimbursem*nt for housing and transporting inmates througha contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That contract allows deputies to interrogate arrested immigrants about their status and start the process for possible deportation.
Those payments from ICE totaled $98,934 in fiscal year 2016,after $232,783 the previous year.
Trump’s budget would increase funding to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, by $2.8 billion,or 6.8 percent.
The Sheriff’s Office received Homeland Security grants totaling $137,229 in fiscal year 2016,after $63,993 the previous year.
Those grants pay for the salary and benefits of a civilian crime analyst for the Fusion Center, Partington said. Fusion centers share threat-related information withfederal, state, local, trial, territorial and private-sector partners, according to the Homeland Security’s website.
Education
Trump’s education priorities for the next four years wouldincrease funding to school choice programs and charter schools and cut programs that aid low-income students.
More than $9 billion, or 13 percent, of the Education Department’s $68 billion operating budget would be axed.
Teacher training programs would take the biggest dent — a decrease of $2.4 billion.
Also on the chopping block would besummer and after-school programs. The proposed $1.2 billion cut could affectBoy & Girls Clubs, including the two in Collier County.
“It would devastate a community that needs it so much,” said Theresa Shaw, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Collier County.
Shaw referred to the number of low-income working parents who rely particularly on the Immokalee campus to care for their children after school. The campus helps the kidswith homework, facilitatesactivities and feeds them.
“Where are working parents going to go?" Shaw asked. "Where are they going to get the support for their children after school?
“They can’t afford it. We’re hoping that our community leaders certainly won’t allow this to happen.”
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Low-income students pursuing higher education also would feel the effects. Almost $1 billion would be cut from need-based aid to university students and college prep programs.
However, Pell Grants would remain intact, and other programs would receive additional funding.
Charter schools, which now receive more than $300 annually, would get a $168 million increase.
president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers.
An additional $250 million would go towardestablishing a school choice program. It would be the first installment of what Trump promised on the campaign trail would become a $20 billion school choice initiative.
The courts
Low-income victims of domestic violence could have fewer legal services available to them due to cuts proposed by Trump.
Legal Aid Services of Collier County, which has offices in Naples and Immokalee, funds its domestic violence project through a $166,000 HUD Community Block Development Grant, said Carol O’Callaghan, the organization’s managing attorney. Trump’s budget would slash more than $6 billion from HUD and eliminate community development grants.
“If we were to lose this funding, it would be devastating to the clients we serve,” O’Callaghan said. “We would lose staff members, but it would have an impact on the community.
"We’re underfunded as it is, so losing this funding would decrease the services we’re able to offer to the community.”
Through its domestic violence project, Legal Aid Services of Collier County provides legal aid to low-income victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and elder abuse. It assists victims in getting injunctions to keep abusers away from them, O’Callaghan said.
“We’ve handled over 500 cases in the last two years under that program,” she said.
For more than a decade, Legal Aid Services of Collier County also has received a Legal Services Corp. grant. Last year, the grant totaled about $70,000, O’Callaghan said. Trump has called for ending funding for the non-profit Legal Services Corp., founded by Congress in 1974 to fund civil legal aid to the poor.
Legal Aid Services of Collier County uses the grant money to cover the cost of malpractice insurance for lawyers who do pro bono work for the organization,handling cases that Legal Aid Services attorneys can’t due to a conflict of interest, lack of resources or because they specialize in different areas of law.
Together, the HUD grant and the Legal Services grant composeabout 15 percent of the local organization’s $1.6 million annual budget, O’Callaghan said.
Trump's proposed cuts wouldn’t affect Legal Aid Services’ children’s unit, tax unit or consumer law and housing unit.
O’Callaghan said her organization’s programs have support from the Florida Bar and several local attorneys. The grants typically receive strong bipartisan support, she said.
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O’Callaghan said lobbying to maintain the grants will be handled by a statewide arm of the organization.
“Our primary focus is on the clients and making sure the clients are served,” she said of local efforts. “We do the legal work here. That is our focus.”
The U.S. Attorney's headquarters in Tampa said they don't have any information that would give them pause or concern because information on the budget proposal is still scant.
And the proposals addressed in Trump’s budget plan would have little effect on the local legal system.
Federal grants fund about 1 percent of the budget of the State Attorney’s Office for the 20th Judicial Circuit, which covers Collier, Lee, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades counties, spokeswoman Samantha Syoen said. She said it’s too soon to tell if the State Attorney’s Office would be impacted in any way.
Kathleen Fitzgeorge, assistant public defender for the 20th Judicial Circuit, said her office is funded by the state, not by the federal government.
Likewise, Collier Clerk Dwight Brock said federal grants to the local courts are minimal.
“That’s not something I lose sleep over,” he said of possible changes in federal funding.
He said he does stay up late worrying about funding in the state budget. About $6 million of Brock’s $21 million budget came from the state last year, down from about $9 million in 2008, Brock said.
“We’re going to have problems carrying on the responsibilities they have dropped on our desk,” Brock said of state lawmakers. “They have been increasing all of our partners’ budgets; that being the State Attorney’s Office, the Public Defender’s Office, law enforcement, everybody else, but not doing anything to help us. We just about strangled that monkey trying to survive.”
The arts
The National Endowment for the Arts, which ironically celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, is generally an indirect resource for arts organizations in Collier County. But its defunding would cripple some programs local organizations work with.
Two different aspects of programs at Artis—Naples either come from organizations that have received NEA help for special projects or startup:
- The Miami City Ballet, which brings its annual "Nutcracker" and at least two more performance dates a year to the Artis—Naples stage, has received a $40,000 to $60,000 grant each of the last three years to stage a new ballet.
- LinkUp, the elementary school program pairing Naples schoolkids online with Carnegie Hall for orchestral education through Artis—Naples, also was seeded by an NEA grant.
Another organization, Naples Art Association, sometimes partners with an NEA seed-funded program such as the NEA Military Healing Arts Partnership that brings art therapy to veterans.
“There are a lot of programs that all of our arts organizations may work with that have been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts," NAA Executive Director Aimee Schlerr said.
The United Arts Council of Collier County has received $30,000 in grants over the last three years, from the NEA for specific projects. In2016, for instance, $10,000 from the NEA funded a residency at the Jewish Family and Community Services Center to conduct workshops for older adults that blendedcreative movement, writing exercises and storytelling.Executive Director Laura Burns said UAC Collier s switching its focus to help individual organizations apply for their own grants.
De-funding of the NEA would eliminate the need for that service. However, Burns says that would also silence a critical voice that “is a sign to our country, nationally —and internationally — that arts and culture are woven into the fabric of our lives here.”
Lee County Alliance for the Arts is seeking two grants of $100,000 to make its Fort Myers campus safer andmore arts-invitingand to expand its programming outdoors and has collected its matching requirement of $250,000. That would be lost if the NEA is de-funded, acknowledged Executive Director Lydia Black.
“We won't be able to do some things we want to dounless we can identify private sources who could take over," Black said.
News staff writers Liz Freeman, Annika Hammerschlag, Joseph Cranney, Ryan Mills, Greg Stanley, BrettMurphy, Patrick J. Riley and Harriet Howard Heithaus contributed to this report.
