Pause in federal funding could impact billions of dollars in Colorado
A court ruling Monday has big implications for Colorado. A federal judge will decide whether the Trump administration can temporarily pause federal grants and loans that don't align with his agenda.
Federal funding makes up 20%-40% of Colorado's state budget in any given year, helping pay for everything from food banks and foster care to public health and crop protection.
In 2023 -- the most recent data available - the state received $18 billion from the federal government. $1.2 billion went to K-12 schools, $628 million to transportation projects and $380 million to early childhood programs. Colorado municipalities, counties and nonprofits also receive hundreds of millions of dollars.
"These are real people. These are read families," said Democratic state Sen. Jeff Bridges, Chair of the legislature's Joint Budget Committee.
He notes this year's budget has a shortfall of about $1 billion.
"Making those cuts is already hard enough. If we are now losing billions of dollars in federal support, in federal investment into our state? That is a whole other scale," Bridges said.
A memo from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget ordered federal agencies to analyze all financial assistance programs to make sure they comply with President Trump's new executive orders, specifically those regarding "foreign aid, DEI (diversity equity and inclusion), woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal." The budget office gave agencies until Feb. 10 to report programs that didn't comply and temporarily pause federal funding to them in the meantime.
"We've got a crisis of priorities right here in this state and it seems like the president is saying the same thing about their budget," said Republican state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer. "He's going through and basically doing what I'm going to call strategic budgeting."
Kirkmeyer -- who sits on the Joint Budget Committee with Bridges -- says it would have been nice to get a heads-up from the administration, but she says there's no reason to panic.
"I would tell everybody 'Take a deep breath. Let us start sorting this out,'" she said.
But some Medicaid providers in Colorado did panic when they were locked out of a portal they use for authorization for several hours.
"We need to know what the real plan here is and what's actually going to happen," said Bridges. "You have to be thoughtful. These are people's lives. These are people's livelihoods."
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget says the pause should be implemented "to the extent permissible under applicable law," but Democrats in Congress say the president has no legal authority to stop or pause funding appropriated by Congress.
The budget office memo says the federal government issued $3 trillion in grants and loans last year. It's unclear how much of that funding would be impacted by a temporary pause, should it take affect next week.
Colorado's attorney general joined other states in filing a lawsuit to reverse the temporary freeze as well.