Clare County was the winner of a major federal grant this fall to help them fight opioid abuse in the county.
But as they start to put the pieces in place for the new programs, the federal government shutdown has thrown a wrench in the system.
“The grant is over $300,000 and obviously we don’t have that money sitting aside,” says Clare County Administrator Tracy Board.
“We got an attorney and a counselor and a law-enforcement officer to work as a multi-disciplinary team,” says the county prosecutor, Michelle Ambrozaitis.
One of the new employees has already started, another is about to. But the shutdown has cut off the money to pay for them.
“The county is going to have to front the money for the employees that we hired under the grant until those money start flowing again,” says Ambrozaitis.
They’re not at the point right now where checks are going to start bouncing but it is something they need to keep an eye on. If this shut down last for months on end, it’s going to become an issue.
“The county is already cash strapped,” says Ambrozaitis, “It’s not a time right now where we have a lot of money coming in and we have a lot going out.”
This is the biggest one time federal grant the county has received. It never realized the looming shutdown could put a freeze on everything.
“We really didn’t think about it that way because we had actually been working on drawing down some of the funds prior to that happening,” says Byard.
It’s frustrating but the county won’t let it deter it from potential grants in the future, the benefits so far have always outweighed the risks.
“We’ve been working with state grants for quite a bit,” says Byard, “We do receive some federal funding but really haven’t had much of an issue in the past.”
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