Phil Tritz, Jeff Schwartz and Matt Swan, left to right, all AmeriCorps volunteers from New Orleans, work with Habitat for Humanity building homes for Hurricane Katrina victims in Rockefeller Plaza on Sept. 23, 2005, in New York City. Habitat for Humanity, along with the NBC News "Today" show and the Warner Music Group, planned to build around 20 homes with thousands of volunteers working 24 hours a day for five days, starting on Sept. 26. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Hillary Kane learned on a Saturday morning in April that within days, she would lose AmeriCorps funding for two programs that match mentors with West Philadelphia high schoolers and first-generation college students — both vulnerable groups at risk of not completing diplomas and degrees.

Kane, director of the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development, dreaded calling her AmeriCorps members to say the federal government had just terminated their positions in the nationwide service program. It embeds nearly 200,000 Americans each year in community nonprofits, schools and other organizations.

“My first thought was just a string of expletives, just that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach,” she said, recalling the April 26 morning.

The federal agency dedicated to community service and volunteerism, which works in close partnership with states, is the latest target since President Donald Trump began his second term with an aggressive campaign to dismantle programs and slash the federal workforce.

The agency abruptly cut $400 million, or 41% of its budget, and placed 85% of its staff on administrative leave last month, according to court records.

AmeriCorps had provided $960 million to fund 3,100 projects across the United States each year, according to general undated figures available on the agency’s website.

Two of Kane’s grants were abruptly canceled as part of the cuts, and as of May 20, she’ll lose nearly 30 AmeriCorps members.

“They’re literally just left stranded,” she said. “You know, I have members who are single moms with kids and suddenly don’t have insurance, or at least by the end of the month they won’t.”

Five of Kane’s members were placed in three high schools in West Philadelphia helping students with career exploration, resumes and college applications. They also provided recreation activities after school.

“We’re in under-resourced schools,” Kane said. “We’ve got schools that have one counselor for 300 students, and they’re not even primarily a college counselor, right? They’re guidance counselors who are dealing with all kinds of other issues.”

Even more short-staffing

The cuts have produced upheaval for many nonprofits.

AmeriCorps members serve various roles in organizations that support environmental conservation projects, rebuild after natural disasters, prepare adults for the GED exam, tutor children and more.

Rick Cohen, of the National Council of Nonprofits, said the announcement was a blow to community organizations that are already stretched thin.

“Groups that were already short-staffed and facing all these other headwinds are now even further short-staffed and trying to figure out how to keep things going and how to keep helping people,” said Cohen, the chief communications officer and chief operating officer for the advocacy organization.

“It’s a very difficult time for a lot of people in the nonprofit sector because you never want to have to tell somebody that’s coming to you for help that you can’t help them, and that there’s not somewhere else for them to turn,” Cohen said.

Aaron Gray, who helped run an AmeriCorps program serving at-risk youth in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County from 1997 to 2017, said “it’s a shame.”

Over the years as an assistant director, Gray placed thousands of service members with community organizations, faith-based programs and schools.

“I think this is gonna be detrimental. AmeriCorps has been around since the 90s, and it took a long time to build up to this, and it’s just being eviscerated overnight. If it survives, or if it’s brought back at some later point, it’s going to take a generation to rebuild.”

Clinton administration

Congress created AmeriCorps in 1993 when President Bill Clinton was in office. Then titled the Corporation for National and Community Service, the agency absorbed other government service programs including Volunteers in Service of America, or VISTA, created in 1964 to combat poverty, and the National Civilian Community Corps, referred to as NCCC, created in 1992 to assist natural disaster recovery.

The agency grew to include FEMA Corps in 2012 and Public Health AmeriCorps in 2022, among other specialized programs.

Service members, who are not federal employees, are provided a meager stipend of a few hundred dollars a week and receive an education award to pay for college or student loans upon completion of service, which typically lasts just under a year. As of 2024, the award was roughly $7,300.

Members, who range in age from young adults to senior citizens, can also receive health insurance while serving. While participants are not allowed to apply for unemployment, some can seek food assistance.

The administration terminated all NCCC programs in mid-April. Then, late on Friday, April 25, more than 1,000 grantees were told to pull their members from service immediately, according to court filings.

AmeriCorps did not respond to questions about the cuts.

Lawsuits filed

Two lawsuits challenging the cuts are working their way through the federal courts. Fourteen organizations, the union representing AmeriCorps staffers and three individual plaintiffs who were AmeriCorps members filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on May 5.

The nonprofits bringing the lawsuit are based in California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Virginia.

Plaintiffs say the immediate termination of grants has caused irreparable harm to nonprofits and AmeriCorps members who have now lost income, health insurance and large portions of their education awards, according to the complaint.

Plaintiff J. Doe 3 relocated to Fayetteville, North Carolina, for a second year of service, embedded with the Kingdom Community Corporation, a nonprofit that helps first-time homebuyers learn how to avoid foreclosure and that provides counseling certified by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

According to the 55-page complaint, Doe 3 began service in February and was engaging with community members on a daily basis, answering anywhere from 25 to 75 calls. Doe 3 planned to use the education award to continue higher education.

“The sudden cancellation of Doe 3’s AmeriCorps position has left them in a new city, without a job, lacking the experience, skill building, and community they signed up for,” according to the complaint.

States left reeling

States are also affected by the cuts.

AmeriCorps’ structure puts the agency in close connection with states. Each state government establishes its own commission to determine which priorities and organizations receive the annual federal dollars.

For example, in Kane’s state of Pennsylvania, more than 8,500 members were placed in various roles at 1,000 nonprofits in 2024. The state’s commission received $38.8 million in federal dollars, while local dollars supplemented the rest, reaching $54.8 million in total funding for the year, according to the latest AmeriCorps annual state-by-state reports.

On April 29, state attorneys general from nearly two dozen states and the District of Columbia sued the administration, alleging the cuts were illegal.

The 123-page complaint details how U.S. DOGE Service officials arrived at AmeriCorps offices in D.C. on April 8 and began working with the interim agency head, Jennifer Bastress Tahmasebi, to plot program cuts.

“This case presents only the latest chapter in an ongoing saga, as the Administration attempts to dismantle federal agencies without Congressional approval,” according to the court filing.

States that brought the legal challenge include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

White House response

In a statement provided to States Newsroom Thursday, the White House defended the cuts.

“AmeriCorps has failed eight consecutive audits and identified over $45 million in unaccounted for payments in 2024 alone. President Trump is restoring accountability to the entire Executive Branch,” said spokesperson Anna Kelly.

Editor’s note: D.C. Bureau Senior Reporter Ashley Murray served in AmeriCorps in 2011.

From left to right, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attend a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump released a budget request Friday that would dramatically slash some federal spending, the initial step in a monthslong process that will include heated debate on Capitol Hill as both political parties work toward a final government funding agreement.

The proposal, for the first time, details how exactly this administration wants lawmakers to restructure spending across the federal government — steep cuts to domestic appropriations, including the elimination of dozens of programs that carry a long history of bipartisan support, and a significant increase in defense funding.

Trump wants more than 60 programs to be scrapped, some with long histories of assistance to states, including Community Services Block Grants, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities within the National Institutes of Health, and the Sexual Risk Avoidance and Teen Pregnancy Prevention programs.

Congress will ultimately decide how much funding to provide to federal programs, and while Republicans hold majorities in both chambers, regular funding bills will need Democratic support to move through the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster.

White House budget director Russ Vought wrote in a letter that the request proposes shifting some funding from the federal government to states and local communities.

“Just as the Federal Government has intruded on matters best left to American families, it has intruded on matters best left to the levels of government closest to the people, who understand and respect the needs and desires of their communities far better than the Federal Government ever could,” Vought wrote.

The budget request calls on Congress to cut non-defense accounts by $163 billion to $557 billion, while keeping defense funding flat at $893 billion in the dozen annual appropriations bills.

The proposal assumes the GOP Congress passes the separate reconciliation package that is currently being written in the House, bringing defense funding up to $1.01 trillion, a 13.4% increase, and reducing domestic spending to $601 billion, a 16.6% decrease.

Many domestic cuts

Under Trump’s request many federal departments and agencies would be slated for significant spending reductions, though defense, border security and veterans would be exempt. 

The cuts include:

• Agriculture: – $5 billion, or 18.3%
• Commerce: – $1.7 billion, or 16.5%
• Education: – $12 billion, or 15.3%
• Energy: – $4.7 billion, or 9.4%
• Health and Human Services: – $33 billion, or 26.2%
• Housing and Urban Development: – $33.6 billion, or 43.6%
• Interior: – $5.1 billion, or 30.5%
• Justice: – $2.7 billion, or 7.6%
• Labor: – $4.6 billion, or 34.9%
• State: – $49.1 billion, or 83.7%
• Treasury: – $2.7 billion, or 19%

Increases include:

• Defense: + $113 billion, or 13.4% with reconciliation package
• Homeland Security: + $42.3 billion, or 64.9% with reconciliation package
• Transportation: + $1.5 billion, or 5.8%
• Veterans Affairs: + $5.4 billion, or 4.1%

The budget request also asks Congress to eliminate AmeriCorps, which operates as the Corporation for National and Community Service; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides some funding to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service; the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences; and the 400 Years of African American History Commission.

What if Congress won’t act on the cuts?

Debate over the budget proposal will take place throughout the summer months, but will come to a head in September, when Congress must pass some sort of funding bill to avoid a partial government shutdown.

A senior White House official, speaking on background on a call with reporters to discuss details of the budget request, suggested that Trump would take unilateral action to cut funding if Congress doesn’t go along with the request.

“Obviously, we have never taken impoundment off the table, because the president and myself believe that 200 years of the president and executive branch had that ability,” the official said. “But we’re working with Congress to see what they will pass. And I believe that they have an interest in passing cuts.”

The 1974 Impoundment Control Act bars the president from canceling funding approved by Congress without consulting lawmakers via a rescissions request, which the officials said the administration plans to release “soon.”

The annual appropriations process is separate from the reconciliation process that Republicans are using to pass their massive tax cuts, border security, defense funding and spending cuts package.

Huge boost for Homeland Security

The budget proposal aligns with the Trump’s administration’s plans for mass deportations of people without permanent legal status, and would provide the Department of Homeland Security with $42.3 billion, or a 64.9% increase.

The budget proposal suggests eliminating $650 million from a program that reimburses non-governmental organizations and local governments that help with resettling and aiding newly arrived migrants released from DHS custody, known as the Shelters and Services Program.

The Trump administration also seeks to eliminate the agency that handles the care and resettlement of unaccompanied minors within Health and Human Services. The budget proposal recommends getting rid of the Refugee and Unaccompanied Alien Children Programs’ $1.97 billion budget. The budget proposal argues that because of an executive order to suspend refugee resettlement services, there is no need for the programs.

A federal judge from Washington state issued a nationwide injunction, and ruled the Trump administration must continue refugee resettlement services.

The budget proposal also calls for axing programs that help newly arrived migrant children or students for whom English is not a first language.

For the Education Department, the budget proposal suggests eliminating $890 million in funding for the English Language Acquisition and $428 million for the Migrant Education and Special Programs for Migrant Students.

Key GOP senator rejects defense request

Members of Congress had mixed reactions to the budget request, with some GOP lawmakers praising its spending cuts, while others took issue with the defense budget.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., outright rejected the defense funding level, writing in a statement that relying on the reconciliation package to get military spending above $1 trillion was unacceptable. 

“OMB is not requesting a trillion-dollar budget. It is requesting a budget of $892.6 billion, which is a cut in real terms. This budget would decrease President Trump’s military options and his negotiating leverage,” Wicker wrote. “We face an Axis of Aggressors led by the Chinese Communist Party, who have already started a trade war rather than negotiate in good faith. We need a real Peace Through Strength agenda to ensure Xi Jinping does not launch a military war against us in Asia, beyond his existing military support to the Russians, the Iranians, Hamas, and the Houthis.”

The senior White House official who spoke on a call with reporters to discuss details of the budget request said that splitting the defense increase between the regular Pentagon spending bill and the reconciliation package was a more “durable” proposal.

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, wrote the panel will have “an aggressive hearing schedule to learn more about the President’s proposal and assess funding needs for the coming year.”

“This request has come to Congress late, and key details still remain outstanding,” Collins wrote. “Based on my initial review, however, I have serious objections to the proposed freeze in our defense funding given the security challenges we face and to the proposed funding cuts to – and in some cases elimination of – programs like LIHEAP, TRIO, and those that support biomedical research. 

“Ultimately, it is Congress that holds the power of the purse.”

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement she will work with others in Congress to block the domestic funding cuts from taking effect.

“Trump wants to rip away funding to safeguard Americans’ health, protect our environment, and to help rural communities and our farmers thrive. This president wants to turn our country’s back on Tribes—and let trash pile up at our national parks,” Murray wrote. “Trump is even proposing to cut investments to prevent violent crime, go after drug traffickers, and tackle the opioids and mental health crises.”

A press release from Murray’s office noted the budget request lacked details on certain programs, including Head Start.

House Speaker Mike Johnson R-La, praised the budget proposal in a statement and pledged that House GOP lawmakers are “ready to work alongside President Trump to implement a responsible budget that puts America first.”

“President Trump’s plan ensures every federal taxpayer dollar spent is used to serve the American people, not a bloated bureaucracy or partisan pet projects,” Johnson wrote.

Spending decisions coming

The House and Senate Appropriations committees are set to begin hearings with Cabinet secretaries and agency heads next week, where Trump administration officials will explain their individual funding requests and answer lawmakers’ questions.

The members on those committees will ultimately write the dozen annual appropriations bills in the months ahead, determining funding levels and policy for numerous programs, including those at the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, State and Transportation.

The House panel’s bills will skew more toward Republican funding levels and priorities, though the Senate committee has a long history of writing broadly bipartisan bills. 

The leaders of the two committees — House Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., House ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Senate Chairwoman Collins and Senate ranking member Murray — will ultimately work out a final deal later in the year alongside congressional leaders.

Differences over the full-year bills are supposed to be solved before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, but members of Congress regularly rely on a stopgap spending bill through mid-December to give themselves more time to complete negotiations.

Failure to pass some sort of government funding measure, either a stopgap bill or all 12 full-year spending bills, before the funding deadline, would lead to a partial government shutdown.

This round of appropriations bills will be the first debated during Trump’s second-term presidency and will likely bring about considerable disagreement over the unilateral actions the administration has already taken to freeze or cancel federal spending, many of which are the subject of lawsuits arguing the president doesn’t have that impoundment authority. 

Participants in Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council's Fresh Start program build a house, learning construction skills in the process. Program participants enroll in AmeriCorps and are paid an hourly wage for their work. (Photo courtesy of Western Dairyland EOC Inc.)

A coalition of 25 states, including Wisconsin, sued the Trump administration Tuesday to block the cancellation of AmeriCorps programs across the country.

The cancellation has upended plans at more than two dozen organizations in Wisconsin that have engaged AmeriCorps members in community service work, and stranded scores of participants in the midst of one-year stints in the program.

“I was completely blindsided,” Parker Kuehni told the Wisconsin Examiner on Tuesday. The University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate with a degree in global health was in his second year with AmeriCorps, working at a Madison free health clinic and preparing to start medical school in June when he learned Monday morning that the program was canceled.

Created by Congress in 1993 as the Corporation for National and Community Service, its official name, AmeriCorps has deployed community service workers across the country in the decades since. AmeriCorps members are usually recent college graduates who join the program for a year or two. They teach in schools, assist with disaster relief and take on a host of other roles. 

Wisconsin has 25 AmeriCorps programs that operate at more than 300 locations across the state, according to the office of Gov. Tony Evers. In Wisconsin, AmeriCorps operates through Serve Wisconsin, which administers its Wisconsin contracts and is housed in the Department of Administration.

On April 16, AmeriCorps placed about 75% of its employees on administrative leave with pay, the New York Times reported.

At 6:20 p.m. on Friday, April 25, Jeanne Duffy, the Serve Wisconsin executive director, received an email message that AmeriCorps grants and their recipients in Wisconsin were being terminated immediately “because it has been determined that the award no longer effectuates agency priorities.”

The form letter instructed recipients to notify all organizations and agencies with AmeriCorps-related projects. “You must immediately cease all award activities. This is a final agency action and is not administratively appealable,” the message said.

Lawsuit: Cancellation ‘usurps Congress’s power of the purse’

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Maryland charges the Trump administration’s cancellation of the program “flouts Congress’s creation of AmeriCorps and assignment of agency duties; usurps Congress’s power of the purse and thereby violates the Constitution’s separation of powers; and arbitrarily and capriciously — without any reasoned analysis — vitiates the agency’s ability to function consistent with its statutory mission and purpose.”

The suit charges that the program’s abrupt end also violates federal law, which states AmeriCorps can make “significant changes to program requirements, service delivery or policy only through public notice and comment rulemaking.”

“The attempt to dismantle AmeriCorps is part of a pattern from the Trump administration of disrespect toward those who serve others,” Attorney General Josh Kaul said in a statement. “That approach is not just shameful — it’s misguided. AmeriCorps volunteers and projects help strengthen communities. AmeriCorps should be thanked for its work, not abruptly dismantled.”

Evers’ office telegraphed Wisconsin’s plan to join the lawsuit late Tuesday morning.

“Once again, the Trump Administration is trying to cut federal funding that Congress already approved and Wisconsin is counting on to help kids, families, and communities across our state — all so they can pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” Evers said in a statement. “These latest reckless Trump and Musk cuts will hurt Wisconsin’s kids who are homeless or who need tutors for math and reading, folks who are working to overcome addiction and substance use, stop work on conservation projects, as well as all of the dedicated public servants whose livelihoods are depending on this work.”

Tutoring programs, health care clinics

AmeriCorps’ cancellation affected organizations and agencies all across the state.

In Madison, the United Way of Dane County enlisted 27 AmeriCorps members in two tutoring programs — one in math for high school students and the other in reading and literacy for elementary school children.

AmeriCorps members were placed in schools to help identify students who would benefit from tutoring, United Way officials said. They also screened and conducted background checks for more than 175 community volunteer tutors as well as serving as tutors themselves. More than 1,000 children have received tutoring in the two programs this year.

“And these kids are able to accelerate their academic success, which puts them on track for [higher] graduation rates,” said United Way CEO Renee Moe. “So, this is a really huge loss for us.”

AmeriCorps members were “really key to having successful volunteers support students in literacy,” said Emily Greene, director of Schools of Hope, the elementary program.

In the high school program, Achievement Connections, members have supported and trained other high school students as peer tutors. That helps those students “be engaged in their school in a way that they otherwise wouldn’t be and also gain some skills,” said Karl Johnson, director of Achievement Connections.

“We find that those relationships . . . are some of our strongest when it’s students helping each other out, and our [AmeriCorps] members are a pretty key part of facilitating that,” Johnson said.

The Wisconsin Association of Free and Charitable Clinics has deployed 30 AmeriCorps members throughout Wisconsin this year.

Some assist clinics, local health departments or the state Department of Health Services in administrative tasks, writing grants, collecting and analyzing data and related work, said Domonique Coffee, the association’s AmeriCorps program manager. Others staff clinics in a public health role, taking a patient’s blood pressure or other vital signs, teaching patients about managing their diabetes or hypertension or providing other direct care, she said.

The program allowed “free and charitable clinics to increase their services and capacity for services . . . to those who are underinsured or uninsured,” Coffee said.

It has also helped prepare the AmeriCorps members as future health care providers — “the future physicians and public health leaders of our next generation,” she added.

Fostering skills for careers and life

Parker Kuehni had graduated with a degree in global public health two years ago and was preparing to go to medical school. But he knew he first wanted to get more experience in directly working with patients.

He volunteered as a barbershop health screener for the Perry Family Free Clinic, which serves uninsured, low-income Madison residents. Through the clinic he connected with AmeriCorps and then shifted to helping with patient coordination, communication and scheduling, discussing care plans with patients and managing referrals to specialists.

The experience “built my empathy for people,” he said. The experiences he had “will contribute to me being an overall better future physician.”

While the typical AmeriCorps participant is a college graduate, the Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council in Eau Claire took a different approach with the program.

Since the late 1990s Western Dairyland has operated Fresh Start, an education, skills and career program for young adults ages 18 to 25. Participants often have a sparse job history and might not have completed high school.

The program engages up to 15 participants in a year-long house-building project. “We provide them with life skills and job skills and technical education, allowing them to then leave the program and either go on to school or attain full-time employment,” said Dale Karls, Western Dairyland’s communications coordinator.

The participants themselves become AmeriCorps members and earn an hourly wage on the job. Some 600 young people have gone through the program over the last three decades, building 45 homes, Karls said.

All the organizations the Wisconsin Examiner contacted Tuesday said the news of AmeriCorps’ cancellation came too recently  for them to know what they will do if the program isn’t restored.

Coffee said the Wisconsin Free and Charitable Clinics Association is trying to support its AmeriCorps members, “helping them find their footing.”

At United Way of Dane County, “We’ve spoken to our school district partners,” said Moe, the agency’s CEO. “We have reaffirmed with them that tutoring continues to be an important strategy to help with academic success. And so right now we’re trying to be creative around how to best keep really effective tutoring programs going.”

“We’re hoping that the funding will be reinstated,” said Karls of Western Dairyland. In the meantime, he added, “We have a half-constructed house in Strum, Wisconsin. We have to find a way to finish that.”

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Participants in Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council's Fresh Start program build a house, learning construction skills in the process. Program participants enroll in AmeriCorps and are paid an hourly wage for their work. (Photo courtesy of Western Dairyland EOC Inc.)

A coalition of 25 states, including Wisconsin, sued the Trump administration Tuesday to block the cancellation of AmeriCorps programs across the country.

The cancellation has upended plans at more than two dozen organizations in Wisconsin that have engaged AmeriCorps members in community service work, and stranded scores of participants in the midst of one-year stints in the program.

“I was completely blindsided,” Parker Kuehni told the Wisconsin Examiner on Tuesday. The University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate with a degree in global health was in his second year with AmeriCorps, working at a Madison free health clinic and preparing to start medical school in June when he learned Monday morning that the program was canceled.

Created by Congress in 1993 as the Corporation for National and Community Service, its official name, AmeriCorps has deployed community service workers across the country in the decades since. AmeriCorps members are usually recent college graduates who join the program for a year or two. They teach in schools, assist with disaster relief and take on a host of other roles. 

Wisconsin has 25 AmeriCorps programs that operate at more than 300 locations across the state, according to the office of Gov. Tony Evers. In Wisconsin, AmeriCorps operates through Serve Wisconsin, which administers its Wisconsin contracts and is housed in the Department of Administration.

On April 16, AmeriCorps placed about 75% of its employees on administrative leave with pay, the New York Times reported.

At 6:20 p.m. on Friday, April 25, Jeanne Duffy, the Serve Wisconsin executive director, received an email message that AmeriCorps grants and their recipients in Wisconsin were being terminated immediately “because it has been determined that the award no longer effectuates agency priorities.”

The form letter instructed recipients to notify all organizations and agencies with AmeriCorps-related projects. “You must immediately cease all award activities. This is a final agency action and is not administratively appealable,” the message said.

Lawsuit: Cancellation ‘usurps Congress’s power of the purse’

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Maryland charges the Trump administration’s cancellation of the program “flouts Congress’s creation of AmeriCorps and assignment of agency duties; usurps Congress’s power of the purse and thereby violates the Constitution’s separation of powers; and arbitrarily and capriciously — without any reasoned analysis — vitiates the agency’s ability to function consistent with its statutory mission and purpose.”

The suit charges that the program’s abrupt end also violates federal law, which states AmeriCorps can make “significant changes to program requirements, service delivery or policy only through public notice and comment rulemaking.”

“The attempt to dismantle AmeriCorps is part of a pattern from the Trump administration of disrespect toward those who serve others,” Attorney General Josh Kaul said in a statement. “That approach is not just shameful — it’s misguided. AmeriCorps volunteers and projects help strengthen communities. AmeriCorps should be thanked for its work, not abruptly dismantled.”

Evers’ office telegraphed Wisconsin’s plan to join the lawsuit late Tuesday morning.

“Once again, the Trump Administration is trying to cut federal funding that Congress already approved and Wisconsin is counting on to help kids, families, and communities across our state — all so they can pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” Evers said in a statement. “These latest reckless Trump and Musk cuts will hurt Wisconsin’s kids who are homeless or who need tutors for math and reading, folks who are working to overcome addiction and substance use, stop work on conservation projects, as well as all of the dedicated public servants whose livelihoods are depending on this work.”

Tutoring programs, health care clinics

AmeriCorps’ cancellation affected organizations and agencies all across the state.

In Madison, the United Way of Dane County enlisted 27 AmeriCorps members in two tutoring programs — one in math for high school students and the other in reading and literacy for elementary school children.

AmeriCorps members were placed in schools to help identify students who would benefit from tutoring, United Way officials said. They also screened and conducted background checks for more than 175 community volunteer tutors as well as serving as tutors themselves. More than 1,000 children have received tutoring in the two programs this year.

“And these kids are able to accelerate their academic success, which puts them on track for [higher] graduation rates,” said United Way CEO Renee Moe. “So, this is a really huge loss for us.”

AmeriCorps members were “really key to having successful volunteers support students in literacy,” said Emily Greene, director of Schools of Hope, the elementary program.

In the high school program, Achievement Connections, members have supported and trained other high school students as peer tutors. That helps those students “be engaged in their school in a way that they otherwise wouldn’t be and also gain some skills,” said Karl Johnson, director of Achievement Connections.

“We find that those relationships . . . are some of our strongest when it’s students helping each other out, and our [AmeriCorps] members are a pretty key part of facilitating that,” Johnson said.

The Wisconsin Association of Free and Charitable Clinics has deployed 30 AmeriCorps members throughout Wisconsin this year.

Some assist clinics, local health departments or the state Department of Health Services in administrative tasks, writing grants, collecting and analyzing data and related work, said Domonique Coffee, the association’s AmeriCorps program manager. Others staff clinics in a public health role, taking a patient’s blood pressure or other vital signs, teaching patients about managing their diabetes or hypertension or providing other direct care, she said.

The program allowed “free and charitable clinics to increase their services and capacity for services . . . to those who are underinsured or uninsured,” Coffee said.

It has also helped prepare the AmeriCorps members as future health care providers — “the future physicians and public health leaders of our next generation,” she added.

Fostering skills for careers and life

Parker Kuehni had graduated with a degree in global public health two years ago and was preparing to go to medical school. But he knew he first wanted to get more experience in directly working with patients.

He volunteered as a barbershop health screener for the Perry Family Free Clinic, which serves uninsured, low-income Madison residents. Through the clinic he connected with AmeriCorps and then shifted to helping with patient coordination, communication and scheduling, discussing care plans with patients and managing referrals to specialists.

The experience “built my empathy for people,” he said. The experiences he had “will contribute to me being an overall better future physician.”

While the typical AmeriCorps participant is a college graduate, the Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council in Eau Claire took a different approach with the program.

Since the late 1990s Western Dairyland has operated Fresh Start, an education, skills and career program for young adults ages 18 to 25. Participants often have a sparse job history and might not have completed high school.

The program engages up to 15 participants in a year-long house-building project. “We provide them with life skills and job skills and technical education, allowing them to then leave the program and either go on to school or attain full-time employment,” said Dale Karls, Western Dairyland’s communications coordinator.

The participants themselves become AmeriCorps members and earn an hourly wage on the job. Some 600 young people have gone through the program over the last three decades, building 45 homes, Karls said.

All the organizations the Wisconsin Examiner contacted Tuesday said the news of AmeriCorps’ cancellation came too recently  for them to know what they will do if the program isn’t restored.

Coffee said the Wisconsin Free and Charitable Clinics Association is trying to support its AmeriCorps members, “helping them find their footing.”

At United Way of Dane County, “We’ve spoken to our school district partners,” said Moe, the agency’s CEO. “We have reaffirmed with them that tutoring continues to be an important strategy to help with academic success. And so right now we’re trying to be creative around how to best keep really effective tutoring programs going.”

“We’re hoping that the funding will be reinstated,” said Karls of Western Dairyland. In the meantime, he added, “We have a half-constructed house in Strum, Wisconsin. We have to find a way to finish that.”

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