Schools, Parks Face Uncertainty In Anne Arundel County Amid DOGE Cuts

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MD — The ongoing federal cuts hit Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman with a wave of uncertainty.

The Democrat is uncertain how many residents will be laid off. He’s uncertain how the lost taxes will affect county services. And he’s uncertain how many federal grants will be axed.

The one thing Pittman is certain of is that he just wants the Department of Government Efficiency to go away.

“DOGE is like a virus. We don’t know how it works and how long it’s going to last,” Pittman said, comparing DOGE’s unpredictability to that of the early COVID-19 pandemic.

Federal Funding Uncertainty

The county executive is developing his budget for fiscal year 2026, which starts this July 1. Pittman doesn’t know how much to expect in federal funding. Federal support isn’t going away completely, but Pittman questions what will be eliminated next.

For perspective, the county collected $33.8 million in federal grants in fiscal year 2024, the last full year on record. These grants supported nutrition programs, emergency rental assistance and public transportation improvements.

The feds are expected to provide over $93 million in funding to Anne Arundel County Public Schools for the current fiscal year. With President Donald Trump’s plans to close the Education Department, future federal investments in county schools are up in the air.

The federal government previously committed $166 million to Anne Arundel County construction projects over the next six years. Most of that money, over $113 million, is for a Meade High School renovation.

The county has already collected $104 million for Meade High, but the remaining $44 million in federal funding hasn’t yet been disbursed. The county is slated to get those funds as reimbursement after project completion, but Pittman is concerned about the status of those grants.

The federal construction grants also support the Crownsville Memorial Park, the Glen Burnie Plaza revitalization and transit-oriented development at the Odenton Train Station. The rest of the funding is earmarked for roads, parks, water improvements and the 911 call center.

The budget office is evaluating how federal grant cuts could affect these projects. Pittman also expects less income tax revenue next year because of this year’s layoffs.

“This year’s budget, we’re more concerned about federal funding to our departments, to our school system,” Pittman told Patch in an exclusive interview. “Do we have to come up with a way of backfilling that money?”

Economists are easing their projections on how much the federal government downsizing will affect the economy. Maryland has disproportionately been stung by the DOGE layoffs given its proximity to Washington. The national unemployment rate, however, remains a fairly low 4.2%.

Pittman believes Anne Arundel will remain on sure footing, as the county just received the highest possible credit ratings for a third-straight year, but he’s preparing for the worst just in case.

“It’s a lot of extra work for the budget team,” Pittman said. “We’re going with the numbers that we have, and we will change them when we know for sure.”

Worker Resources Ramping Up

The county is preparing a new round of resources for laid-off federal workers. The Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corporation hosted a career fair last month that drew 750 job seekers. Another job fair is in the works, but plans haven’t been finalized.

Pittman is recruiting federal employees for jobs in the county government. He pointed to roughly 50 police department vacancies as an opportunity for a career change. The fire department and public works teams have also ramped up recruitment. The state additionally launched a pathway for federal workers to earn teaching licenses to address educator shortages.

“These are vacant jobs to be filled. These aren’t new jobs,” Pittman said.

Starting April 10, the AAWDC will hold a five-part workshop series to help federal employees navigate their next career move. The workshops will cover managing stress during change, identifying career goals, crafting a successful resume, developing an action plan and mastering self-marketing strategies. Details are posted here.

AAWDC has a job board for federal workers, and all the Anne Arundel County Government job openings are listed here.

“We have a lot of people looking for work,” Pittman said, worrying about the small chance of a recession. “A lot of the impacts, since this has just started, we haven’t felt or been able to measure yet.”

DOGE Is ‘Incredibly Costly, Inefficient’

Pittman criticized DOGE for its breakneck speed in downsizing the federal government, one of Trump’s main priorities in his second term.

Supporters say Trump is saving taxpayer money by eliminating excess government jobs. Opponents argue that job cuts will scale back crucial services, force laid-off workers onto government-sponsored unemployment insurance and spark expensive court battles.

“That is incredibly costly,” Pittman said. “They don’t even pretend to be looking at whether this is the most cost-effective way to downsize an agency.”

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown (D) has filed several lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Brown won a court-ordered pause on mass firings of probationary workers, those who were just hired or promoted, at 20 federal agencies. However, the Supreme Court and a federal appeals court sided with Trump this week, potentially clearing way for layoffs to resume.

Brown also sued the Department of Health and Human Services for trimming $11 billion in COVID-era public health grants. Health and Human Services plans to cut about 20,000 positions, including over 2,700 eliminated last week in Maryland.

“When you don’t go through Congress, … you get sued for everything you do because it’s not being done according to the law,” Pittman said. “It’s going to be incredibly costly and inefficient.”

Budget officials estimated last month that 13,000 federal workers and contractors from Maryland had already lost their jobs. They projected that the layoffs and buyouts could soon reach 28,700 in Maryland, costing the state and local governments $262 million in revenue from tax year 2025.

Those projections, however, are liable to fluctuate as lawsuits play out.

Pittman estimated that Anne Arundel County has 60,000 federal workers.

“We don’t know how many of those are going to be ended. There’s no way to predict that,” he said.

There are few federal office buildings in the county, but nearly two-thirds of Anne Arundel’s workforce commutes out of the county.

“It’s not just the federal jobs that are in our county. It’s the ones in the region that our residents are being affected by,” Pittman said.

Pittman thinks it would be more efficient for Congress to review government spending and strategically downsize over time.

“This is not government efficiency,” Pittman said. “This is random. We don’t know ‘til we read it in the paper that they’ve been into an agency and how many jobs they’re slashing.”

Anne Arundel County has a list of resources for laid-off workers at aacounty.org/federal-employee-assistance. The state has similar information at response.maryland.gov/federalpublicservants.

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