Three to six months.

That is the amount of financial reserve Reality Check founder and CEO Mary Drew said on Tuesday that the Jaffrey-based drug and alcohol prevention, treatment and recovery organization would have had available if the Trump administration had gone through with plans to pause current grants. 

As stated in a Monday memo from Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the federal Office of Management and Budget, the pause was intended “to review agency programs and determine the best uses of the funding for those programs consistent with the law and the president’s priorities, but a federal judge issued a stay of the plan Tuesday, and Vaeth sent a memo Wednesday rescinding the plan.

Had the matter not been resolved and a benefactor not come along, Drew said Tuesday that Reality Check would have had to close its doors. On Wednesday, she said she was excited that the organization would be able to continue business as usual.

According to Drew, 90% of Reality Check’s $600,000 budget for drug, alcohol, and other substance abuse services comes from federal grants, supplemented by year-round fundraising and a total of $15,000 from Jaffrey, Rindge and Peterborough. Other organizations, she said, are 100% reliant on federal funds.

Had the freeze continued, Drew said Tuesday that Reality Check would have operated a shoestring budget in the hopes of not losing staff or cutting benefits. For example, Reality Check has a contracted counselor for drug and alcohol abuse, and Drew said, “It’s imperative that we’re able to keep up our services uninterrupted to the best of our ability.”

As for the possibility of further spending review in the future, Drew said Wednesday that government spending should be reviewed, “as long as it’s done in a way that holds people accountable and isn’t punitive. It just needs to be a better implementation.”

At Monadnock Developmental Services in Keene – which helps people with disabilities to live, work and learn in their communities – Executive Director Mary-Anne Wisell said Tuesday that a Workforce Recruitment and Retention Grant of more than $200,000 had been put on hold because the organization was not sure if it would have been funded.

“We have some great things going on with the grant, some great initiatives,” she said.

The other potential area of concern was direct aid to people MDS supports, mostly through Medicaid funds, but Wisell said Tuesday that based on news reports she has seen, that would not have been affected.

Wisell had said Wednesday morning that she was hoping for a quick resolution.

“I’m holding out hope that we'll hear sooner rather than later,” she said.

Legal, political reaction

In his Monday memo, Vaeth stated that the American people elected President Donald Trump “and gave him a mandate to increase the impact of every federal taxpayer dollar.” Stating that more than $3 trillion of the nearly $10 trillion spent by the federal government was financial assistance, such as jobs and loans, Vaeth asserted that federal spending should be aligned “with the will of the American people as expressed through presidential priorities.”

“Financial assistance should be dedicated to advancing administration priorities, focusing taxpayer dollars to advance a stronger and safer America, eliminating the financial burden of inflation for citizens, unleashing American energy and manufacturing, ending ‘wokeness’ and the weaponization of government, promoting efficiency in government and Making America Healthy Again,” he wrote. “The use of federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.”

Kathleen Reardon, CEO, New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits, was working with the National Council of Nonprofits, the state’s Congressional delegation and partners in state government “to understand the implications of the order and assess next steps.” The national council joined a group of organizations seeking a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia to block the OMB from pausing agency grants and loans.

Gov. Kelly Ayotte stated Tuesday that “while I support a commonsense review of federal spending to ensure it is in the taxpayers’ best interest, we cannot allow interruptions to critical services for those who depend on them.” and that her office had been in contact with the White House.

New Hampshire Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen released a statement saying that Congress, not the president, controls the purse strings, and that Congress needed to “fight back against this unconstitutional action that jeopardizes the health and wellbeing of families and communities.”

“The administration’s staggering and unprecedented decision to stop programs and services that families and small businesses rely on is a direct affront to Granite Staters and Americans across the country. By taking this extreme action, programs to help families afford food and health care, ensure affordable and reliable energy, invest in critical infrastructure, grow our small businesses, keep our veterans housed, support law enforcement, bolster our national defense and so much more will immediately stop operations,” Shaheen stated, noting that the freeze caused “confusion and panic.”

New Hampshire Democratic U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan also called the freeze illegal, and stated that law enforcement agencies told her office that it would have caused them to rescind job offers, and that an organization that helps domestic violence survivors told her office it was locked out of funding systems.

“Let's be clear: this money is not the president's to freeze or take away. It was appropriated by Congress, and it belongs to the American people. … We cannot let America become a place where our leaders hold back the people's funds by day and purge the people's watchdogs by night.”

On X, the social media platform formally known as Twitter, Democratic U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander noted Tuesday that “communities across New Hampshire rely on federal funding,” and that the impact of a freeze would could have been “disastrous for New Hampshire.”