The Trump administration canceled four federal grants last month that helped pay for community outreach and overpayment recovery at the Oregon Employment Department.
Some of the grants were due to expire in June and another, awarded in 2023, had been mostly spent. None of the canceled grants directly addressed the agency’s chronic issues with promptly paying jobless claims and fielding phone and electronic inquiries from laid-off workers.
Still, the employment department said the withdrawn funding will impact other initiatives.
“We will have fewer resources to support our ongoing work in overpayment recovery and improving the customer experience, which will always be high priorities for OED,” said David Gerstenfeld, the agency’s director.
The Trump administration has been aggressively withdrawing funding for programs aimed at serving diverse populations. At least two of the grants withdrawn last month fit that profile, working with community organizations and reducing barriers to providing jobless benefits to “historically underserved communities.” But both those grants, which had totaled $7.5 million, would have expired within weeks.
A $1.7 million grant from 2023 funded eight positions to help recover funds the employment department later determined it shouldn’t have paid.
And the department still had $370,000 to spend from a $3 million grant awarded in 2023. The remaining funds, now unavailable, had been designated to hire contractors to review the employment department’s letters to make them easier to understand.
