Here’s how the federal shutdown is affecting Santa Cruz County governments, schools and nonprofits

Santa Cruz County government agencies, schools and nonprofits said they can largely weather the immediate effects of a federal government shutdown with little disruption but warned that a longer congressional impasse could cause problems for everything from school meal programs to agricultural inspections and social services.

“In general, the rule of thumb is that we can last at least a month without interruption to benefits,” said Santa Cruz County spokesperson Jason Hoppin, noting that state backup funds can keep services running for at least 30 days. Hoppin recalled that during the most recent federal shutdown, which lasted 35 days in 2018-19, the county didn’t experience major impacts but “got pretty close.” Passport services are fee-based and not affected by appropriations, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food benefits will be good for a month.

The shutdown marks the first federal closure in nearly seven years as Congress failed to pass a temporary spending package amid a heated battle over health care provisions. Democrats are demanding concessions on the Affordable Care Act, including extensions to subsidies and reversals of Medicaid cuts, while Republicans say they won’t support these changes.

Neither side appeared ready to back down Wednesday. The Senate tried to pass two different plans to restart the government, but both failed to get enough votes. President Donald Trump has intensified the standoff by threatening to get rid of some government programs and fire federal workers if Democrats don’t concede. 

This deadlock between congressional Democrats and Republicans immediately sent hundreds of thousands of federal workers home without pay on Wednesday. While Santa Cruz County residents will still get their Social Security checks, Medicare coverage and mail delivery, many other government services have closed. Federal courts, veterans services and environmental cleanups are now on hold.

Local government agencies 

Across Santa Cruz County, city and county governments reported minimal immediate concerns. 

However, nearly half of all county revenues come either directly from the federal government or are federal dollars passed down through the state, District 1 Supervisor Manu Koenig wrote in his newsletter earlier this week. A prolonged disruption “could trigger cash flow shortages and credit risks despite mitigation through reserves,” he wrote, affecting residents who rely on programs like CalFresh or federal rental support, along with other community development and infrastructure programs in the county that rely on federal dollars. 

The shutdown won’t disrupt any of Santa Cruz’s city services, including police, fire, water, public works and libraries, communications manager Erika Smart said in an email. These operations are all funded locally, not through the federal budget, so they’ll remain open and fully staffed. City residents could still feel the effects due to closures of federal offices, Smart said, but it’s unclear what those specific impacts will be. 

While Capitola City Manager Jamie Goldstein told Lookout that the city isn’t expecting immediate impacts, he said Capitola does have some grants funded by the federal government, such as one for renovation work on the city’s community center. But he said that money is already with the state, so the city isn’t expecting that to be affected.

Goldstein said that as of Wednesday, the biggest concern would be a Federal Highway Administration grant for work on Cliff Drive, but since groundbreaking is still a few years away, the city isn’t overly worried.

The City of Watsonville, which also receives federal funding, declined to comment. 

Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency spokesperson Corinne Hyland told Lookout that the public health department also does not expect any impacts to services due to the government shutdown.

Two grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help fund ongoing repairs to the Pajaro River levee also won’t be affected by the shutdown, Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency executive director Mark Strudley told Lookout. 

K-12 education 

County Superintendent of Schools Faris Sabbah said that federal government shutdowns generally have little effect on TK-12 schools. But if a shutdown were to last for an extended period, schools would start to see an impact from delays in some funding streams.  

“Generally speaking, government shutdowns don’t have a huge direct effect, historically, on schools, because of the way our funding works and the amount of money that we get from the federal government,” he said. 

Sabbah said that every year, schools receive the majority of their federal funding by July 1 for their next school year — so they’ve already received federal dollars for, for example, their special education programs and low-income student supports for this academic year. 

If the shutdown were to last beyond October, one area where schools would need to find alternative temporary funding is their nutrition programs — which are partially funded by the federal government. School nutrition programs receive reimbursements 30 days after each service month and, currently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has enough cash to reimburse for meals served only through October. 

Sabbah said in that scenario, there would be a temporary suspension, or delay, of those reimbursements for schools. 

“So the districts would have to front the funding and get reimbursed once the shutdown ends,” he told Lookout. “All our districts have enough cash flow to front the funding.” 

The shutdown has also placed 1,485 of 1,700 U.S. Department of Education workers on furlough. As a result, the department’s Office for Civil Rights is pausing its review and investigations into civil rights complaints. 

Sabbah added that one immediate and very harmful impact of the shutdown, and other federal funding cuts, is the potential closure of federally funded child care program Head Start. Local nonprofit Encompass Community Services announced Wednesday that it might have to end the program, which serves more than 250 children and their families, on Oct. 10 if funding isn’t restored. 

“Head Start is a wonderful program that helps a lot of families,” said Sabbah. “It’s going to be very detrimental for the students who are participating in the program, as well as families who have 10 days to figure out what they’re going to be doing.”

Higher education

In an email to the Cabrillo campus community Monday about the looming shutdown, President Matt Wetstein said the college has similarly received its funding for the year for the most part and there shouldn’t be interruptions to federal financial aid or other grants from the Department of Education. 

“Employees of Cabrillo who are paid on grant dollars should not worry about the status of their funding. The College has the ability to draw down federal dollars so there should be no impact at all on continuing operations, purchasing and meeting payroll expenses,” he wrote via email. “Note, however, that it may take extended amounts of time to get questions asked from Washington employees during a shutdown period. For now, we are operating in a business as usual environment for federal financial aid and grant spending and monitoring.” 

UC Santa Cruz spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason directed inquiries to the media office at the University of California Office of the President (UCOP). 

“We are monitoring the situation closely and will provide more information as it becomes available,” UCOP communications director Stett Holbrook said in an emailed statement. “The university urges Congress and the White House to reach an agreement to reopen the government and make robust investments in UC’s federal education, research and health care programs that are critical to the university achieving our mission and to keeping California at the forefront of innovation.”

The UC statement said the impacts will depend on the length of the shutdown and guidance from the federal Office of Management and Budget and other agencies. Holbrook didn’t make anyone available for an interview. 

Agriculture and food service

With nearly half of all U.S. Department of Agriculture employees set to be furloughed, Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commissioner David Sanford said the shutdown could affect the county’s $1.6 billion agriculture industry. 

The USDA performs inspections for food grading and safety throughout the region, regularly visiting fields and coolers to make sure produce is appropriate to sell and safe to eat. They also facilitate export certification alongside the agriculture commission for products that will be shipped outside the county and the state, especially berries, the county’s most lucrative crop. 

“We export berries to Mexico, Canada and Japan. Those require certain inspections, and it’s all done through USDA,” Sanford said. “I’ve been talking to my colleagues and our state coordinator who helps us deal with that to make sure that system is going to keep running.”

So far, the online process is still operating and generating certificates, but if the shutdown carries on, Sanford worries that the complicated system might not function properly. “It’s a question mark right now,” he said. “These types of services and inspections are necessary for exports and for commodities to move around the U.S.”

Meanwhile, workers at three Verve Coffee Roasters cafés in Santa Cruz and San Francisco might see their unionization efforts delayed because of the shutdown. Workers at the Fair Avenue and Pacific Avenue locations in Santa Cruz, and the Market Street café in San Francisco, all voted to unionize Tuesday, but the federal shutdown could delay the National Labor Relations Board from officially certifying the results.

Nonprofits 

The shutdown won’t directly affect Second Harvest Food Bank — although it lost more than $1.5 million in federal support earlier this year — but CEO Erica Padilla-Chavez anticipates that loss of income for federal employees within the county or disruption to federal programs that community members rely on for support, such as Social Security, could drive people to the food bank. 

“We know that many hardworking people are just one missed paycheck away from needing help, and we want them to know that we are here for them,” said Padilla-Chavez. “Our mission has always been to serve and support our community, and that commitment remains unwavering.”

Community support in the form of volunteering and donations is more important than ever, she said. Padilla-Chavez added that Second Harvest’s food distribution hotline can be reached at 831-662-0991, and is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Tony Nuñez, marketing and communications manager at Watsonville-based Community Bridges, told Lookout the organization doesn’t expect to see immediate impacts on the federally funded programs it offers to residents, such as Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which helps provide nutrition education, breastfeeding support, healthy food through EBT cards and health care referrals for low- to moderate-income families. 

The best-case scenario, said Nuñez, is that the shutdown will last only a few days, so nonprofits like Community Bridges are able to provide uninterrupted services to the people who rely heavily on their programs. Things were less certain if the shutdown were to last more than 30 days, he said.

“I think if we see another shutdown like in 2018, then we have to start thinking about how we continue to provide service without [federal] dollars coming in to fund the service,” Nuñez said.

On average, the nonprofit has at least 5,500 clients who are enrolled in WIC services, said Nuñez. If funding to these services is placed on hold, it will greatly affect families receiving help from these services, he said. 

“Just like everybody else is right now, we’re hoping that this is resolved as quickly as possible,” Nuñez said. 

Other nonprofit organizations say they won’t see immediate impacts, but should a shutdown extend for a long period of time, it could affect the flow to other funding bodies of federal dollars, which then go toward nonprofits. 

Anna Koplos-Villanueva, acting executive director for the Harm Reduction Coalition of Santa Cruz County (HRC), said the organization isn’t expecting impacts to its service, but that the flow of money through different levels of government is how the organizations can provide low-barrier access to various types of treatment programs.

“What happens when each different disbursement comes from the top down to us is that there’s a delay,” they said. “That may seem small, but can be rather impactful. Sometimes we’re expected to be paid retroactively for the work we’re doing in the community, and those sums can be quite large.”

Koplos-Villanueva said that HRC receives public support and private donations that help fill gaps in government funding, but a long-lasting shutdown could affect some of the organization’s seasonal work, like purchasing tents, sleeping bags, socks and other quality-of-life items.

“Depending on how long it lasts, it may have trickle-down effects, but it will not result in us necessarily reducing services,” they said.

But given the line of work, Koplos-Villanueva said the staff is used to funding uncertainties: “The landscape of grant funding as a nonprofit is precarious and a bit volatile, so we like to stay on our toes.”

Leora Baumgartner, finance and nonprofit operations director for Save Our Shores, a local nonprofit dedicated to protecting the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and its surrounding habitats, said the organization relies on state and grassroots donor funding rather than federal funding. She said the organization is “extremely lucky” in that regard.

Entertainment and events

The shutdown also affected the California International Airshow, slated for this weekend in Salinas. The show will go on, organizers said on Instagram, but without key military performers. The U.S. Navy Blue Angels and Air Force F-16 Viper demonstrations have been canceled due to the shutdown, though civilian performers and the Canadian military will still participate.

Local lawmakers reacted strongly to the shutdown Tuesday, placing blame squarely on Republicans. 

“We are now in the first government shutdown in almost seven years, because Trump and congressional Republicans refuse to work with Democrats to preserve the American people’s health care,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, whose district includes parts of Santa Cruz County, wrote in a statement. She noted that her office would remain open to assist constituents with federal agency matters during the shutdown.

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