About a dozen organizations, including food banks, community health centers and public schools, attended a Tuesday roundtable at the Merrimack Valley Food Bank with U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan. She urged them to lay out their budgets and concerns as Congress heads into drafting its budget for the next fiscal year.
“We’ve assembled this group of people around the table because the impact of the temporary funding freeze hit all of your organizations, in similar and in very different ways,” Trahan said. “As we head into budget reconciliation, we want to understand how those cuts, if they’re made permanent, are going to impact our communities.”
Merrimack Valley Food Bank’s Kelly Proulx estimates they serve about 70,000 people per month across Middlesex and Essex counties. Proulx says the emergency feeding assistance program relies heavily on federal funding.
“We receive more than $2 million yearly in food value from that program, as well as $100,000 in administrative support,” she said. “Without that funding, we would really struggle to be able to make up a million and a half pounds of food that we would lose without that funding.”
Proulx says all of the food banks are also anticipating higher demand.
“With grocery prices going up and other issues in the economy including potential layoffs, more people are going to need help with food,” she said.
Following a temporary freeze, Trahan says Republicans are now proposing to slash the funding permanently.
“A House Republican federal budget proposal unveiled this week would cut $230 billion in federal spending on agriculture programs, which support food assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP],” Trahan said.
For many of the organizations, the biggest problem right now is the uncertainty. Chelmsford Public Schools Superintendent Jay Lang says when potential federal cuts or reallocations are on the table, it is difficult for schools to quickly react.
“So we’re in the process right now of planning for next year’s budget. We have to staff up for the kids that we know are going to be in our schools and what services they’re going to need,” he said.
The superintendent says these are services that they have to provide.
“Our special education students might require occupational or physical therapy and speech services,” he added. “We have to provide the services one way or the other. I’m just concerned that this is going to fall to the state, which I think is already strapped, cash wise.”
Trahan told the group that she and other members of the congressional delegation would use every tool at their disposal.
“You cannot avert your eyes to the real pain it causes for people back home,” she said. “So we are going to share these stories as we head into negotiations.”
