Cut Funding Throws AmeriCorps’ Future Into Question

Drive just about anywhere on Cape Cod and you’ll see nature. Beaches, parks, trails and conservation areas abound on the peninsula, making the region one of the most popular tourist destinations in America.

What isn’t so easily seen is the work that goes into maintaining these areas and the people who do it. In many cases, it’s AmeriCorps Cape Cod staff.

For decades, the regional AmeriCorps program has assisted local towns and nonprofit agencies with projects large and small, many of them easy to overlook, saving those organizations significant money in the process.

“I can remember early on when we could not remember where all the storm drains were in town,” said Kevin Galligan of the Orleans select board. “The Corps actually helped us map and identify and label every single stormwater system that goes into our water bodies. And they did it across the Cape.”

Mike Lach, executive director of the Harwich Conservation Trust, was an advisory board member for AmeriCorps Cape Cod for 20 years. He said in 25 years, the program provided $27 million worth of volunteer work in local projects across the region. But the program’s benefits go far beyond dollars and cents, he said.

“The AmeriCorps work across the Cape has become so integrated with our ability to manage local conservation lands, and by extension local AmeriCorps members…have become members of the Cape themselves,” he said. “They contribute in countless ways to the quality of life here.”

But in light of the recent loss of the program’s federal funding, the question for local and county officials has become how to sustain a program that has long become a part of life on the Cape.

Misty Niemeyer, program manager for AmeriCorps Cape Cod, said the local program first received word last month that likeminded service entities such as the Civilian Conservation Corps had been demobilized by the Department of Government Efficiency. That was followed by a notice April 25 that 41 percent of existing AmeriCorps grants nationwide would similarly be terminated.

“Basically we’re not part of AmeriCorps,” she said. “We’re not part of the AmeriCorps system anymore.”

Niemeyer said the program’s top priority right now is to ensure that “our members and our staff are covered through the end of the service year,” which ends in August. Earlier this month, the Barnstable County Regional Board of Commissioners unanimously voted in support of covering the balance of the program’s funding for the remainder of its current service year. County Commissioner Ron Bergstrom of Chatham said that comes to about $43,000.

What happens after that, however, remains to be seen, he said.

“Unfortunately it’s right at the end of the [service year], so it’s nickels and dimes for the federal government,” he said. “They could have continued until the big finish in mid July, instead they chose to cancel it in May. What do they gain from that?”

There are nine members participating in this year’s Cape Cod AmeriCorps program in addition to six staffers, Niemeyer said. The program, which started on the Cape in 1999, welcomes members from all over the country to assist towns, nonprofits and other groups and organizations on a wide variety of local projects.

“They help us manage invasive plants to enhance wildlife habitats, they install benches along trails and maintain scenic views,” Lach said of assistance AmeriCorps has offered the Harwich Conservation Trust.

Beyond that, AmeriCorps has served as an important professional pipeline into municipal government, noted Galligan. He said many AmeriCorps members parlay their experience through the program into careers in local health and conservation offices, among other areas.

“The beauty of AmeriCorps that I think is really misunderstood and not highlighted enough is that these people come from all over the country, and they learn about the wonders of Cape Cod, particularly our environment, which is really what we’re all about,” he said. “The beauty of it is they learn so much, they end up staying here.”

“I’m probably a shining example of someone who said ‘I will never work for the government,’” said Meredith Ballinger, who recently began work as Orleans’ new health agent. “‘I have no interest in it. It doesn’t seem exciting. I want to go out and travel and work for a nonprofit and get my hands dirty.’”

Ballinger, an Ohio native, spent a year as an AmeriCorps member from 2016 to 2017 before joining the Cape staff as a program supervisor and later a program specialist. She later worked for the towns of Harwich and Wellfleet before coming to Orleans.

While she studied public health in college, she said she never thought she would make a career in local government. That is until AmeriCorps helped carve out such a path, she said.

“You can really see how much of a change you can make at a local level,” she said. “That opened my eyes up to a lot of careers I didn’t even consider, nor would I have had the experience to apply for if I didn’t have my experience with AmeriCorps.”

“We basically are a huge part of the workforce here,” Niemeyer said. “AmeriCorps members go in and work in our towns. They work in the county. They work in our national parks. They work with our nonprofits. And they keep that mindset of service to the community through what they are doing, which is so powerful.”

Now the question is whether or not the local AmeriCorps program can keep going, and in what form. Niemeyer said the loss of federal funding creates a shortfall of about $500,000, approximately half of the program’s $1 million annual budget.

With the start of the new service year fast approaching, decisions need to be made about how to make up for the missing federal dollars. Bergstrom estimated that there are already about 70 applications for projects for the new year.

“Right now, judging by the attitude of my two colleagues, AmeriCorps is a valuable program and we want it to continue in some form or another,” he said.

Niemeyer and Bergstrom said there have been discussions about rebranding the program as a county initiative, a move Niemeyer said not only would protect the program from any funding uncertainty at the federal level, but also allow the county to better shape and define the program for the region.

“[The county commissioners are] the ones saddled with that question of what do we do next,” Galligan said. “But I would say all they have to do is look at the benefits and reach out to any one of us across the towns on the Cape. I’m sure we would say ‘Please do what you can do to keep this program funded and supported.’ It is such a no-brainer.”

But Bergstrom said the question will be how much the county can commit to the program, and for how long.

“We are going to fund the program,” he said of the commissioners’ short-term plan. “We have housing for these people and can continue it until their normal year is over. After that, I don’t know. We haven’t had a chance to sit down and put the details together.”

Asked whether he thought the county could absorb the missing funding to support the program into its annual budget in the long term, Bergstrom was doubtful, saying “probably not.”

Meanwhile, all eyes are on an injunction filed by attorney generals in numerous states, including Massachusetts, seeking to overturn the decision to defund the affected AmeriCorps programs. But should those legal efforts fail, Bergstrom said the county needs to be ready to take another course of action.

“It’s not how government is supposed to work,” he said. “You’re supposed to know what you’re going into, but unfortunately we don’t.”

The volatility at the federal level makes planning for the future difficult, Niemeyer and Bergstrom said. But Ballinger said she’s hopeful the program can see its way through the uncertainty, recalling the program’s resilience through the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We kept the program going then when a lot of people thought it wasn’t going to be able to continue,” she said. “So I’m really hoping we’re able to get through the next couple months and we can welcome members in the fall.”

Email Ryan Bray at ryan@capecodchronicle.com