MARIETTA, Ohio — Most Sunday afternoons, Glenn Newman hosts church in his living room. It’s much cozier than a typical religious space, with stuffed leather recliners and gas logs glowing in the fireplace. More a grandparent’s den than a sanctuary.

A half-dozen attendees watch a sermon from a California pastor and follow along with a study guide. Afterward, they make small talk between bites of homemade nachos and chocolate cake prepared by Newman’s next-door neighbors.

Quietly, over the past 15 years, these small group Bible-study-style gatherings have been the foundation for a movement that appears to punch above its weight in terms of political influence.

It started in 2009 when Newman invited his neighbors over for dinner. Like him, they were angered by the Great Recession of 2008 and the ensuing $800 billion American Recovery and Rescue Act.

“I realized that my grandchildren would never enjoy the lifestyle I’ve had,” Newman said.

This was the Tea Party era of U.S. politics, when a populist social movement — animated by a backlash to the George W. Bush administration’s bailout of banks deemed “too big to fail,” along with the election and policies of Barack Obama — was catapulted into the national spotlight.

Small groups like Newman’s popped up all over the country, amplified and supported by a pre-existing political advocacy infrastructure powered by Big Oil.

In southeast Ohio, Newman’s early gatherings evolved into the Marietta 9-12 group, which aligned with the Tea Party and prominent Fox News personality Glenn Beck. Throughout the 2010s, the 9-12 group hosted a range of events, including candidate forums and presentations from organizations like Turning Point USA.

Newman and the 9-12 group also unequivocally supported President Donald Trump. Several members attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. — a galvanizing moment for Newman.

“We had a bunch of people there,” Newman said (he rejects the term “insurrection”). 100 Days and the Independent confirmed that multiple people affiliated with his group attended the rally at the U.S. Capitol, although they did not enter the Capitol building.

“After January 6, I told my wife, ‘We can’t continue this meet, greet, eat, retreat, so we are going to become a citizens action coalition,’” he said.

For Newman, it was time for a renewed push for lasting political change in the country. The Mid-Ohio Valley Citizens Action Coalition, or MOVCAC, launched in June 2021 and has grown to include chapters across West Virginia and in Meigs and Washington counties in southeast Ohio.

MOVCAC’s influence on local and state politics reflects the nation’s current moment: a time when right-wing politics has fused with a version of Christianity that calls for a strict interpretation of Old Testament biblical law.

Mixing politics and religion in the Mid-Ohio Valley

MOVCAC holds its public meetings every other Monday in the sanctuary of Freedom Gate Church in Marietta, Ohio. While some attendees are also regulars at Newman’s home church, the crowd has grown beyond the confines of his living room, with dozens of people regularly attending MOVCAC’s meetings.

At the public meetings, members welcome newcomers with open arms; they laugh and cry together, and catch up on life’s goings-on. Discussions range from local school board races to presidential politics, alternative medicine, community news and homemade pickles.

They also pray together — for each other and for the nation’s spiritual redemption.

Newman runs the meetings from behind a lectern at the front of the church’s sanctuary. Freedom Gate Senior Pastor Rodney Lord is often there too, offering opening prayers and running the soundboard.

While Lord claims no “official role” in MOVCAC, he says that most members “are very encouraged that I’m a pastor who will show up to a meeting like this, or even speak out on an issue, that kind of thing.”

Lord and Newman, who have known each other for years, both say their conservative political activism is informed by their Christianity. This has manifested itself in legislative pushes, like collaborating with other faith leaders and anti-abortion groups to lobby Ohio lawmakers to eventually pass the Heartbeat Bill in 2019. It was one of the strictest abortion laws in the country before being declared unconstitutional in 2024.

That bill, Newman said, “reflects my commitment to protecting life.”

For Lord, the bill reflects dominion theology, a system of religious belief that seeks a society whose laws are based on an extremely conservative interpretation of Christianity. Lord is a “church ambassador” for Center for Christian Virtue, an Ohio-based lobbying group, which has pushed anti-LGBTQ policy in that state.

Mainline Christian leaders criticized Gov. Mike DeWine’s office for including CCV in discussions with the Governor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, citing the Southern Poverty Law Center’s 2015-16 designation of CCV as a hate group for their extreme anti-LGBTQ agenda.

“The message of his (Christ’s) kingdom throughout the New Testament was, it would influence every mountain of culture, every sphere,” said Lord.

There are seven major spheres — or “mountains” — of influence, he added, including government, family, arts and entertainment, media, education, and business. It’s a belief system, he said, that hearkens back to when the church was the “predominant influence on culture” in the U.S.

Dominionism advocates for a society transformed by a far-right version of Christianity.

And religion scholars have said that taken to its extreme, dominion theology erases the boundary between church and state.

The goal is the complete transformation of the country by taking control of its political and cultural institutions, according to Fred Clarkson, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, a Boston-based think tank.

That transformation, across the “Seven Mountains” of society, is a guiding principle of the New Apostolic Reformation, one of the fastest-growing religio-political movements in the U.S. and abroad.

“The NAR celebrates Christian nationalism, in that they believe that the United States once was, and should once again be a Christian nation,” said Clarkson.

And just as MOVCAC has expanded its influence in Ohio and West Virginia, NAR has gained powerful allies. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump tapped longtime adviser Paula White-Cain, an NAR apostle, to lead the new White House Faith Office.

Extremism experts also worry that some of the Trump administration’s early moves — including the formation of the White House Faith Office — reflect the goals of Project 2025, a 900-page blueprint for radical government change published by the Heritage Foundation in 2023. That document outlines hard-right policies, described by critics as “very clearly on a path to Christian nationalism as well as authoritarianism.”

For Freedom Gate pastor Rodney Lord, these religion-infused hard-right political successes are 15 years in the making.

“You’re seeing the zenith of Make America Great Again,” he said. “It kind of flows out of that same heart as the Tea Party, basically saying, ‘We want change.’”

Fusion, contradiction and identity in Tea Party, MAGA movements

Most of MOVCAC’s positions reflect a mix of libertarian politics and hardline conservative Christian values: small government, lower taxes, opposition to abortion and the civil rights of transgender people. The group supports the diversion of public funds to private schools through “school choice” programs and the elimination of vaccine requirements for school-age children.

Conspiracy theories about immigrants were also a frequent topic of conversation at the group’s meetings this past presidential election cycle, including false accusations that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating pets.

Pepperdine University professor Christina Littlefield said the current anti-immigrant rhetoric popular with the Christian right is an outgrowth from the Tea Party movement, when “we saw the quiet part said out loud, the racism and anti-immigrant language as a reaction to the country’s first Black president.”

Littlefield says these positions are also a fusion of small government libertarian ideas with the culture war positions of the Christian right. The Tea Party, she said, is a recent historical example.

“The Tea Party takes on the Christian right’s restriction of liberties, particularly when it comes to issues like abortion rights, but also now LGBTQ rights,” she said.

Another element of populist movements like the Tea Party and its evolution to the MAGA movement is probing the culture to see what sticks. “They are always asking, ‘What’s going to get the most public outrage to get them to vote for us?’” said Littlefield. That’s what happened with the right’s focus on transgender issues, she said.

Within MOVCAC, however, members appear to deviate from right-wing positions in some areas.

For example, the group opposes some natural gas fracking practices, including the use of injection wells to store waste underground. Newman said that he has spoken to left-leaning environmental groups and said that they share common concerns.

“I want my grandchildren to have clean water,” he said.

William Callison, a researcher at Harvard University focused on climate change politics and far-right political movements, said that in the “post-COVID era,” leftwing movements are increasingly “being grafted onto far-right projects.” Callison said that is an “increasingly common and quite effective” tactic for bringing political communities together.

Traditional left politics showing up in right-wing spaces include vaccine conspiracies, an emphasis on health and wellness, and environmentalism, as reflected by the ascendence of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. within the Trump administration, Callison said. (MOVCAC has shared RFK Jr. videos on their website.)

Political change happening ‘in God’s time.’

True to its name, MOVCAC members have engaged in “citizens action,” including political activism and outreach. And they are in it for the long haul.

One example is the group’s fight against public libraries with collections that include LGBTQ-themed books.

In 2022, MOVCAC members lobbied the Parkersburg City Council to censure the Parkersburg & Wood County Public Library over the placement of the book “Gender Queer” in a Banned Books Week display.

The following year, MOVCAC members got West Virginia lawmakers to introduce a bill that would have kept books deemed “obscene material” from being in or near state public schools. A similar bill got some traction in 2024. The measure would have made public library and public school employees vulnerable to prosecution for displaying “obscene materials” where minors could easily view them; several MOVCAC members supported it at a public hearing, but the bill ultimately failed in the state senate.

While these efforts were unsuccessful, this year’s political landscape is different. West Virginia House members have already introduced an identical library bill. And Gov. Patrick Morrisey has signaled support for another MOVCAC policy push: religious and moral exemptions for childhood vaccinations in schools.

For pastor Rodney Lord, this political momentum is happening in God’s time. “We see the Kingdom of God increasing,” he said. “Does that take 25 generations or 100 years, we don’t know.”

Working to usher in that kingdom requires a generational mindset. “We’re hard at work pouring ourselves into the things that matter. Government matters,” he said.

“I want to change this nation because I see where it’s going, and I don’t like it.”

Disclosure: Laura Harbert Allen serves on the board of the Southeast Ohio Independent News, which operates the Athens County Independent.

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This reporting is a collaboration with 100 Days in Appalachia and was made possible by grant funding from the Poynter Institute and Joyce Foundation.

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The Panhandle town of Canadian is determined to move beyond the deadly fire. And yet, they are reminded almost daily another catastrophe is possible.

Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign led to a surge in rural attention, research, and support over the last decade, but his second presidency could bring that progress to a sudden halt.

The president declared on Wednesday that he would like to see the Department of Education “closed immediately” — just hours after his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced nearly a billion dollars in education cuts.

The first cuts were reportedly aimed at the Institute of Education Sciences, the DOE’s independent research and evaluation arm, with at least 170 contracts shuttered. That could be bad news for rural education researchers who had just started to make significant progress in recent years.

The National Rural Higher Education Research Center just opened in September, after being awarded a 5-year, $10 million grant through the IES. Led by MDRC, which conducts nonpartisan research to improve the lives of low-income Americans, the center is conducting eight major studies in rural areas across 10 states and 25 colleges.

Just two weeks ago, I talked to MDRC researcher Sabrina Klein about the center, which has plans to study a number of education factors critical to Trump’s economic goals of building domestic manufacturing and filling key workforce shortages — from evaluating rural nursing programs in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming to studying dual enrollment in Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee.

So far, MDRC has heard nothing from the IES or Department of Education about possible cuts to their funding. But their work provides a glimpse at the kinds of future rural efforts that could be imperiled if federal programs disappear, as both researchers and policymakers take a wait-and-see approach.

Sydney Dickson, the longtime State Superintendent of Utah, told me Wednesday that they were particularly keeping an eye on how Perkins grants — federal funds that support career and technical education (CTE) programs — would be affected.

“We anticipate those programs will be supported, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens to both the dollars and the regulations, because those are things that really impact our rural communities.”

While Dickson said some deregulation may be necessary, what looks like superfluous funding for rural areas could actually be careful resource management. For instance, rural districts sometimes hold federal money in abatement for years. Not because they don’t need it, but because they are saving for a larger purchase.

“They can’t just take the money they get one year and buy the big piece of equipment to train their students on,” Dickson said.

Amid the administration’s war against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, it’s difficult to separate rural work from those conversations. (The Trump administration has also called for a ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at the federal level. Universities have already been chipping away at them across the country.)

“With all the pressure DEI is under now in higher education, I see the work to engage rural communities as part of that umbrella,” says Rob Vischer, president of the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minn.

The private Catholic research university has a scholarship program focused on getting new lawyers to practice in rural America. It also offers engineering bootcamps as part of a Defense Department grant to fill manufacturing gaps in Greater Minnesota. Vischer says it’s unclear what programs may be affected by the Trump administration’s actions.

“We’re just trying to get as much information as possible, and provide it to those who could be affected,” Vischer says.

While K-12 research has received significant attention over the years, research into rural higher education is still relatively nascent in academic circles.

University of Mississippi higher education professor Ty McNamee often talks about how a peer professor once told him that rural “wasn’t an identity” at a conference. While he says there is increasingly more awareness of rurality as an identity worth studying, the recent politics at the federal level is creating a new challenge.

“The really hard part is how do I convince folks who are in favor of the Department of Ed being eliminated, that these actions are going to significantly impact rural and low-income communities?” McNamee says.

“Whether people know it or not, the DOE funds a variety of programs and services that positively impact rural, low-income communities — and if you eliminate that, then you are moving to a state model, when you know that states often don’t have a lot of money.”

McNamee is one of what Klein calls “a small, mighty, crew” of new rural higher ed researchers, mostly in their thirties or forties, whose niche focus has had an outsize impact on our understanding of rural communities in recent years.

“We need more champions, on every level, developing that next generation of policymakers and researchers,” says Klein, whose own journey out of poverty is marked by mentorship and community support — from a state-funded college access program to federal grants that helped her attend Rogue Community College, Southern Oregon University and, later, UCLA.

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The post Rural Education Research at Risk Under Trump appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist, BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina, WBEZ, a public radio station serving the Chicago metropolitan region, and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.

On a recent Friday afternoon, Marie Richards sat in her living room in northern Michigan. She was having a hard time talking about her job at the U.S. Forest Service in the past tense.

“I absolutely loved my job,” she said. “I didn’t want to go.”

Richards, a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, was a tribal relations specialist at the Huron-Manistee National Forests. In mid-February, she found out she was one of the some 3,400 workers who had been targeted for layoffs — an estimated 10 percent of the workforce — as part of the Trump administration’s move to cut costs and shrink the federal government.

Richards watched as some of her colleagues were laid off on February 14 — the so-called Valentine’s Day massacre, when the Trump administration laid off thousands of probationary employees, generally hired within the past two years. She got a call from her supervisor that Saturday informing her that she had been let go, too. The letter she received cited performance issues, even though she, along with others in a similar position, had received a pay raise less than two months earlier.

“None of us deserved this,” Richards said. “We all work hard and we’re dedicated to taking care of the land.”

The U.S. Forest Service, which stewards 193 million acres of public lands from Alaska to Florida, was in trouble even before Trump took office. Chronically understaffed, the service was already under a Biden-era hiring freeze, all the while on the front lines of fighting and recovering from back-to-back climate disasters across the country.

For now, workers with the Forest Service fear this isn’t just the end of the line for their dream careers, but also a turning point for public lands and what they mean in the United States.

“It’s catastrophic,” said Anders Reynolds with the Southern Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit that litigates environmental issues in the southeastern U.S. “We are losing an entire generation of talent and passion.”

The federal agency does more than ensure that Americans have a place to hunt, hike, fish, or paddle. In the South, forest workers played a key role in helping western North Carolina and other communities recover from impacts of Hurricane Helene. In the West, they’re taking on fire risk mitigation and fighting wildfires. They’re also involved in fisheries management in places like Alaska. Across the country, agency biologists and foresters are busy working to strengthen the over 150 national forests and 20 grasslands it monitors in the face of changing climate.

Increasingly, the service is getting spread thin. 

The agency has experienced a steady decrease in staffing over the last decade and the workers that remain are often overworked and underpaid, according to Reynolds.

“That means you’re going to see those campgrounds close, the trails go unmaintained, roads closed, you’re going to feel the effects of wildfire and hurricane recovery work that’s just going to remain undone,” said Reynolds. “Communities are going to struggle.”

The Forest Service has reduced its capacity over many years, causing headaches for staff.

A report from the National Association of Forest Service Retirees showed the agency losing a little over half of staff who supported specialty ecological restoration projects — meaning a whole range of jobs, from botanists to foresters to wildlife and fisheries biologists — between 1992 and 2018. As a result, understaffed Forest Service ranger districts, hemorrhaging staff positions, have consolidated.

Former employees report they saw serious financial and staffing shortages during their time. Bryan Box, a former timber sale administrator with the Forest Service who took some time out of the agency to care for his aging mother, said he found the working conditions unsuitable for a stable, normal life. Box worked for the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin, where he said he made so little he biked around on his off days rather than wasting money on gas. While he was working, multiple national forests around him consolidated, causing a downward spiral on organizational capacity.

“We decommissioned buildings, we decommissioned the infrastructure that we had back in the ‘80s and ‘90s when we had this huge staff,” Box said. “And that put us into a position where we couldn’t hire seasonal employees anymore because we didn’t have housing for them. In rural northern Wisconsin, you know, just there’s not any housing available really. I think at one point our firefighters were all living above a bar.” 

Other foresters he knew failed to make rent and were evicted or lived itinerantly, couch-surfing, for the love of the work they did. For Box, the financial realities became untenable. So, too, had the restrictions on his work, which grew as budgets failed to grow.

Box’s program was expensive to run and required travel, often to reduce fire fuels by harvesting timber after an emergency. The program he worked for, Box said, ended up needing to reduce costs by cutting travel funds and ending overtime, making it difficult for him to do his job well. 

Much of their work involves emergency response, not only fighting fires but also picking up the pieces after conflagrations and hurricanes leave potentially thousands of acres of dead timber. 

Matthew Brossard works as the current business representative and organizer for the National Federation of Federal Employees, and was formerly the general vice president for the National Federation of Federal Employees’ Forest Service Council, which represents around 18,000 employees of the Forest Service, 6,000 of whom are probationary, meaning they have either recently been hired or moved to a new position within the agency. Typically, probation — a part of every federal hiring process — is one or two years. Probationary employees were primarily targeted in the layoffs, meaning a generation of hires is potentially interrupted. Brossard said even though the administration maintains they have not fired positions essential to public safety, there’s more to fighting fires than just the firefighters. Support and logistical personnel are essential. “Extra dispatchers, security to close off roads, food unit leaders, base camp managers, all these very important, 100 percent-needed positions. Those people are getting terminated right now,” Brossard said. 

In another instance recounted by Brossard, someone on assignment to help with long-term hurricane recovery in Louisiana was fired while he was there. The employee lived in Oregon and reported having no financial support for his trip home. 

The loss of a seasonal workforce will also be felt, Brossard added. “Without that influx of seasonal workforce, it puts a huge amount of work onto the permanent staff if they’re still employed to do all the work,” he said, meaning not only trailwork and campground maintenance, but also research and other essential work. “So the work that in the summer that should have been done by 15 or 20 people are now going to be done by five or six.”

As workers continue to struggle with the fallout of their abrupt firings, their union is jumping in to protect them, Brossard said. The NFFE-FSC has joined in multiple lawsuits to challenge the firings, including one filed February 12, provided to Grist, that aims to put a stop to the firings and reverse the ones that have already happened, on grounds that the terminations are unlawful. A decision on the lawsuit is still to come, with more potential legal action following, Brossard said. 

“You’re not reducing, you know, the stereotypical bureaucrats,” Brossard said. “You’re reducing the boots on the ground that are going out and doing work.” 

In an emailed statement to Grist, a spokesperson with the U.S. Department of Agriculture said the new agricultural secretary, Brooke Rollins, supported Trump’s directive to cut spending and inefficiencies while strengthening the department’s services. “As part of this effort, USDA has made the difficult decision to release about 2,000 probationary, non-firefighting employees from the Forest Service. To be clear, none of these individuals were operational firefighters.” 

The statement continued, “Released employees were probationary in status, many of whom were compensated by temporary IRA funding. It’s unfortunate that the Biden administration hired thousands of people with no plan in place to pay them long term. Secretary Rollins is committed to preserving essential safety positions and will ensure that critical services remain uninterrupted.” 

Back in northern Michigan, Marie Richards, the former tribal relations specialist, crunched down the snowy driveway, pointing toward the Huron-Manistee National Forests where she worked. It spans nearly 1 million acres and covers land tribal nations ceded in two treaties, which the federal government has a responsibility to keep in trust. 

Richards said workers like her are also a vital part of pushing the federal government to meet its trust responsibility to tribal nations. She helped connect the region’s federally recognized tribes with officials and staff at the forest service, set up meetings, and ensured work was being carried out responsibly. 

“It’s not just the damage to that trust relationship with the Forest Service,” said Richards, who left her job as a repatriation and historic preservation specialist for the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians to work at the agency. “It’s across the board for so many things, and tribes trying to work through that freeze, and making people understand that this isn’t DEI — that this is governmental affairs.”

Richards doesn’t know what’s next; she wants to finish her dissertation (about the impact of the lumber industry on traditional cultural landscapes and Anishinaabe bands and communities) and continue her work. 

“It still really hurts that this dream of mine is kind of shattered, and we’ll see, and find a new dream,” she said. “But ultimately, my career, my livelihood, is in tribal relations for our heritage and I will find a home somewhere.”

Lilly Knoepp contributed reporting to this story.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline US Forest Service firings decimate already understaffed agency: ‘It’s catastrophic’ on Feb 27, 2025.

A year to the day that record rains flooded Vermont in July 2023, Lyndon Town Clerk Dawn Dwyer learned the federal government had approved her community’s request for cleanup reimbursement.

Then came the anniversary shower.

“It wasn’t raining money,” Dwyer said of the July 2024 replay storm.

Lyndon thought its 2023 damage tab of $500,000 was steep. But the 2024 deluge has required the town, population 5,491, to take out a $15 million line of credit — twice the amount of its $7.4 million annual budget — to repair roads, the municipal office building, water and sewer plants and a historic covered bridge.

“We’re not really sure if that’s going to be enough,” Dwyer said of the borrowing limit.

As Vermont prepares for March Town Meeting voting, Lyndon isn’t the only flooded community with lingering pools of red ink — and a cloud of questions about whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency will uphold past promises to cover 75% to 90% of cleanup costs amid President Donald Trump’s call for cuts.

Sutton, population 913, paid off a $500,000 line of credit for 2023 damage after requesting and receiving FEMA funds, only to see 2024 downpours require a $1 million line of credit — a figure slightly higher than the town’s annual budget — as local leaders seek another round of government help.

“We are struggling financially due to flooding,” said Patricia McClure, Sutton’s town clerk and treasurer.

Moretown, with 1,753 people and a $1.9 million annual budget, reports a collective $9 million in damage from 2023 and 2024 storms. But the town so far has received only about $750,000 from FEMA.

“It’s been really rough,” said Cherilyn Brown, Moretown’s town clerk and treasurer. “We’re in a waiting game.”

Bolton, with 1,301 people and a $1.7 million annual budget, continues to await reimbursement for road damage totaling $300,000 in 2023 and $3 million in 2024.

“The 2024 flooding destroyed pretty much everything we had repaired in 2023,” said Michael Webber, Bolton’s town clerk and treasurer. “In a good year, you never knew how long FEMA would take. Who knows what’s going to happen now?”

To date, FEMA has awarded Vermont more than $100 million for 2023 flooding and $10 million for 2024 damage, its website reports. But the agency won’t provide specifics about individual municipalities “for privacy reasons” and adds only that reimbursement timelines “will vary by weeks or months” depending on the complexity of an application, according to a statement.

Trump doesn’t have the authority to end FEMA, as such a move would require congressional action. Presidential threats aside, Lyndon is one of several Vermont communities still receiving weekly check-ins from agency officials — a fact some local leaders view as a good sign.

“My assumption,” Dwyer said, “is if there wasn’t going to be any money, we wouldn’t have to do any of this paperwork.”

Others aren’t so sure. Middlesex, population 1,779, has a $1.8 million annual budget, yet about $7 million in debt from 2023 and 2024 flooding, said Town Clerk Sarah Strohmeyer Merriman, who is retiring in March after 12 years.

“All of the above is why,” Merriman said of her departure. “We’ve been reassured from FEMA time and time again we’re done, only to get an email with more questions. Now we’re worried we can’t count on that money ever coming through.”

That sentiment can be heard statewide. Cavendish, population 1,392, had approved an annual municipal budget of about $2 million when the July 2023 storm caused an equal amount of damage. A year and a half later, the town has received only about $400,000 in FEMA funds for debris cleanup and emergency spending, with reimbursement for everything else — including $82,000 in loan interest that’s eligible for federal repayment — still outstanding.

“They send back requests for more details and documentation,” said Diane McNamara, Cavendish’s town clerk and treasurer. “People think the flood is over, but for those of us who are dealing with the paperwork, it’s not.”

Barnet, population 1,663, reports about $2.7 million in 2024 damage — a figure slightly higher than its annual budget — and a resulting $1.5 million line of credit.

“We may have to borrow more,” said Benjamin Heisholt, Barnet’s town clerk and treasurer.

Nearby St Johnsbury, population 7,364, has calculated that road damage from last year’s storms almost equals its annual $3.9 million in highway spending. Still awaiting FEMA money, leaders have juggled regular incoming revenue so as to limit borrowing to $1 million from a $4 million line of credit, said Stacy Jewell, town clerk and treasurer.

Bridgewater, with 903 people and a $1.5 million annual budget, reports FEMA has reimbursed about half of some $6 million in 2023 damage. The town is set to vote March 4 on a plan to refinance existing loans “to seek a lower interest rate to save the town monies while awaiting funds,” its ballot states.

“I do feel optimistic,” Bridgewater Treasurer Melissa Spear said. “We’re beginning to see some money come in.”

Back in Lyndon, local leaders are preparing to hold Town Meeting voting in the municipal office building that flooded last summer. Dwyer notes there’s still a crack in the floor from water damage, so she’ll cordon it off “just so nobody can stumble.”

“We are small peanuts, but that’s a lot of money for a little town,” the clerk said in a community with a $15 million line of credit. “We are definitely gun-shy about this July. Heavens to Betsy if something happens again.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Flooding long past, many Vermont municipalities are still swimming in red ink.

Editor’s Note: This post is from our data newsletter, the Rural Index, headed by Sarah Melotte, the Daily Yonder’s data reporter. Subscribe to get a weekly map or graph straight to your inbox.

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In a radical move to stave off perceived bureaucratic bloat, the Trump administration has laid off thousands of federal employees, including rural workers in public land agencies.

To pay for a proposed $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, the Trump administration has fired thousands of federal workers, including 1,300 workers at the CDC in Atlanta, more than 1,000 at the Department of Veteran Affairs, and 3,400 at the Forest Service.

GOP lawmakers are also eyeing cuts to social programs, like Medicaid, that help the poor and working class.

When you picture federal employees, you might imagine bureaucrats in suits and ties in pristine DC offices. But over a quarter million federal employees are stationed in rural counties across  the country in positions like park rangers, field biologists, or grazing managers, just to name a few of the possible jobs. 

President Trump’s firings will hurt many rural communities that rely on the federal government for a large share of their economic base.

The following map shows the percent of total wages in 2023 that came from federal employment. 

(The latest county-level data we have on industry wages and employment is from 2023. These figures don’t represent recent federal layoffs. Figures are in 2023 inflation-adjusted U.S. dollars.)

In the above map, I chose to represent the share of total wages rather than the share of total employment because federal jobs pay more, on average, than private sector jobs in rural counties. Wages might therefore be a better indicator of the federal government’s economic importance.

"These higher, more stable wages would result in more local spending, supporting local businesses and communities," said Megan Lawson, Ph.D., of Headwaters Economics in an email interview with the Daily Yonder.

In 2023, wages in rural private sector jobs were $50,600 per job, on average, compared to $79,300 per job in the federal government. 

Federal jobs only make up 1.6% of the total rural workforce, but in many rural communities, they are one of the largest employers.

"Especially in the West, where many federal layoffs are affecting public land agencies, these employees will not be able to manage our natural resources and serve the public,” Lawson said. “Our gateway communities whose economies depend on natural resources or recreation on federal land will feel the ripple effects when the resources and their visitors aren't being managed well. It's unclear how quickly these effects will be felt." 

Federal wages accounted for $21 billion in nonmetropolitan, or rural, counties in 2023.

In 2023,  federal jobs made up 20% of the total workforce in rural Garfield County, Washington, a community in southeastern Washington. Garfield County lies partially within the Umatilla National Forest, which spans 1.4 million acres in southern Washington and northern Oregon.

Employment in the federal government made up 29% of wages, meanwhile, representing a total of $11 million in 2023.

In Santa Cruz County, Arizona, 12% of the workforce was employed in the federal government in 2023, while 25% of all wages came from federal jobs, representing a total of $199 million in wages.

Santa Cruz is a rural county in southern Arizona that borders Mexico. The Coronado National Forest, a 1.7 million acre piece of federal land, lies almost entirely within the county. 

We don’t know whether all of the federal jobs in Santa Cruz and Garfield counties are in the National Forest Service, however. The data doesn’t tell us. Some of those federal positions could have been remote workers for other federal agencies.

The post Federal Layoffs Will Hurt Rural Counties appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

Why Should Delaware Care?
The Prescription Opioid Settlement Distribution Commission recommends how the state spends a $250 million settlement it won from opioid manufacturers and distributors. Following reports of fraud last summer, the flow of new grants has all but stopped. 

Following a leadership shakeup on a commission responsible for how Delaware spends millions of dollars to fight opioid addiction, there are new legal questions as to whether new oversight can take hold.

Joanna Champney, the state’s top substance abuse director, was appointed co-chair of the Prescription Opioid Settlement Distribution Commission two weeks ago by Gov. Matt Meyer after months of controversy surrounding the program.

It also means staff that previously managed oversight and day-to-day administration of the fund, which were previously handled by the lieutenant governor’s office, would transfer to her office in the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health. 

Her office would be instrumental in selecting which organizations are nominated for grants, which in some cases have totaled up to $500,000. 

But a member of the commission challenged the move at a recent meeting, questioning if it’s legal for Champney’s office to take control of the embattled fund. David Humes, a member of the full 15-member commission, chairs the subcommittee that reviews the administrative compliance of the government body. 

Is legislation required?

At a Tuesday commission meeting, Humes aired concerns that sparked an hour-long debate over the influence of the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health in the grantmaking process. 

Now, the commission wants clarification from the Delaware Department of Justice as to whether it’s within the law for staff to be transferred to Champney’s office. 

He argued the commission should remain under the wing of the lieutenant governor based on a 2021 law created to manage the millions of settlement dollars flowing into the state. 

That law designated the commission as a subcommittee of the Behavioral Health Consortium, a board in the lieutenant governor’s office that approves the recommendations made by the commission. It also says the consortium “shall provide administrative support to the commission.” 

“It is my belief that legislation would be required to move the (commission) to the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health,” Humes said in an email to commission members one week after the appointment. 

In attendance at the meeting was Delaware State Solicitor Patty Davis, who leads the Department of Justice’s Civil Division and has contributed to the commission’s work. 

She quickly dismissed the idea that the staff transition was in violation of the code. 

Davis said the law didn’t include what office the commission staff would land within and since the consortium is not a state office, where the staff goes is “nebulous.”

“Our code is not prescriptive as to where they sit, I’m very comfortable with them sitting with DSAMH,” Davis said during the meeting. “I’m very comfortable with the way that this decision was made.”

She also said the process of approving the grants would remain unchanged and that all final approvals would still go through the consortium.

While Humes said he respected Davis’ opinion on the matter, he still introduced a motion to clarify whether commission staff could be moved to the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, which the committee overwhelmingly approved. 

That clarification would be presented to members of the full commission at a March 3 meeting. 

Memo shows change still waits

Spotlight Delaware also obtained a Feb. 5 memo sent by Champney and Attorney General Kathy Jennings, the commission’s other co-chair, discussing the administrative transition between the two offices. 

The memo said an update on the transition would be discussed at a commission meeting in early March. 

It also said Champney’s office was in the process of transitioning employees from the lieutenant governor’s office to the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health once it has the “authority to do so.”

A spokesperson for Champney’s office said that because the jobs haven’t been transferred to the agency yet, they can’t be filled. 

“Situating oversight of the (commission) staff within DSAMH will also allow for grantmaking personnel to consider how grant applicants’ funding requests align with existing grant awards made by the state using federal funds and how funding requests fit into the state’s continuum of care,” the memo said. 

When asked if the new leadership transition violates the law governing the commission, a spokesperson for the Delaware Department of Justice denied the claim.

They pointed to a piece of Delaware code that said the co-chairs are responsible for “guiding the administration” of the commission. 

“What’s unambiguous here is that these decisions are ultimately up to the governor and the attorney general,” the DOJ said. “The governor has chosen commission leadership that emphasizes expertise rather than station; moving the staffing from the lieutenant governor’s office to DSAMH.” 

Grants have been on pause

Delaware hasn’t awarded any new grants from the opioid fund since last July, when it approved $2 million in three-month extension grants for previous awardees. It came soon after a letter from Jennings called for a pause on grants, claiming the program was “rife with potential for fraud, waste, and abuse.”

Jennings’ letter followed a separate notice from the state’s top auditor that accused a Kent County nonprofit of securing its grant with “fraudulent documentation.” 

Members of the Behavioral Health Consortium, which approves the recommendations from the commission, greenlit the July grants after a meeting that slammed the letter. 

During that meeting, one nonprofit leader called the letter a politically motivated “witch hunt,” due to it being released so close to a heated gubernatorial primary race between then-Lt. Gov. and Commission Co-chair Bethany Hall-Long and Meyer, an allegation the DOJ denied. 

“This is not Monopoly money. These are real dollars that the DOJ fought incredibly hard to secure, and every penny belongs to the public,” a DOJ spokesperson said in an email at the time.

Since then, the state has yet to put forward any recommendations as the commission contended with mismanagement concerns and the fraud allegations. 

Champney’s first major task will be distributing $13 million in grants set aside by the consortium in July. Compared to the previous two grant phases in 2022 and 2023, this new sum would be the largest amount distributed by the commission to date. 

Get Involved
The commission is set to have its first full meeting of 2025 on March 3 at 1 p.m. at the Delaware Technical Community College Stanton Campus or on Zoom.
Find the agenda here. 

The post A new question surrounds Delaware’s opioid fund. Is new oversight legal? appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

” width=”224″ height=”168″ align=”right” hspace=”10″ alt=”The federal government employs as many as 10,000 wildland firefighters each year. With hiring freezes in place nationwide, fire season is in limbo” title=”The federal government employs as many as 10,000 wildland firefighters each year. With hiring freezes in place nationwide, fire season is in limbo” />Executive orders coming from the White House could transform a range of core issues affecting Greater Yellowstone. From Forest Service and BLM priorities to national park staffing cuts, public lands advocates must brace for a long season of conflict.

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Classes have moved to the newly completed campus on Fairview Road.

This artcle was written by BenitoLink intern Meghan Lee. Lea este artículo en español aquí.

Since opening on Jan. 27, Gavilan College’s campus in Hollister has expanded the services in the community. Administrators say that enrollment has nearly doubled, from 473 students in the 2024 spring semester to 879 in the current semester. 

Judy Rodriguez has been the instructional site director of the Hollister campus for 28 years. She said that the new, larger building accommodates a wider range of course offerings than the old site did in the Briggs building in downtown Hollister. 

“Students are so appreciative and they’re acclimating to the new campus. They’re excited about being able to take science classes here,” Rodriguez said. 

Jaime Rosales is a communications major at Gavilan, where he serves as a peer mentor. He started taking classes in Hollister in 2015, and said the difference between the old and new facilities is huge. 

“It’s a big leap forward, I’ll tell you that much. State-of-the-art stuff, huge compared to the other one, it’s a lovely site,” Rosales said. “It hasn’t been without its issues. There’s things to iron out still as far as the building goes. But everything’s been working as it should.” 

The campus now offers biology and chemistry classes, which were unavailable at the Briggs site. It also has a cafeteria, library, food pantry and community room. Rodriquez said these new resources are for the whole community, not just students. 

“Having a community room that can be used for meetings and workshops provides an opportunity to build relationships with outside entities and opens the door to welcome our community,” Rodriguez said. 

Rosales said he hopes to see the campus grow even more. 

“Growth is always good. It means people are going to school, so that’s pretty exciting,” Rosales said. 

Gavilan’s Board of Trustees is considering a short-term update for the campus using what remains of Measure X bond money: either a chain link fence around the developed property, or an outdoor athletic facility. 

Gavilan Capital Projects Director Serafin Fernandez will be consulting with his team and community members to assess the need for larger projects and secure funding for them.

The BenitoLink Internship Program is a paid, skill-building program that prepares local youth for a professional career. This program is supported by Monterey Peninsula Foundation AT&T Golf Tour, United Way, Taylor Farms and the Emma Bowen Foundation.

The post Gavilan doubles its Hollister student body for spring semester appeared first on BenitoLink.