There are a lot of people in Montgomery County, Maryland, who face economic uncertainty — and that was the case even before the federal government shutdown.
Heather Bruskin leads the county’s office on food systems resilience and told county council members at a meeting on Tuesday, “In our population of a million residents, about 35% of our households live below the self-sufficiency standard meaning they don’t have enough income to cover their basic cost of living which includes putting food on the table for their families.”
The good news, she said, is that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, program is fully funded through the month of October.
“Within that population, about 10% of our population lives below the SNAP threshold. They’re income eligible for programs like SNAP at 130% of the federal poverty level,” Bruskin said.
A lot of programs that deal with health and human services, public safety and transportation are paid for in part with federal grants, and Rafael Murphy, with the county’s Office of Grants management told the council, that could lead to uncertainty in the county’s budget process.
“So much is still up in the air,” Murphy said. “The White House continues to issue new directives, new executive orders, new policy statements on almost a daily basis.”
“There’s no evidence yet that Montgomery County is being targeted in any way. We just see broad cuts to programs that help our residents being reduced,” Murphy added.
He said his office has been diligent about compliance and meeting deadlines to prevent any losses of grant funding.
County Council member Andrew Friedson said he was “sobered” by the testimony from Bruskin and Murphy: “The reality is the impact on the social safety net is beyond alarming.”
Looking ahead, Council member Evan Glass said, “Thankfully, we do have fiscal stewardship that has afforded us to have a rainy-day fund, and we will have to have very tough conversations moving forward about how we ensure our social safety net is strong using those funds.”
Council member Gabe Albornoz said the county will continue to hedge against any further cuts.
“I want our public to know this is all hands on deck,” he said. “We’ve been through crises before — we have. The recession, COVID, now this. We’ll get through this, we just have to remain on the same page.”
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