Critics of the Republican-penned federal budget bill that passed the U.S. House last week say proposed cuts to federal spending could mean deep cuts to safety-net programs that help some of North Carolina’s most vulnerable citizens.

They could also leave a significant hole in the state budget, which state budget analysts expect to soon be in the red. Federal funds, mainly through block grants, account for a sizable chunk of the state’s spending on social services, education and disaster recovery.

U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, D-NC, visited Barwell Road Elementary School in Raleigh on Friday to call attention to proposed reductions in federal nutrition programs.

Ross said the budget reconciliation bill that passed the US House would cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and a community eligibility program that allows schools in high-poverty areas to serve free breakfast and lunch to all students without the need to determine each student’s individual eligibility.

Barwell Road Elementary, which has nearly 700 students in southeast Raleigh, benefits from a community eligibility program. Its principal, Tekeisha Mitchell, noted that the school’s testing scores have improved considerably during the past four years. She credits that in part to making sure students have enough to eat.

“Not having these programs would mean that some of our students would not get breakfast, they would not get lunch,” Mitchell said. “And it's extremely hard to educate a child who's sleeping or a child who's hungry.”

The state legislature also appears loath to pay for the program. During a budget debate in the state House earlier this month, Democrats proposed making school meals free for all public school students in the state, at a cost of $115 million per year, and to forgive all $3 million worth of families’ outstanding school meal debt. It failed in a party-line vote. Republicans shot down the idea because Democrats proposed paying for it by lowering the amount of state money available for private school tuition vouchers.

Republican House and Senate leaders didn’t immediately respond to WRAL’s request for comment Friday. They’ve said in the past they’re waiting to see what cuts are enacted before taking any action.

“We’ll deal with that once we know what those federal issues are,” Said Rep. Donny Lambeth, R-Forsyth, during the N.C. House budget debate May 21.

It’s not just children who would be affected by federal cuts to food assistance, Ross said. Meals on Wheels, a free-meal service for seniors and people with disabilities, would see cuts, as would food assistance for veterans. Other parts of the bill would cut Medicaid funding, which pays for nursing home care for many seniors, and would repeal health insurance subsidies provided under the Affordable Care Act.

“What this reconciliation does like no other budget in the history of this country is give more tax breaks to the most affluent at the expense of the poorest Americans,” Ross said. “That increases the deficit, and it is cruel and wrong.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that if the budget backed by President Donald Trump becomes law, it will grow the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over the next decade.

Wake County Board of Education Chairman Chris Heagarty said there’s a misconception that the benefits targeted by Congress for cuts are going primarily to people who don’t work. He says the vast majority of people helped by food and health care assistance programs are working people with families.

“You're talking about cutting benefits for cafeteria workers, bus drivers, sanitation workers, first responders, EMS drivers, bailiffs — all of those people that we need to keep a functional and orderly society, to keep things going,” Heagarty said. “That’s who’s getting hurt the most with these cuts.”

State services, federal dollars

The amount of federal money flowing into the state can vary quite a bit by the year, but the state budget office estimated it’s at least $30.4 billion in the current fiscal year. The agencies that receive the lion’s share are the departments of Health and Human Services, Transportation, Environmental Quality, and Education.

Some federal funding goes directly to recipients, like SNAP enrollees or school districts. But other federal funds are provided as block grants to states which are then allocated via state budgets, a practice known as “passthrough” funding.

According to legislative staffers, the DHHS base budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year includes $23.9 billion in federal funds, about three times the roughly $8 billion expected to come from state coffers.

Legislative staff estimated that of the $18 billion dollars spent on K-12 education in North Carolina in 2023-24, federal dollars made up 17%, or $3.1 billion. Local funding amounted to 23%, or $4.2 billion, and state funding was $10.8 billion, or 60%, of the total.

Over the past decade, North Carolina lawmakers have increasingly shifted toward using federal dollars, rather than state dollars, to pay for education and health services nominally provided by the state.

Sen. Natalie Murdock, D-Durham, predicted that federal funding cuts would highlight that.

“The public will now learn we're actually overly reliant on federal funding,” Murdock told WRAL News. “So when folks think that we have these budget surpluses and we're doing so great, it's because we're actually not using state dollars to provide state services, and we should.”

Murdock said without knowing which cuts will be enacted, it’s difficult to know how much money the state will have to spend.

“Until we have a better feel for federal funding,” she said, “I don't see how we are really going to truly know what our funding looks like here in North Carolina.”