(The Center Square) – King County’s budget leaders are beginning to monitor county departments’ federal funding allocations as uncertainty looms amid the Trump administration’s cuts to spending in attempting to downsize the federal government.
King County Chief Operating Officer Dwight Dively briefed the King County Committee of the Whole on Tuesday about money that has already been appropriated in the current or previous federal budgets, and the county’s ability to continue to access that funding.
The 2025 King County operating budget includes more than $200 million of operating funds expected from the federal government, according to Dively.
There are also hundreds of millions of dollars for current and future capital programs that the county is expecting to receive. Most of that capital funding is dedicated to King County Metro over multiple years.
Right now, Dively and other King County staff are monitoring each agency as they try to draw their federal funds, which Dively said is seeing mixed responses currently, with some successfully getting their funds, while others are stalled or the systems the county uses are gone.
King County Metro is currently waiting on $250 million in grant applications with the Federal Transit Administration. Out of the $250 million, Metro has approximately $130 million of that revenue budgeted in 2025, with some of that funding allocated for the purchases of battery-electric buses.
The Seattle & King County Public Health Department currently has about $70 million in federal funds in its 2025 budget, with the exclusion of Medicaid, which is a joint federal-state program.
Dively said that the health department has been successful for decades in receiving research and response funding from the federal department, which translates to about 100 employees who are supported by federal funding in some capacity.
The King County Department of Community and Human Services is reliant on Medicaid for the region’s behavioral health system, but also has about $100 million of non-Medicaid federal funding in its 2025 budget. About $55 million of that funding goes toward housing and community development, $25 million for developmental disabilities and early childhood education, and $10 million for behavioral health initiatives.
“So there’s a lot of money in [the King County Department of Community and Human Services] that’s at risk,” Dively said at the committee meeting.
The King County Executive Climate Office received over $50 million of federal grants for its work, which is something the county is monitoring.
Lastly, Dively mentioned the county’s emergency management department, which has roughly half of its staff supported by federal funds. According to Dively, the county still has funding owed from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for COVID-19 pandemic responses as well as for storm response dating back to 2009.
“That collectively is over $100 million that we believe we are entitled to, but we have not yet received,” Dively said.
Dively also mentioned that the county is also monitoring what might happen as the federal government develops its budget for its next fiscal year, which starts in October, but noted that would not be going into discussion during the Tuesday meeting.
After Dively’s presentation, the committee went into executive session to further discuss the federal funding risk assessment.
