More than 30 years ago, the United States created a federal agency dedicated to volunteerism and national service. Over the decades, AmeriCorps responded to national emergencies including the 9/11 terrorist attacks, natural disasters like Hurricane Helene, and the global pandemic. But in the last several years, independent auditors have found issues with how it manages its finances. Now as a result of Trump Administration cuts, most of the staff of AmeriCorps have been fired. Nearly $400 million in federal grants for programs have been canceled. U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) spoke with Nash Jones on New Mexico in Focus about what these drastic cuts mean for New Mexico.
MARTIN HEINRICH: As most people are familiar with the Peace Corps, think of a domestic program to support all kinds of activities. Really. AmeriCorps has its biggest footprint in rural communities across the country. So I did natural resources work as an AmeriCorps member back in the 1990s. If you think about groups like Rocky Mountain Youth Corps do a lot of AmeriCorps programs. We have tribal schools and tribal programs that do natural resources work, veteran services, senior dervices. It really is a broad sort of service volunteer program that is utilized usually by people either early in their career or in their retirement. Disaster relief is another example. There are a lot of AmeriCorps programs that have worked on disaster relief over the years, and they're able to do that on a service basis for a very small amount of federal funding. You know, if you think about hiring someone to work at FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] or to work at one of the public land agencies right out of the gate, you're talking about 50,000 plus dollars plus benefits. This is just a stipend and some educational awards, but the people who participate in AmeriCorps tend to go on and do a lot of other big things over the course of their career.
NEW MEXICO PBS: I do want to shift a little bit and talk about where the program is today, which is basically gutted.
HEINRICH: Yes it's in shambles. I mean, so many people were let go, fired unceremoniously, probably illegally, because this administration is violating a number of statutes, including the Impoundment Control Act, because these were AmeriCorps staff who Congress had funded and the previous president had signed those funding bills. So firing them without cause is not a legal action, but that's precisely what this administration has done
NMPBS: In terms of some of these numbers, Jennifer Bastress Tahmasebi, the interim head of AmeriCorps at the moment, said last month she put 85% of the workforce on leave. The New York Times says the agency listed in the top three of its federal layoffs tracker at 93% of the agency. Do we have a sense of the scope?
HEINRICH: Those numbers sound accurate to me based on what I have seen, and that translates to almost 100 people right out of the gate in New Mexico, and then another 100 over the course of the summer that had planned on doing AmeriCorps service projects in the summer that now are making other plans. The Trump administration
NMPBS: The Trump administration has terminated nearly $400 million in these federal grants nationwide, including nearly $2 million just here in New Mexico with six programs and one planning grant. To what degree are these kinds of cuts warranted? Considering the agency has failed audits eight years in a row now, and according to the independent auditor that conducted those, has 11 material weaknesses, which include financial reporting and grant processes and two significant deficiencies.
HEINRICH: So there are real audit issues with AmeriCorps, and some of that is endemic in really working with small, volunteer-based organizations. Most of those findings are not the kind of findings you think of that would equate to corruption. They're findings where the reporting was simply not adequate. I'm not going to minimize those like we should do a better job of making sure that that is a very seamless reporting system. But when you stack those findings up against the incredible services that AmeriCorps has done across the country and Republicans and Democrats alike have seen this agency work in their local communities on things that they really care about. There's a reason why AmeriCorps continued to get funded under the appropriations process, and it is the value of those programs. So should we work on their reporting deficiencies? 100%. Absolutely. Should you fire people who have done nothing wrong for no reason? That's the kind of chaos that we have seen this administration invoke across the board, everywhere, from the Veterans Administration to the Department of Agriculture to AmeriCorps.
NMPBS: DOGE’s efforts to cut government spending is being done at least in the name of eliminating fraud, waste and abuse. Are you saying you haven't seen any fraud, waste and abuse in AmeriCorps?
HEINRICH: No, I'm saying that there has been waste and that we can do better. However, that does not justify completely getting rid of the organization. I think their point is really to create chaos in the government.