The Homer Soil and Water Conservation District is a grant-funded organization that relies on federal funding. But several of its sources are in limbo after a nationwide freeze on grants and reimbursements ordered by the Trump administration.
Kyra Wagner manages the Homer district, one of 13 in Alaska. Its authority comes from the state, but it depends on federal grants to operate.
“It might be slow, it's always been reliable. So we budget our time and our staff and everything according to reimbursements.”
Meaning, the district pays its partners for a lot of work up front that the federal government later repays the district for.
“Since we had a lot of faith in the government, we had already reimbursed those partners for the funds that they had spent, and so we had a lot of money out that didn't get reimbursed. So that kind of thing really killed us for a period of time. Wagner said.
The freeze forced the district to shut down its agriculture program and temporarily close its office in Homer. That program, in part, supported remote communities like Seldovia, Nanwalek and Port Graham with gardening and farming, and brought growers from off the road system to tour farms in Homer.
And, Wagner added, federal job cuts stalled an invasive species project in the Chugach National Forest.
“There were seven people on the Chugach National Forest team that were going to be addressing it this summer, and five of the seven got fired,” Wagner said.
While some funding has been unfrozen, Wagner said the uncertainty has forced the district to rethink how it operates. That could mean charging for services that were previously offered at little or no cost.
