AmeriCorps members to start this week at Bur Oak Land Trust in Iowa
Since July, grantees of AmeriCorps program funding, including one group in Iowa, have been waiting for their awarded funding for the 2025-2026 fiscal year.
State attorneys general from 24 states and affected grantees alleged in separate lawsuits that the White House Office of Management and Budget was withholding the funds after preliminary injunctions ordered the program funds be restored.
OMB released the funds as a filing deadline in the suit waged by the state attorneys general approached, and AmeriCorps grantees announced Tuesday they had also received their withheld funding.
The release of nearly $185 million from OMB represents “the remaining Fiscal Year 2025 funding” for the programs, according to a filing in the case by OMB and other defendants.
The original suits against the administration stemmed from Department of Government Efficiency cuts to AmeriCorps program funding and staffing that have caused program closures across the country.
Both the attorneys general and grantees amended their original cases in August and alleged OMB was withholding funds it was ordered to release, including one bound for Bur Oak Land Trust, a group that works to preserve natural landscapes in Iowa.
In addition to programming for nonprofits like Bur Oak Land Trust, AmeriCorps funding goes to place members in schools, local governments and nonprofits that focus on health, disaster relief, environmental stewardship, workforce development and veterans.
Jason Taylor, Bur Oak Land Trust’s executive director said his group was “thrilled” that the funding was released.
“We’re also really proud to be a part of this lawsuit and to have a number of states’ attorneys general be willing to step up and fight back against what the administration was doing,” Taylor said.
Taylor said now that the $250,000 the trust was awarded for the 2025-2026 year is realized, a group of AmeriCorps members will be able to start working with the trust this week. Taylor said the funding for the year can support up to 12 AmeriCorps members.
According to a filing in the case brought by the attorneys general, due to the release of the funds, the parties requested a stay in the preliminary injunction to facilitate their “conferring about the appropriate next steps” in the lawsuit.
The government agencies, including OMB, in the expanded lawsuit by AmeriCorps grantees, filed for a deadline extension the same day OMB said it would release the funds. The extension was granted Tuesday.
A press release from Democracy Forward, the group that led the lawsuit along with Democracy Defenders Fund, and Lowell & Associates, said the grantees in the case received their promised funding.
“AmeriCorps has a proven track record of supporting and improving communities across our nation, and is a beacon for the good that the people of our country can do when working together,” Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in the release. “We are honored to work with our partners and brave plaintiffs to defend against the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to gut America’s premier national service agency.”
Kelly Daly, the president of the AmeriCorps Employees Union, AFSCME Local 2027 – also a plaintiff in the suit against OMB – said union members look forward to “continuing our collective mission to strengthen America’s communities and ensure no working family gets left behind.”
Other plaintiffs named in the case with grantees includes: Aspire Afterschool, Democracy Maine, Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center, Elev8 Baltimore, HandsOn Suburban Chicago, Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, Michigan College Access Network, National College Attainment Network, North Carolina Housing Coalition, Partners for Campus-Community Engagement, Rainbow Labs, Red Cloud Indian School, Seed Coalition, The Corps Network and The Service Collaborative of WNY.
The 24 states whose attorneys general filed against the administration include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.
Facebook Comments