Lily Belle Poling, Staff Photographer

Local recipients of federal grants braced for depleted funds during a Tuesday of confusion over a potential federal funding freeze.

On Monday, the White House budget office ordered a suspension of federal grants and loans through a memo that left the scope of its directive uncertain. Once reported, the order left nonprofit and government recipients of such federal funding scrambling to assess its potential effects on their operations. Just before 5 p.m. on Tuesday and minutes before the suspension was supposed to take place, a federal judge in Washington ordered a temporary halt to the freeze in response to a lawsuit filed by the Democracy Forward activist group.

According to the memo, agencies must submit “detailed information on any programs, projects or activities subject to this pause” by Feb. 10, but it is unclear what will happen to their funding after such submission.

On Tuesday morning, Mayor Justin Elicker called an “emergency” meeting with City Hall staff to discuss the potential impact of these cuts. Particularly concerning was the possibility of losing the short-term cash flow that pays city bills and the salaries of over 300 city staff, including health and housing inspectors and teachers.

“These are people that are every day waking up to help support people in our community that are struggling,” Elicker said. “This impacts our ability to provide those services and is terrifying for our staff members who don’t know the likelihood of them having a job.”

Elicker joined Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, Attorney General William Tong and other officials at a Hartford press conference on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the funding frenzy. Tong is one of 23 attorneys general — from 22 states and the District of Columbia — to file a lawsuit looking to thwart President Donald Trump’s plan to freeze more than $3 trillion in federal funding.

According to Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who represents New Haven in Congress, Trump’s freeze would slash funding for the public education of 25 million children nationwide under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, subsidized housing for the elderly and persons with disabilities, a number of veterans’ programs, assistance to law enforcement and fire departments and funding for community health centers — among other programs.

“President Trump’s theft of taxpayer dollars will not stand. He is hurting hard-working American families who struggle every day,” DeLauro said at the press conference. “This is nothing less than highway robbery, and this is worse than shutting the government down.”

Tong referenced the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which restricts the executive branch’s power to withhold or delay the expenditure of funds that Congress has allocated. Rep. Jahana Hayes suggested at the press conference that the Trump administration may be using the sweeping directive as an opportunity for the Supreme Court to reevaluate its position on the Act.

DeLauro said that she sent a letter to President Trump demanding he respect American taxpayer dollars and congressional power of the purse. She is the top-ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, which regulates government expenditures.

Agencies, nonprofits losing a “life support”

New Haven’s government and nonprofits receive federal funding to support education, policing and housing, among other initiatives.

Elicker said in an interview after the press conference that the city was at no risk of immediate spending cuts or layoffs, because it has about $200 million available from recently paid taxes and payments from the state’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes, or PILOT, program, which compensates New Haven for nontaxable land such as Yale’s.

He said he was most concerned about the federal freeze’s potential effects on education and on Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG, funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, if the freeze goes into effect. Elicker noted that the first Trump administration significantly cut CDBG funds, which he expects the government to do again.

“Trump in the first eight days is occupying so much of our time that we should be spending on really important issues,” Elicker said.

New Haven Public Schools received $9 million in federal funding during the 2023-2024 fiscal year. Justin Harmon, NHPS’s director of communications, explained that the schools have not received any guidance about the order from the U.S. Department of Education or the Trump administration. “We’ll be better able to gauge what such a pause might mean when we know a little more,” he wrote in an email to the News.

Elm City Communities, New Haven’s Housing Authority, has received federal funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Green and Resilient Retrofit Housing Program. At 5:41 p.m. on Tuesday, Shenae Draughn, the organization’s president, released a statement emphasizing that the particular effects of the White House memo were still uncertain.

“Our immediate priority is to minimize any disruption to you — our residents, partners, and staff,” Draughn wrote. “We are actively engaging with federal agencies and industry associations to seek clarity and advocate for the continued support of essential housing programs.”

The New Haven Police Department currently receives funds from four DOJ grants, according to the National Police Funding Database. Those payments fund departmental efforts in mental health and wellness for officers, enhancing a cold case investigation unit and a gun intelligence center.

NHPD Communications Officer Christian Bruckhart said that the department’s operations have not been impacted by the freeze order, as of Tuesday night. However, department officials remain uncertain about which operations could potentially be affected — and whether they will be, at all.

Several community health initiatives in New Haven also benefit from large federal grants. The Cornell Scott Hill Health Recovery and Wellness Center received $650,000 to complete the construction of their substance abuse and mental health recovery facility in 2023. Just last week, the Fair Haven Community Health Clinic received $240,617 to work toward expanding its service hours.

Susan Campion, the president of the Connecticut Association of Addiction Professionals who previously worked at Cornell Scott, said that federal funding acts as a “life support” source for community health centers. Neither center released a statement regarding the Monday memo.

As of Monday evening, Connecticut nonprofits legally entitled to federal funding were unable to access the federal system for their accounts, DeLauro said, citing reports from her constituents, despite the fact that the memo was supposed to go into effect Tuesday at 5 p.m. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy claimed on X at 1:36 p.m. that the state’s Medicaid payment system had been “turned off.”

In response to similar reports from states around the country, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted Tuesday afternoon that the Medicaid website was experiencing a “portal outage” and that “no payments have been affected.” CBS News reported that states were able to resume accessing their payment systems late Tuesday, although the outage contributed to confusion and outcry throughout the day.

Tuesday’s pandemonium bookended a fraught few days for New Haven’s Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services. Last Friday, the U.S. State Department suspended federal funding for refugee resettlement agencies nationwide. The New Haven Independent reported that IRIS was set to receive $4 million in federal funding this year.

Monday’s memo implicated the remaining $8 to $9 million of federal funding IRIS was expecting to receive this year, according to IRIS Executive Director Maggie Mitchell Salem. IRIS rakes in an additional $2 to $3 million in private donations each year.

Prior to Trump’s inauguration, IRIS had a team of roughly 110. The agency began laying off staff last Friday; Salem predicts that the team will have between 75 and 80 staffers by next week.

Trump targeted refugee resettlement agencies during his first administration, requiring them to resettle at least 100 refugees each year in order to keep receiving federal funding. More than 100 refugee resettlement agencies nationwide shut down throughout his first term, but IRIS managed to stay afloat because of steady donations.

“This is far beyond [Trump’s first administration],” Salem said. “The scope, the breadth of the action, the speed with which it’s happening — it’s incomparable.”

Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20, seven days prior to issuing the memo.

Zachary Suri, Kade Gajdusek and Elijah Hurewitz-Ravitch contributed reporting.