Agriculture
The Trump administration froze $26 million in funding for Indiana farmers and cut funding for schools, food banks and their partnerships with local farmers, leaving all three groups with budget shortfalls across Indiana. From Fort Wayne, to Indianapolis, down to Evansville, Indiana schools, farmers and food banks are going without the help they need from the government to make it through the year.
Environment
The Trump administration fired National Park employees and slashed funding for conservation and forestry programs. Without staff and funding, Indiana’s national parks and forests will suffer, as will the people who rely on them.
Public Health
The Trump administration laid off an Indianapolis scientist who monitored the risk of tobacco products. Her work made sure new tobacco products were not worse for adults and did not appeal to children.
Public Safety
The Trump administration cut staff at NOAA, which Indiana Emergency Management agencies say could make it harder to warn residents about severe weather. Meteorologists and emergency management staff may lose access to the weather data and trainings from NOAA that they rely on.
March 2025: Trump Administration Cut Funding To Indianapolis Nonprofit That Helped Prevent Discriminatory Housing Practices. According to the Indianapolis Star, "Indiana's lone fair housing nonprofit may lose federal money as part of sweeping cuts ordered by the Trump administration, prompting similarly slashed organizations around the country to file a class action lawsuit. In late February the Department of Housing and Urban Development cut what remained of a roughly $139,000 grant to the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana, an Indianapolis nonprofit formed in 2011 to enforce the anti-discrimination statutes of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. A Feb. 27 letter says the grant 'no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities' of HUD under President Donald Trump's newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Elon Musk. [...] Federal dollars account for about 80% of FHCCI's $1 million annual budget, Nelson said, paying for nine full-time staff who educate tenants on Indiana's housing laws and file lawsuits against problematic landlords and lenders. 'Facing this type of devastating loss of funds, we don’t have many options,' Nelson said. 'It would mean that people are not being served who might be experiencing housing barriers, including housing discrimination.'" [Indianapolis Star, 3/17/25]
March 2025: Trump Administration Terminated USDA Program That Provided 20% Of DeMotte Farmer’s Income Who Highlighted Grant’s Role In Providing Fresh Produce To Students. According to the Indianapolis Star, "The funding provided healthy food for students at low-income schools. and helped create jobs for small producers like Dan Perkins, who owns and runs Perkins’ Good Earth Farm in DeMotte in northern Indiana. Perkins had been expecting to see those funds this year and has invested around $70,000 to build more work space and hire additional staff. The funds Perkins received from the LFS program constituted about 20% of the farm's income and provided food for nine local schools in northwest Indiana. 'This program was ‘Making America Healthy Again’ because we’re providing fresh produce that's locally grown and that means more nutrition, better tasting,' Perkins told IndyStar. 'We have a number of stories where kids are eating vegetables now because they actually taste good.' [...] 'Schools have reported increases in lunch sales because the children have come to expect flavorful, nourishing food on the menu,' Pleasant said in a recent Facebook post, decrying the cuts. 'Food waste at participating schools has significantly decreased because children enjoy the food.’” [Indianapolis Star, 3/17/25]
March 2025: Indianapolis Farm Was Forced To Stop Supplying Free Produce To Local Food Banks After Trump USDA Cuts. According to WISH, "An Indianapolis urban farm’s operators says they can no longer supply free produce to local food pantries after the U.S. Department of Agriculture made sweeping cuts to a pandemic-era food bank program. 'It’s a crisis now and it’s going to get worse,' Kitty Beckman, executive director of Helpings of Hope, said. Beckman says 135,000 people in Indianapolis do not know where their next meal will come from. To combat rising food insecurity, Helpings of Hope was created. The nonprofit is known for its sprawling community garden." [WISH, 3/14/25]
March 2025: Trump Administration Ended Program That Gave Millions Of Dollars To Indiana Food Banks To Purchase Produce From Local Farmers. According to WRTV, "We’ll keep doing what we can with the resources that we have,' Emily Bryant with Feeding Indiana’s Hungry said. The nonprofit partners with 11 food banks across Indiana’s 92 counties. [...] This week, the USDA announced it would cut two programs that help schools and food banks buy from local farmers. One of them, the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, would have funded about $500 million this year. 'Obviously, we want to support the local ag economy. It certainly cuts down on freight, because you don’t have to ship food as far and that enables us to work within our local community to create some sustainability for farmers.' The LFPA allocation for Indiana is $6.9 million, with an additional LFPA Plus allocation of about $5.9 million with a total award for Indiana of about $12.8 million. 'Currently, Indiana still has some of the first two rounds of funding that it will continue to spend so our food banks with what’s left will continue to purchase products for local farmers as long that we possibly can for the funding that exists,' Bryant said." [WRTV, 3/12/25]
February 2025: The Trump Administration Froze $26 Million In Federal Funding For Indiana Farmers. According to The Evening News and The Tribune, "Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order freezing tens of billions of dollars in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022... Geier has contracts through the USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program. The project period for the first agreement began in 2024, and the farm was approved for a second agreement that was set to take effect this year. He was supposed to receive $10,000 from the second EQIP contract, which comes from the Inflation Reduction Act funding pool. These dollars are currently unavailable due to the funding freeze, and he worries that they will be rescinded altogether... In 2024, Hoosier farmers had $26 million in EQIP projects funded through the Inflation Reduction Act, including nearly $5 million in Indiana’s 9th District, according to USDA data." [Evening News and The Tribune, 2/19/25]
March 2025: The Trump Administration Fired Five Employees At The Indiana Dunes National Park, Risking Revenue And Maintenance Programs. According to The Indianapolis Star, "So far, Maher says, four on-site staff were abruptly fired last week, though that may be just the start. They worked in maintaining the grounds and ecological habitats across the park's more than 15,000 acres, stretching along the Lake Michigan shore but also inland to forests and grasslands. There was also a fifth employee lost who worked regionally to help design projects like the Marquette Greenway, a highly anticipated paved trail running through the park - and still being built - as it links New Buffalo to Chicago... work to restore natural habitats in the Indiana Dunes could seize up or diminish this year as a result of the firings." [Indianapolis Star, 3/2/25]
March 2025: The Trump Administration Listed Three Federally Owned Buildings In Indiana For Sale Before Pulling The List Down. According to the Indiana Capital Chronicle, "Three federally owned buildings in Indiana could be at risk after President Donald Trump’s administration announced plans to sell hundreds of properties nationwide as part of federal cost-saving efforts. The General Services Administration (GSA), which handles the government’s real estate portfolio, announced Tuesday that it is considering selling off hundreds of assets deemed 'not core to government operations.'...'DOGE claims these buildings are functionally obsolete and unsuitable for use by the federal workforce. This is untrue. I serve as a senior member of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, and we publicly reviewed and approved both local facilities to ensure they are in the best condition possible to fulfill their respective agency missions,' Democratic U.S. Rep. André Carson said in a late Wednesday statement." [Indiana Capital Chronicle, 3/6/25]
April 2025: Trump Administration Cut $760,000 In Funding To Indiana Nonprofit That Supports Local History And Cultural Programs. According to WISH-TV, "Indiana Humanities could cut arts and culture programs that serve residents across the state because their federal funding has been terminated, the organization announced April 3. Indiana Humanities said the decision to eliminate the funding they receive from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) was made by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE sent emails on April 2 to 56 humanities councils nationwide, with an attached letter signed by the NEH’s acting chairman Michael McDonald, according to NPR. 'We have not identified exactly what will be affected but we will have to make some hard choices,' said Keira Amstutz, who has been president and CEO of Indiana Humanities since 2008. Indiana Humanities was awarded a grant of around $1.3 million from NEH this year, said Marisol Gouveia, director of engagement. They’ve spent about $540,000 of that so far, according to the NEH. But they will lose access to the remaining $760,000." [WISH-TV, 4/8/25]
March 2025: The Trump Administration Froze Funding To Three Indiana Conservation Programs, Forcing Them To Furlough All Their Employees. According to Indiana Ag Connection, "The Indiana Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts (IASWCD) has announced the suspension of three statewide conservation programs due to a federal funding freeze. The impacted programs—Conservation Cropping Systems Initiative (CCSI), Resilient Indiana (RITA), and Urban Soil Health (USH)—have all been paused indefinitely, with associated staff furloughed. These programs have played a crucial role in supporting farmers, ranchers, foresters, and urban growers by providing technical assistance, training, and outreach to promote sustainable agricultural practices. In 2024, CCSI reached 11,500 farmers and landowners through more than 100 events. The RITA program expanded into 44 Indiana counties and participated in 136 field training sessions." [Indiana Ag Connection, 3/5/25]
February 2025: Trump Administration Cancelled $400,000 Grant To Indianapolis Nonprofit For City’s Tree Maintenance. According to WTTV, "Our FOX59/CBS4 team is learning how local nonprofits may be being impacted by decisions made at the federal level, specifically within the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). A lot of this has to do with the way organizations are applying for federal grants. This includes local nonprofit Keep Indianapolis Beautiful which is going on 50 years of making an impact across the city. 'We were planning to do a significant investment to create a new impactful greenspace in Indianapolis,' said Jeremy Kranowitz, the president and CEO of Keep Indianapolis Beautiful. 'We are still hoping to do that but it was going to cost about $400,000 and now we are at $0.' The nonprofit just discovered they lost out on nearly half a million dollars in federal grant money. This was first announced on Kranowitz’s LinkedIn page. He said the most frustrating part is the reason why they believe they lost out on it. 'Even though the grant that we were talking about was related to urban forestry, we are fairly certain why it was canceled was because it used the word ‘biodiversity’ and used the word ‘tree equity,’' Kranowitz said." [WTTV, 2/25/25]
March 2025: Trump Administration Rescinded Roughly $40 Million In Funding To Indiana’s Health Agencies. According to Indiana Capital Chronicle, "Indiana health officials received notice this week that the federal government is clawing back funds sent to state and local health departments as part of a broader effort to offset economic turbulence during COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday is pulling back $11.4 billion nationwide, including an estimated $40 million in Indiana. Greta Sanderson, chief communications officer for the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), said the agency 'has received this notification and is working to minimize the impact to Hoosiers.' She did not answer questions seeking the amount of money or programs that would be effected." [Indiana Capital Chronicle, 3/26/25]
April 2025: Trump Administration Terminated Roughly $500,000 In Grants To Vanderburgh County Health Department To Fund Vaccines And Healthy Food For Local Community. According to the Evansville Courier & Press, "Federal budget cuts have hit the Vanderburgh County Health Department, according to the administrator for the agency. The cuts are ending an immunizations grant months ahead of schedule and have halted a program that provides fresh produce to some residents. Joe Gries, the health department administrator, said the organization will work to make adjustments to keep both areas covered. While they pivot for the rest of the immunization grant's term, through June, Gries said the department will also have to prepare to have access to a smaller amount of grant money beginning in July. The immunization grant for Vanderburgh County did not fund vaccines themselves − those are provided by the state − but it helped pay the salaries of the people administering them. It also aided the department in purchasing equipment. Gries said when the grant was halted, the health department was in the process of buying a refrigerator and freezer to keep vaccines at safe temperatures. [...] The next immunization grant will start in July, and the health department is preparing for it to be cut significantly from around $500,000 to $38,000. [...] The second grant cut was around $50,000 for the health department's ProduceRx program, which was in partnership with Purdue Extension. 'It allowed us to provide nutritious fruits, vegetables and other foods to folks that have food insecurity and are part of our program for a healthy lifestyles,' Gries said. 'We weren't quite ready for that one.' The program is featured on the Health First Indiana website as one of its success stories." [Evansville Courier & Press, 4/8/25]
February 2025: Trump Administration Laid Off Indianapolis Scientist Who Was Responsible For Monitoring Risk Of Tobacco Products. According to the Indianapolis Star, “Last year, Megan Ruxton took a pay cut from her private-sector job with a digital health technology company to join the Food and Drug Administration as a social scientist with the Center for Tobacco Products. She helped screen tobacco products before reaching the market to ensure they would not worsen the harmful effects of tobacco for adults or appeal to children. She had hoped that she and other probationary employees would be spared from the cuts because their work was in the public interest and it was funded through tobacco industry fees, not taxpayers. But last Saturday she was home in Indianapolis with her husband when the bad news hit. What angered her the most was the boilerplate language blaming poor performance. Her personnel record reviewed by USA TODAY shows she only received favorable reviews.” [Indianapolis Star, 2/28/25]
March 2025: Local Indiana Emergency Management Service Said They “Depend” On NOAA And Worried About Impact Of Trump Cuts To Agency. According to WSBT South Bend, "Efforts to narrow the federal workforce by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is now hitting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hundreds of weather forecasters on probationary status with NOAA were laid off Thursday. The St. Joseph County Emergency Management agency says they rely heavily on NOAA and the National Weather Service for updates on critical weather situations. [...] 'The National Weather Service and NOAA, they're kind of like parent organization. We depend on them a lot. We get updates. We've gone to classes where they've trained us. We get updates in critical weather situations,' said Al Kirsits, St. Joseph County Emergency Management Agency Director. Kirsits says they use the information provided by those departments to get the message out to affected areas. He adds they are a critical agency in keeping people safe. 'National Weather Service, there are like a 24/7 public safety agency, like the police department, like the fire department. They're there around the clock, manning it and keeping and being aware of what's going. They're the ones that kick in the first alerts,' said Kirsits."" [WSBT South Bend, 3/1/25]