Federal funding chaos has impacted efforts to expand electric vehicle charging stations in Louisville, as well as programming in public parks. Some agencies have had grants frozen or cancelled. Others have received confusing, and sometimes contradictory, guidance about whether the money they use to fund valuable programs is still there.
The funding changes have led to concerns locally about whether the federal government can be a reliable partner, and whether Louisville Metro is capable of stepping in to fill the gap.
District 15 Metro Council Member Jennifer Chappell, vice chair of the Democratic Caucus, is trying to track the various city offices and nonprofits facing cuts. She’s concerned about how local officials are going to manage next year’s budget.
“We have a $1.3 billion budget that’s already stretched,” Chappell said. “Without additional funding streams coming in, how can we help plug these holes while also taking care of our basic city services? It’s going to be tough.”
Chappell said Metro Council members are already hearing from community groups that have lost federal grants or are concerned about future funding.
Louisville’s budget planning process begins later this month. With one-time, pandemic-era dollars also dwindling, city officials are likely to make some difficult decisions.
'On hold, indefinitely'
Late last year, Louisville Metro received word that the United States Department of Transportation planned to award the city roughly $8 million to build new electric vehicle charging stations at 41 sites. The goal was to ensure that no one in Jefferson County would be more than a 10 to 15 minute drive from a charger.
But shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, the city learned the grant was frozen indefinitely. Local officials haven’t heard anything since, and some are still holding out hope it might come through.
Mayor Craig Greenberg recently said the EV charging grant has so far been the biggest impact to the city directly, but there’s also ongoing concern for city agencies and partners that rely heavily on federal funding.
“One of the areas, for example, is the Louisville Metro Housing Authority,” Greenberg said. “There’s certainly concern that the federal government is going to change its funding to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which directly impacts the support that LMHA can provide to its residents.”
Within the Department of Public Works, an initiative to make roadways safer for pedestrians is at risk. Staff at Vision Zero Louisville received an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation last year to work toward eliminating roadway fatalities by 2050.
At a meeting of Metro Council’s Public Works Committee last month, Vision Zero program manager Claire Yates said the grant would have allowed them to add two additional staff.
“I've been told that's on hold indefinitely, so we shall see,” Yates said.
Organizations that receive city funding, and work closely with Louisville Metro, are warning that lost federal funds are jeopardizing their work.
The Parks Alliance of Louisville, which helps build new amenities and expand programming in public parks, was in the first year of a three-year, $500,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency when the Trump administration rescinded it. The Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Award supported the Alliance’s effort to engage California residents in the events and planning at Alberta O. Jones Park, which opened two years ago.
The Alliance has had to lay off a grant-funded staff member. The funding termination also threatened scheduled summer programming, said Morgan Reining, the Alliance’s head of marketing and communications.
“These cuts have forced us to reduce staff and adjust programming, stretching our already tight resources at a time when access to safe and quality greenspaces is more important than ever,” she said in an emailed statement. “Public parks are not just amenities - they are critical infrastructure to community wellbeing - for relaxation, recreation, and mental health.”
A major donor has since stepped in to help the Parks Alliance maintain a slightly scaled back calendar of events this summer, but questions remain about the future.
Planned Parenthood of Kentucky, a nonprofit affiliate of the national organization, has also had its Title X funding withheld by the Trump administration since April 1. That limits its capacity to provide affordable birth control, cancer screenings and STI testing to low-income patients at its clinics.
Title X funding is not used for abortion procedures, which are already outlawed under Kentucky’s near-total ban.
Planned Parenthood saw 6,683 patient visits across its two locations in Louisville and Lexington last year. Roughly half of all patients had incomes below the federal poverty line.
Fear and confusion
Some agencies and nonprofits in Louisville have more questions than answers when it comes to the Trump administration’s fast-moving effort to transform the federal government.
The World Affairs Council of Kentucky and Southern Indiana runs Louisville’s Sister Cities program, which was set up in 1954 to foster international exchange and collaboration between cities. The Council also partners with the U.S. Department of State to bring rising political leaders, academics and students to the region as part of the International Visitor Leadership Program.
About 200 people visit the region each year through the program. The World Affairs Council estimates that, between transportation, lodging, food and activities, the various exchange programs have a $2 million impact on a program budget of less than $200,000.
In February, the State Department froze spending to ensure its funding aligned with the new presidential administration. That meant funding for local partners in the exchange program, like the World Affairs Council, stopped, said its president Xiao Yin Zhao.
“The review was supposed to last 15 days, but it went well beyond that,” Zhao said.
Federal reimbursements to the World Affairs Council started to trickle in again last month. But Zhao said they’re yet to see grant funding to manage the exchanges, which comprise about 40% of the Council’s budget.
While she expects the funding to come in at some point, Zhao said the episode has caused its own set of problems.
“Is there a possibility at any time that they might just decide, ‘We’re going to stop again,’ and for any reason?” she said. “That’s the frustrating thing about this: It’s so opaque.”
Other local organizations are also in the dark about grants they were previously awarded.
Louisville’s public bus agency, TARC, has a discretionary grant to fund the purchase of three new electric buses that’s now under review. In January, local nonprofits that serve people facing homelessness and housing instability couldn’t access the Department of Housing and Urban Development payment portal for a week, according to the Coalition for the Homeless Louisville.
And the Kentucky Harm Reduction Coalition, which runs a needle exchange program in Louisville and sends overdose reversal medication to people across the Commonwealth, recently had $100,000 in funding cut then reinstated after a lawsuit.
That $100,000 grant was left over from the pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act. The Trump administration abruptly cancelled $11 billion in remaining ARPA funding on March 27, which included the Harm Reduction Coalition’s grant.
KyHRC Executive Director Shreeta Waldon said at the time that Kentuckians were “witnessing the slow dismantling” of overdose and disease prevention.
“The truth is, we truly have no idea what will be cut next week, next month, or next year,” she said. “This level of uncertainty is a direct threat to every resident in this state who relies on the life-saving services we provide.”
The pandemic funding, mostly earmarked for mental health and addiction services, was reinstated by a federal judge last week after a coalition of 23 states sued.
The fear that federal funding streams will dry up is likely to have knock-on effects on Louisville Metro Government’s budgeting process and, ultimately, on local taxpayers.
Council Member Chappell said the city already has a long list of deferred maintenance and capital projects that it needs to find a way to fund in the next few years. She said Public Works officials have warned they need millions to replace trash collection vehicles in the next year. And The Library Foundation has already started advocating for the library system to get millions more for books and materials and 25 new employees.
“I would love to support all of these organizations, but I can’t make money appear,” she said. “We’re also looking at pretty large asks just coming from Louisville Metro.”
Chappell said city officials also have to worry about the Trump administration’s plan to vacate federal office buildings in Louisville.
“There’s been conversation about the Romano Mazzoli Building being decommissioned and then the federal government selling that off,” she said. “That would be another vacant building that we have in our struggling downtown.”
Asked about the federal funding freezes and cuts, Greenberg said last month that it’s “an area of significant concern” for Metro Government. But Greenberg said when it comes to the 2026 budget, which starts July 1, the city can’t plan around the Trump administration.
“We can’t plan for the unknown,” he said. “Certainly there might be changes that we do not foresee and we will have to deal with those, but we’re basing the budget that we’ll propose to Metro Council on what we know and what we expect to happen.”
Greenberg said his focus while preparing his budget proposal has been on what to do with programs that were funded through federal pandemic relief. With those one-time dollars coming to an end, he said the city will have to decide whether to continue funding the programs with tax dollars or end them all together.
One of the city’s biggest uses of federal COVID-19 relief has been gun violence prevention programs.
