Fresno area faces $45M in DOGE funding cuts. We compiled a list of what’s at risk
Dozens of nonprofits, foundations and government agencies in the San Joaquin Valley risk losing millions of dollars of funding cuts or freezes under the Trump administration’s push to reduce “wasteful” government spending.
Many are scaling back programs, tapping into reserves, aggressively fundraising or warning employees of terminations as a result of sudden cuts to federal funding under Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
A Fresno Bee analysis of contracts, grants and terminated leases found that, as of April 25, the region could lose at least $45 million in funding cuts, impacting public health, teacher training, immigration services and more. These estimated losses include:
Approximately $18 million in “savings” claimed by DOGE in Fresno, Madera & Tulare counties.
Fresno County’s estimated $11 million to $13 million losses for public health grants.
And Fresno Housing Authority’s emergency voucher program losses of $15 million over the next five years.
The full extent of the local impact of federal funding cuts is likely higher. Other Fresno area federally funded programs are under threat, such as Medicaid, Head Start and public radio.
Created by executive order and led by Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk, DOGE is an initiative of the federal government tasked with cutting federal spending. It is not an official federal agency or department, which can only be established by an act of Congress.
DOGE promises to save $150 billion in federal savings, though a New York Times report found these estimated savings are inflated with errors and guesswork. Last week, Musk announced he would spend less time on DOGE as Tesla profits have plummeted 70% in the first quarter of the year, NPR reported.
Meanwhile, several Fresno-area grantees are bracing for the DOGE cuts. Some are scrambling to find alternative sources of funding to continue their programs. Others are reassigning staff or canceling planned events. Some have already reduced staff.
“We have had to notify several staff members that they may not have employment after June 30, 2025,” said Rob Herman, spokesperson for the Tulare County Office of Education, which has had two slashed grants for teacher training and recruitment in high-need districts.
Here is a comprehensive list of the Fresno-area programs impacted by federal funding cuts, so far, based on cuts reported by DOGE, interviews and confirmation from local public and nonprofit officials. If your agency or nonprofit is impacted by federal funding cuts, reach out to Bee reporter Melissa Montalvo at mmontalvo@fresnobee.com or fill out the form at the bottom of this story.
Housing, public health and food assistance
Fresno Housing Authority: After 2025, Fresno Housing Authority will no longer receive funding to support 260 Fresno families with federal Emergency Housing Vouchers, a program that started in 2021.
“This program was funded by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and was intended to provide short term housing assistance. The original timeline indicated that the program would expire in 2030. Fresno Housing received notification from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in March that no additional allocations to support this program would be provided beyond 2025,” a representative from FHA said in a statement.
FHA estimates these vouchers are worth about $260,000 per month, which comes out to a loss of $3.1 million per year, or $15 million of funding for the five years of slashed funding.
Fresno County Public Health programs: A federal grant to the county’s Department of Public Health to address health disparities ended up on the DOGE list.
Three other federal subgrants that the county receives from state and third parties have also been terminated, including two grants for epidemiology and laboratory capacity and another COVID-19 supplemental grant for immunizations and vaccines for children.
Joe Prado, assistant director for Fresno County Public Health said that once all invoicing is complete, the total loss to the department will be between $11 million to $13 million dollars, or about 7% of the department’s $175 million budget for fiscal year 2025.
But Prado said the DOGE’s reported savings are inaccurate because a temporary restraining order from a federal judge allows Fresno County to continue to bill against a grant.
“It’s unfortunate, like somebody wants credit for $2.5 (million) but not understanding what the TRO (temporary restraining order) did. And so I think it’s a little misleading to advertise that number,” Prado said.
The cuts to the county also impacted partner nonprofit organizations that the county funded through the Community Health Worker Network and the Fresno Community Health Improvement Partnership (FCHIP). Fresno County’s community health worker model, recognized as an emerging model for best practices, relies on a network of community health workers at nonprofit partners to reach underserved communities.
“We’ve submitted 30 day termination notices to our community-based organizations,” Prado said.
Nonprofits working on the FCHIP include: The Fresno Center, Cultiva La Salud, Black Wellness and Prosperity Center, Valley Center for the Blind, and Centro La Familia. The Community Health Worker Network includes Reading and Beyond, CBDIO, Cultiva La Salud, West Fresno Family Resource Center and Exceptional Parents Unlimited.
Several of these organizations have already reported loss of grant funding.
Other programs, like the rural mobile health program that reaches rural farmworker communities with UCSF Fresno & St. Agnes Medical Center, will be reduced, Prado said.
Tulare County’s Community Health Worker grant: The $1.8 million grant, awarded in 2023, allowed community partners and organizations to provide assistance and guidance in onboarding and training Community Health Workers in communities with limited resources, said Carrie Monteiro, Tulare County spokesperson.
While the grant’s work plan was near completion, Monteiro said the county still had approximately $200,000 outstanding that remained to be spent as of the March 24 funding termination date.
COVID-19 Mitigation Project and Behavioral Health Responsive Grants Projects, via Sierra Health Foundation: On March 28, The Center at Sierra Health Foundation received notice that two grants — funded by the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act and American Rescue Plan Act Substance Abuse Mental Health Service Administration — were terminated as of March 24, according to a representative from The Center at Sierra Health Foundation.
These two program cuts impact 14 nonprofits working in Fresno that received a total of $8.4 million in funding, Garcia said. However,the actual financial loss to partners, who have been fulfilling contracted activities since they received grants in 2023, is not clear.
“The announcement of federal funding cuts is very concerning in both its timing and the loss of support for nonprofit organizations doing important work in their communities,” Garcia said. “We are meeting with state and local partners to address this situation as it continues to unfold.”
Central California Food Bank: “Our organization has been partially impacted by the recent federal funding updates; specifically, a portion of the Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) funding has been rescinded for future programs,” Romel Martinez Escarrega, communications manager for the food bank said, adding that there have been no cuts to the current program.
“Additionally, we learned that 13 truckloads of food - including chicken, pork, milk, eggs, cheese, and other items — totaling $850K and 500,000 lbs., scheduled for delivery between April and July, were returned. At this time, it’s unclear whether these supplemental TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program) orders have been permanently canceled or are temporarily paused,” Martinez Escarrega said.
Fresno Unified School District: The district stands to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars under the LFPA program. In the 2023-23 school year, Fresno Unified received $492,746 and used it to buy local agricultural products.
Education, immigration & arts services
Tulare County Office of Education: The federal government wants to claw back two grants it awarded for teacher training and capacity building.
The grants, worth a combined $16.5 million, were for two programs: Teacher Residency for Rural and Urban Education, or TRRUE, and Equity, Excellence, Effectiveness in partnership with Visalia Unified School District.
The first program was to create residency programs to recruit, train, and place highly-qualified teachers in classrooms in northern, central, and southern California, Herman said. TCOE’s California Center on Teaching Careers is leading the grant partnership with San Diego County Office of Education, Humboldt County Office of Education, Fresno State, San Diego State, Cal Poly, and 11 high-need school districts.
“We are hopeful to engage the current administration and demonstrate the validity of the programs in placing highly qualified teachers in California’s classrooms to address the state teacher shortage and impact the lives of thousands of students,” Herman said.
Fresno Unified: In October 2023, Fresno Unified was awarded a $450,000 grant to provide citizenship and naturalization education training from the Department of Homeland Security.
The district was informed March 27 that the funding has been pulled, said spokesperson AJ Kato. The district had nearly $100,000 of outstanding funds under the grant.
“Fortunately, we had our permanent teachers assigned to serve in this capacity so their jobs have not been cut,” Kato said. “However, their duties will be reassigned. Since their salaries were paid from this grant, we have had to fund their salaries from other budget sources.”
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Kids in Need of Defense: The nonprofit, which provides legal and social services to immigrant and refugee children, including to clients in the Fresno and Central Valley, has lost federal sub-contract funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“The administration decided in March to terminate a federal contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, which manages a network of legal services organizations which are representing more than 26,000 unaccompanied children in their immigration cases,” KIND President Wendy Young said in a statement.
“KIND was the largest subcontractor,” Young said.
It’s unclear how KIND’s Fresno office, client base or workload will be impacted.
“While we are closing some brick-and-mortar offices, we are shifting to a flexible model that enables us to extend our geographic reach and retain as many of the cases as we can,” Young said.
After immigration rights groups sued the Trump administration, a federal judge ordered Tuesday that the government must restore the legal funding to ensure unaccompanied immigrant minors receive counsel in immigration court nationwide, according to Courthouse News Service.
Fresno Immigrant and Refugee Ministries: FIRM received a work stop order in late January from the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration ordering the organization to halt its work to help resettle over a hundred refugees while the agency reevaluated programs. Executive Director Christine Barker said that as of April 25, FIRM has still not resumed work under the contract and she’s monitoring a federal court case in Seattle (Pacito v. Trump) to see how things may change.
Arte Américas: The museum is losing a $500,000 dollar grant to support art fellows for local undergraduates of all backgrounds.
“Your grant is unfortunately no longer consistent with the agency’s priorities and no longer serves the interest of the United States and the IMLS Program,” Institute of Museum and Library Services Acting Director Keith Sonderling said in an April 8 letter.
“This loss of funding is a setback in our organization’s effort to create new opportunities for young people in the Central Valley but we are determined to continue to find ways to make the arts accessible to the people of the valley, as we have for nearly 40 years,” said Arianna Paz Chávez, executive director of the museum.
Arte had only received $83,396, or less than one-fifth of the grant, she said.
Madera First5: The nonprofit announced Monday it would pause all operations at its Family Resource Center after receiving notice Sunday that three children’s services programs it received federal funding for were included “in the grants being terminated by DOGE effective immediately.” MaderaFirst5 received federal funding through the AmeriCorps grant program to support three programs: Birth and Beyond, the Foster Youth Initiative and Preventing Abuse Through Home Visitation.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Tuesday that California, along with other states, is suing the Trump administration over DOGE’s efforts to “dismantle” AmeriCorps, the largest service corps in the nation.
Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission: Advance Peace grant pulled, Head Start under threat
The largest recipient of federal grants in Fresno County is Fresno EOC, a poverty-fighting agency.
In an email statement, interim CEO Brian Angus confirmed that on Tuesday afternoon, Fresno EOC Advance Peace Fresno received word that its $2 million, three-year grant from the Department of Justice ended “immediately with no forewarning.” The program still had $1 million left to spend under the grant.
Advance Peace is an organization dedicated to ending the cycle of retaliatory gun violence in American urban neighborhoods.
“While this sudden loss of funds has impacted the program and reduced staff, our mission remains the same to reduce gun violence in Fresno and transform lives,” Angus said.
Several Fresno EOC health, clean energy and youth programs are under threat by the Trump administration, the largest being Head Start, the early childhood learning program for income eligible families with children from 0 to 5 years old.
In a report to the Board of Commissioners, Angus said there was a lot of “stress” and “uncertainty” with the Head Start program given the recent closures of several Head Start offices. Trump is asking Congress to eliminate the Head Start program, the AP reported. Several Head Start regional offices have started to close as of early April, including the Region 9 Head Start Office which serves four states including California, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Grant funding for the EOC Community Health Clinic is also in limbo, Angus said in his report. The program is a subrecipient of Title X family planning state grant funding, which is one of 22 states whose funding has been temporarily withheld. The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association and American Civil Liberties Union announced Thursday they were suing the federal government over the $65.8 million withheld federal funds.
Environmental outreach to underserved communities
Several grants funded through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been terminated or paused.
Central California Environmental Justice Network confirmed their three-year $500,000 grant to address environmental and/or public health issues for underserved communities was terminated in a March 21 termination letter. The nonprofit had only received $61,841 of the grant.
“We had to use our reserves to fill in the gaps left by this cut in this fiscal year, and we might not be able to maintain this program in the future,” said Executive Director Nayamin Martinez.
“We hope we can still submit a final payment request for the expenses in February and March,” she said.
A spokesperson for legal advocacy nonprofit Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability also confirmed its $3 million dollar community change grant from the EPA has been paused.
A $1 million grant to the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution District for air pollution education and air purifiers was on the DOGE list for cuts in the Fresno area. The district, responsible for overseeing air quality in eight Central Valley counties, had already received and spent $742,796 before EPA terminated the project, said Jaime Holt, chief communications officer for Valley Air District.
“As the grant was written, part of the funding was for subawards for the local community groups the District partnered with for community capacity building, community engagement, and air pollution education,” Holt said. “In addition, the majority of the funding provided air purifiers to community members through the Valley Air District Clean Air Room grant program. Most of the purifier funding was spent, but a portion of the subawards was unspent because it depended on attending quarterly meetings and events throughout the remainder of the grant,” she said.
According to the DOGE site, subgrantees include Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Binational of Central California, Fresno Street Saints and Centro La Familia.
The impacted grant funding was relatively small and didn’t have a big impact on the district, Hold said. “We continue to be focused on making a positive impact on air quality in the Valley.”
This story was originally published May 1, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Fresno area faces $45M in DOGE funding cuts. We compiled a list of what’s at risk."
