EXECUTIVE ORDERS PROJET - Trump's Executive Orders Begin to Hit Home
Orange County braces for budget cuts amid mounting uncertainty
By Hilary Holladay
Editor’s Note: The Executive Orders Project has shone a light on the real-world impacts the Trump Administration’s actions are having on citizens here in central Virginia. Today, we are please to republish this article by Hilary Holladay, which originally appeared on her news site, Byrd Street. Visit Byrd Street to become a subscriber and follow Holladay’s excellent work.
President Donald Trump’s executive orders slashing the federal budget are beginning to have an impact on Orange County. In response to a request from Byrd Street, Orange County Administrator Ted Voorhees provided a rundown of services in Trump’s crosshairs while stressing that “a lot remains unclear.”
Orange County Public Library
Via an executive order, President Trump is seeking to shut down the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which funds state library services across the country. Voorhees said the county had expected to receive $244,525 in Virginia State Library funding, which originates with IMLS. That is a sizable chunk of the nearly $1.8 million library budget that the county has mapped out for the coming fiscal year.
Voorhees currently does not expect any library employees to lose their jobs. “As I understand it, none of the state funds are used for our personnel, but for books, digital content and other library materials.”
In addition to paying for reading materials, the Virginia State Library hosts and maintains the county library’s website and provides the software for meeting room and program reservation services, he said. Without that crucial technology in place, the county library system will have another problem on its hands.
Voorhees said, “Our library director [Katie Hill] will be working on a contingency plan for dealing with the potential losses but may need to ask for supplemental local funding at some point.”
Broadband funding
Voorhees wrote, “Orange County is actively pursuing a BEADS [Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program] grant application for the remaining unserved addresses in our community. This is estimated to be fewer than 200 locations. Media reports say that the [federal] BEADS program is under review and may shift emphasis away from buried fiber and toward space-based options such as Starlink.
“While space-based systems have a role to play in widely scattered and remote service areas, it is inferior service and more expensive to the customer in applications like Orange County,” he said, adding, “We don’t know what is going to happen and will just have to wait and see.”
Social services
“A lot of speculation is circulating about benefits, such as Medicaid and SNAP/TANF [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program/Temporary Aid to Needy Families]. Cuts to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services certainly suggest change is afoot, as does the rhetoric from DOGE [Department of Governmental Efficiency]. So far, we have not seen reductions and again are awaiting what actually gets passed along,” Voorhees said.
Training for local firefighters
“The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced that National Fire Academy (NFA) courses were canceled amid a ‘process of evaluating agency programs and spending to ensure alignment with Administration priorities,’ according to a notice sent to instructors, students and fire departments,” Voorhees said. “Instructors were told to cancel all future travel until further notice. Firefighters, EMS providers and other first responders from across the country travel to the NFA’s Maryland campus for the federally funded institution's free training programs.”
Community health workers
Voorhees said that the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) “just laid off a bunch of community health workers.”
Dorren S. Brown, executive director of the Orange County Free Clinic, confirmed that the clinic’s health worker funded by a federal grant to VDH was laid off last week. “Luckily, our board decided to absorb this extremely important position, but of course, this means more fundraising for the clinic,” she wrote in an email to Byrd Street.
Other than the unexpected expense related to the community health worker (who is bilingual—a big help to Spanish-speaking clients), Brown said things at the clinic are “relatively normal.” However, she noted, “Our next concern is the Medicaid issue. If Medicaid is cut in Virginia, this will directly affect the clinic. We have already seen a few returning patients who recently lost Medicaid, as well as a few new patients who also lost Medicaid or their Affordable Care Insurance for some reason. We’re just in waiting mode right now and will continue to do what we can for as many as we can.”
If you have details on Orange County residents or programs directly affected by the recent federal budget cuts, send your news tip to me at hwholladay@gmail.com.
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