WARREN — Trumbull County commissioners are being asked to sign a letter opposing proposed cuts to Community Development Block Grant, HOME and Medicaid programs in this year’s federal budget.

Nicolas Coggins, assistant director of the Trumbull County Planning Commission, told the commissioners the budget proposal being discussed now would eliminate or greatly reduce the amount of federal CDBG and HOME funds being obtained by the county.

John Gargano, director of Trumbull County’s Department of Job and Family Services, added the proposed federal budget cuts also would lead to JFS to lose up to half of its federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamp) program.

“It would be devastating,” he said. “If the cuts were to happen, I would have to, the agency would have to, come back to you for more funding to support programs. The other thing is that some of the requirements would place a tremendous burden on the employees to effectively run the programs,” Gargano said.

“It would be unsustainable,” he said.

Coggins said the proposed federal budget would decrease CDBG funds by $3.3 billion.

If this proposed budget were to pass, Coggins said Trumbull County no longer would receive federal funding that has enabled it to help communities such as Girard and Howland, Weathersfield and Mesopotamia townships to complete community projects.

“It is also the neighborhood revitalization grants and residential public infrastructure grants that have been used to combine with some of our sewer projects to lower costs for our residents to get sewers in our unsewered areas,” he said.

“It is also critical that we partner with our county engineer’s office to replace bridges that are needed,” Coggins said.

Planning Director Julie Green on Tuesday was writing a letter for the commissioners to sign during today’s regular meeting.

Coggins recommended the commissioners contact the county’s federal delegation to inform them that passage of the federal budget in this form would be catastrophic to the area.

Another project slated to be cut by $1.3 billion is the HOME Partnership program. The city of Warren is an entitlement city and it partners with Trumbull County to implement the program.

“That is what is used for low to moderate income households to do residential rehabilitation,” Coggins noted. “The vast majority of people we assist are senior citizens on fixed income budgets. It allows bringing houses up to code, as far as electrical and plumbing, roof repairs and replacing older windows with lead paint with vinyl windows.”

Commissioner Rick Hernandez suggested they should reach out to Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno and all of the federal representatives.

“It is definitely not good to have cuts in those departments,” Hernandez said.

Commissioner Tony Bernard said they need to reach out to their federal representatives to find out exactly what the administration is thinking about.

“They are not going to simply be hearing from us,” Bernard said. “They will be hearing from everyone across the nation. Hopefully, they are just throwing it out there to see what kind of response they would get.”

Michael Keys, Warren’s Community Development director, also expressed concern about the possible elimination of these funds.

“This is not the first time there was a threat to eliminate CDBG funding,” Keys noted. “Former President George W. Bush also tried. However, people like George Voinovich understood these programs and a lot of Republican leaders pushed back on the efforts to eliminate them.”

Voinovich served as the former Cleveland mayor, Ohio governor and a U.S. Senator from Ohio.

Keys noted that with the community block grants the city has been able to help remove blight in neighborhoods, assist nonprofit organizations, help low income seniors and young families rehabilitate homes.

“Our money often is used to help others to leverage federal and state grants with matching funds,” Keys noted.

Similar to the county, Keys expects to approach Warren’s City Council to pass a letter of support opposing the elimination of these programs.

“The loss of the programs would be devastating to low-to-moderate income neighborhoods,” Keys said. “My department would disappear.”