The joint meeting, which took place on Oct. 8, came only one week after the federal government shut down. The shutdown went into effect on Oct. 1 when the Senate could not pass the spending bill; many Democrats have cited healthcare funding as their primary reason for opposing the bill.
And while government services have begun to slow or cease altogether, thousands in the DMV region are being impacted. Around 30,500 federal workers lived in Prince William County in February according to a county presentation. It’s unknown how estimates have and will change due to the Trump administration’s cuts to federal agencies.
“In this region, we are all so dependent on the federal government,” Board of Supervisors Chair At-Large Deshundra Jefferson said at the meeting. “What happens in Washington[, D.C.] has an intimate impact on us here in Prince William County when about 12% of our workforce works directly for the federal government. We’re not just talking about the contracters, we’re talking specifically for the federal government.”
It’s unclear how many federal contractors live in Prince William County, but an estimate for the Northern Virginia region from February 2025 is 400,000.
David Sinclair, the county’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, said federal funding for Prince William County Schools’ programs may be affected with the shutdown. He noted that the county receives $169 million from the federal government, $92 million — or 55% — of which is directly to schools.
“On the school side, based on my reading of budgets, about $44 million is for school lunch and breakfast programs funded through the [U.S. Department of Agriculture], and about $48 million is in the school’s operating budget,” Sinclair explained. “These are obviously Title I, Title II, Title IV, that type of federal funding.”
County Supervisor Margaret Franklin, who represents the Woodbridge District, asked if Title I schools — where more than half of the schools are considered Title I — would be impacted and if breakfast an lunch programs would halt.
PWCS’ Chief Financial Offiver Shakeel Yusuf said grant applications are in flux right now because it’s being moved from the Department of Education (DOE) to the Department of Labor.
“The DOE is slightly behind in its approval. And some of it also has to do with some of the organization that’s happening, specifically with uncertainty of the role of the Department of Education now,” Yusuf explained. “We just heard that some grants are moving to the Department of Labor, so that may take some administrative time.”
Yusuf assured Franklin, the supervisors and the School Board that the school district will continue its breakfast and lunch programs.
“We will continue feeding our children,” he said. “… We should be able to sustain it in the short run. In the long run … there will be a cash flow problem, us getting reimbursed on a timely manner. But we intend to continue feeding our students.”
Franklin said in light of potential issues, the boards need to get on the same page as the next General Assembly gets underway in January.
“Both the county and the schools, it may be worth looking to marry some of these priorities to make sure the General Assembly understands how important it is to help kind of hold the weight that the federal government holds back,” she said.
